A Tough Way to Start the Season
After last week’s loss to Hart County, Greater Atlanta Christian hosted Atlanta’s St. Pius X for the home opener. St. Pius, like Hart County, was a AAA class school. Unfortunately, it ended in another loss – this time 31-10.
Just like when you play sports, you need to follow through when you photograph sports. This means that as the action continues, and after the play you keep shooting.
The first example is quarterback Colton Chapple’s first quarter run out to the sidelines.
And when the St. Pius defender catches up…
Road Trip: GAC Opens at Hart County
Friday night was Greater Atlanta Christian School’s season opener at Hart County, and it was the start of my third year covering GAC’s football program for Martin Photography.
This fall I’ll be working some different themes to my football shooting, and we have had some new photographic opportunities granted to us: shooting pre-game and halftime in the locker room. I’ll be trying to work some of the team’s goals and themes into my shooting in this situation.
Friday night marked the first game for new head coach Ken Robinson. Coach Robinson had previously assisted Coach Chupp so he was a familiar figure to the players but in a new role.
The Spartans took the field with some daylight still fading from the west end zone.
The first quarter saw no scoring, but a lot of action behind at and behind the line of scrimmage.
Lacrosse Senior Night
Lacrosse Senior Night turned out to be almost a non-event, as the combined girls and boys teams had one senior. However, both teams turned out to be dominant against the visiting Gainesville squads (who have a similar level of experience to GAC’s squads).
Lacrosse quickly became a favorite sport to shoot over the past two seasons. The action is constant, and the sport begs to be shot tight.
Rivalry Week: GAC vs. Buford and Flash Football Photography
Greater Atlanta Christian and Buford have been cultivating a rivalry since GAC started playing football in the 90′s. Buford has proven to be a perennial football power in Georgia’s AA division.
This year’s game proved to be anything but a close game. Buford pulled ahead in the first half and didn’t slow down until the game ended.
The run on happens every week, so after week 2 you start looking for other views. I tried for some framing with the cheerleaders pom poms here.
Buford’s lights were average or slightly better than average for a high school stadium. However, it still leaves the need to use a flash to help stop the action.
How does a flash cause the action to freeze? If the flash does not fire, the camera is set to greatly under-expose the scene or have a frame that is largely black. However, the firing of the flash is an event with a very short duration – less than 1/1000 of a second at full power.
However – the effective range for a flash to be able to fully light a scene is fairly short. When combined with the range you usually use a 300mm lens – it is difficult to adequately light the action. Thus even under the best scenario, you can have some minor blurring of fast moving parts (like feet or hands).
Another compromise to consider is using the higher power of the flash (greater range) versus the trade off being able to fire more than one photograph at a time. A full power pop on a Canon 550EX will cause the flash to recycle for about one second (manual mode). I’ve usually used 1/4 power in manual mode on the 550EX paired with the 300mm/f2.8 lens.
A common question asked is “Why not use the High Speed Sync feature of my flash?” High Speed Sync allows the flash to fire with the camera at shutter speeds faster than the sync speed of the camera (on most Canon bodies it is 1/250 second). High speed sync fires the flash multiple times at short durations for each shutter burst. It is really intended for daytime fill-flash usage and not as a primary light source at night.
Finally, why use manual flash when the Canon 550EX includes a through-the-lens (TTL) mode that meters the scene and sets a “correct” exposure level? Just like using the camera in Aperture priority or shutter priority at night in a stadium with dark backgrounds, the camera is fooled easily and will usually use too much power on the flash. TTL mode also uses a pre-flash to help determine correct flash level, and will usually require a longer recycle time.
