Friday Night Lights !!

The fall sports season begins this weekend. I will have shot three events, High School Football, NAIA Men's Soccer and NAIA Football by the time I'm finished.

The opening event was the H.S. football game between the North Kansas City H.S. Hornets and the Kearney H.S. Bulldogs.

As with most high school stadium lighting and early evening starts the best light for photography was during the first half. The action moved quickly, and there was athletic ability on both sidelines. It was a good warm-up shoot, especially since I missed the jamboree last weekend.

Here are a few images from the game and the half time pageantry!

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 300mm f/4, PhotoMechanic 5.0 & ACR 7.1

Game Action

High school football in Missouri kicked off the 2011 season this past Friday night. Debbie and I went to a game between two local high schools. I shot photos for a few quarters as additional practice for the college season (next weekend ! Yay !!). Here are some images from the game:

The game was at our new District Activities Center. The lighting on the field is excellent, and probably better than most of the small college fields I will shoot at. The high speed ability of the D7000 helps as well. In the second half I went from Aperture to Manual mode. The third image was shot in M mode, ISO 1600, f/2.8, 1/500s. ACR was used to boost the exposure (less than +1 e/v), crop and noise reduction.

I switched between .NEF and .JPG formats throughout the evening. During the first half, while the light was a mix of the natural lighting and field lighting I can see very little difference between the formats. But you definitely want the extra "space" for manipulation from the .NEF files when shooting in the deeper darkness.

Football !

It still feels like summer in KC, but the first event of the high school football season was tonight.

This weekend the schools are allowed to hold a full speed scrimmage against other schools. These events are called Jamborees.

The four high schools from the local district got together for tonight's Jamboree. The format is like this: you play 12 plays on offense then 12 plays on defense. No kickoffs or punts. Offense starts at the 40 yard line and tries to work in. One pair of teams on the north end of the field and the other two on the south.

It's full speed contact for the players and preparation for the regular season that starts next weekend.

It is also a good warmup for this photographer! Especially since this is the first football with the D7000. Here are some sample images:

The D7000 will be a great sports camera. I was happy with the results from Basketball last year, and Football has the opportunity to be great as well. This camera can be very sharp, but as many others have noted it can also point out all your shortcomings like hand shake. All of these were shot with the 70-200mm VR. The focus is speedy and accurate. It is so fast that it can pick up the nearer player that crosses into the frame. But it can quickly recover as well. The 6 frames per second is nice too!

Two of these images were shot in JPEG and two in Raw. The sun was bright and the skies cloudless so the shadows were dark and sharp. Both types of files accepted some Fill Light well. The color and white balance are as came out of the camera.

We are hoping to shoot at least six football games for McPherson this fall, along with several other athletic events for the college this fall. Stay tuned !