Thanks Wally, Baker, and Brant, your comments are greatly appreciated!


Brant.., very observant regarding the different colors of the footballs. In High School Football, each team can use their own Football as long as they meet the requirements, and in this case you can see that the blue team and the green team are using different footballs, that's why they are different colors.


If you look at the colors of the grass and the blue and green uniforms, you can see that they are similar in the different shots, give or take a little for the Sun peaking through the clouds.


I like #2 the best myself, and I think that it is very telling in just how hard these guys play. I also like the eyes of both players in #1, especially the defenders in green. #1 reminds me of the Heisman Trophy pose a little bit.


Notice how the Auto Focus locked in between #4 and #5, as #5 is much sharper. The red sign on the house in #5 bothers me a little bit.


Although, these shots were taken with the 70-200mm f/2.8 I feel that this focal length doesn't obliterate the background like the 300mm or 400mm does, but this zoom is definitely very flexible if you can move freely up and down the field. The 70mm range works great along the line of scrimage, plus or minus 5 yards, and then the 100mm-135mm works great at around 10-15 yards off of the line and the 200mm range works nicely from about 20-25 yards off of the line of scrimage. Other factors will also depend on if the ball is placed at the nearer or farther hash mark.


When shooting with this focal range you tend to shoot across the field more (from sideline to sideline) which causes you to get the team on the sidelines in the shot, as well as spectators in the stands. This example is visible in the third shot. When using a longer lens like a 300mm or 400mm, you can shoot farther away ( approx. 30-40yards off of the line of scrimage) and aim the lens more downfield or upfield which gives cleaner backgrounds, as opposed to shooting across the field with shorter lenses. The other nice thing with the super-telephotos are that they really compress and obliterate the background more than their shorter counterparts do.


The 70-200mm is great for getting catches in the endzone as seen in #4 and #5, when you know that they can't run any further away from you, and then just crop. I find the 300mm is sometimes hard too follow the ball in the air. Sometimes, if its third down and long yardage you could guess that it's a pass play and follow one of the wide receivers with a super-telephoto. I usually shoot with both lenses and switch accordingly.


Rich