# Sports is hard! Football Pics. Also Tamron no good for sports.



## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

Whew what a tough night. I don't really watch football so I had a hard time know where the action was going to be plus it was so dark that I couldn't really freeze that action super well. So these are all high ISO.

The ball throwing guy



K52A9226 by runnah555, on Flickr

So much noise!



K52A8977 by runnah555, on Flickr

Group Hug



K52A9296 by runnah555, on Flickr

Talk to the hand



K52A9522 copy by runnah555, on Flickr

This guy was fast.



K52A9355 by runnah555, on Flickr

He was pretty fast too



K52A7391 by runnah555, on Flickr

Hangers on



K52A9041 by runnah555, on Flickr




K52A8895 copy by runnah555, on Flickr


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## Warhorse (Oct 6, 2014)

"ball throwing guy"


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## sm4him (Oct 6, 2014)

Actually, I think you got some really nice shots there, runnah, especially considering you don't watch football. It DOES help, a LOT, to know the game you're shooting, so you know where to expect the action to be.  But you did really well with some of these.

Noisy? Yeah, but you can only do so much with some of the lighting on those fields. I especially like 2,4 and 6.


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## astroNikon (Oct 6, 2014)

Warhorse said:


> "ball throwing guy"


exactly my thoughts when I saw that !!  lol


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## sm4him (Oct 6, 2014)

runnah said:


> Whew what a tough night. I don't really watch football so I had a hard time know where the action was going to be plus it was so dark that I couldn't really freeze that action super well. So these are all high ISO.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



And it looks like the defensive player is JUST about to get a horse-collar tackle. Did he manage to get the kid down without that hand sliding under the pads and getting a penalty? Wait, you don't know--because you didn't care, as long as you got a pretty picture.


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## tirediron (Oct 6, 2014)

They look like a decent set to me... of course all I know about feetsball is that it's the one with the brown, pointy ball.


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## JacaRanda (Oct 6, 2014)

Someone is engaged in some tomfoolery.  Nice shots Runnah man.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Gary A. (Oct 6, 2014)

Not knowing the game makes it a lot harder to shoot. You just gotta watch what the other photogs are doing can make shooting easier. "Talk to the hand" is your best action shot and is actually quite a good shot. I tend to rate stuff on 'is it worthy of being published' and Talk to the hand would make that cut.

Gary


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## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

Thanks.

I hope to do another game during the day. I had so many well framed action shots that had way too much motion blur. I was lucky to get above 1/250 for the whole thing. I had the ISO pegged as well.


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## Gary A. (Oct 6, 2014)

runnah said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I hope to do another game during the day. I had so many well framed action shots that had way too much motion blur. I was lucky to get above 1/250 for the whole thing. I had the ISO pegged as well.


Welcome to the world of high school night games. Remember to shoot wide open for the day game, otherwise you'll get a lot of distracting background detail.

Gary


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## Derrel (Oct 6, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> runnah said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks.
> ...



Gary, dude--f/5.6 and f/6.3 ARE wide-open on that Tanmzooka!!! lol. I thought runnah did  a pretty good job, considering that he was stuck in that f/5.6~f/6.3 zone...lucky he was able to get decent images at ISO 8,000 and ISO 10,000. I looked at some of the EXIF info...slow shutter speeds like 1/320 and 1/250, which is not that deleterious **if** the action is coming right toward the camera position, but it otherwise pretty much a pan-and-pray deal. The 5D-III delivered pretty clean shots at High ISO and it looks like decent focusing with a pokey lens at night under the lights.

Runnah, I think you managed to get some good frames, even though the lens used was working against you in most ways.


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## Stradawhovious (Oct 6, 2014)

tirediron said:


> ... of course all I know about feetsball is that it's the one with the brown, pointy ball.


 
Unless you're employing the metric system as a matter of course, then football uses a round ball and is actually played with the FEET... which is exactly EVERYWHERE except the US.  (and probably some parts of Canadia.)

[sarcasm] How can the rest of the world be so backwards?  [/sarcasm]



And to the OP, Nice pics under the circumstances... You're right though.  That lens is crap.  You should send it to me and I will deal with it accordingly.  I will PM you my address for shipping purposes.  If it's for a Canon, you will need to send a FX body along with it... I'm a Nikon guy.


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## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

Derrel said:


> Gary, dude--f/5.6 and f/6.3 ARE wide-open on that Tanmzooka!!! lol. I thought runnah did  a pretty good job, considering that he was stuck in that f/5.6~f/6.3 zone...lucky he was able to get decent images at ISO 8,000 and ISO 10,000. I looked at some of the EXIF info...slow shutter speeds like 1/320 and 1/250, which is not that deleterious **if** the action is coming right toward the camera position, but it otherwise pretty much a pan-and-pray deal. The 5D-III delivered pretty clean shots at High ISO and it looks like decent focusing with a pokey lens at night under the lights.
> 
> Runnah, I think you managed to get some good frames, even though the lens used was working against you in most ways.




Thanks. It was a struggle. Certainly learned the limits of the lens and camera. I think the lens is great when it have enough light to work properly but there is a reason it's cheap and the big canon lenses push $10k.


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## imagemaker46 (Oct 6, 2014)

Good job on these, the only thing I would suggest is a tighter crop on some of them.  There is always so much going on during every football game, and it doesn't always translate into great images, nothing wrong with the content in this series though.


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## lambertpix (Oct 6, 2014)

runnah said:


> Thanks. It was a struggle. Certainly learned the limits of the lens and camera. I think the lens is great when it have enough light to work properly but there is a reason it's cheap and the big canon lenses push $10k.



One of the reasons this lens is so remarkable in the first place is that you can get a shot that's good enough to imagine how much better a $10k lens might have been.

Looks like a pretty solid effort to me, considering you're not a big fan of the game.


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## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

imagemaker46 said:


> Good job on these, the only thing I would suggest is a tighter crop on some of them.  There is always so much going on during every football game, and it doesn't always translate into great images, nothing wrong with the content in this series though.



This is high praise indeed! I did think halfway though that I now appreciate how hard it is to get the shots that you produce.


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## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

lambertpix said:


> One of the reasons this lens is so remarkable in the first place is that you can get a shot that's good enough to imagine how much better a $10k lens might have been.



Haha true. It has shown me the world of huge focal lengths and I want more! But I can either get a new lens or a nice second hand car...


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## Gary A. (Oct 6, 2014)

Derrel said:


> Gary A. said:
> 
> 
> > runnah said:
> ...


Okay, didn't realize the limitations of the lens. lol Rent, borrow or steal something faster. You're shooting Canon ... if you're in the area I'll fix you up with a few f/2.8 puppies. Did you handhold the camera? (You'll want those f/2.8's even for the day game."

Gary


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## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

Gary A. said:


> Okay, didn't realize the limitations of the lens. lol Rent, borrow or steal something faster. You're shooting Canon ... if you're in the area I'll fix you up with a few f/2.8 puppies. Did you handhold the camera? (You'll want those f/2.8's even for the day game."
> 
> Gary



Lol, thanks for the concern but this was a one off type of thing. I did it just to see how things would perform. I did use a monopod.


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## Gary A. (Oct 6, 2014)

The monopod helps. I shot a soccer match, on a hot day, handholding a Bigma. By the end of the game I was very selective when I brought it up to my eye.


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## imagemaker46 (Oct 6, 2014)

What lens were you using?


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## imagemaker46 (Oct 6, 2014)

As for sports being hard, it's like anything else if you shoot enough it does become easier. Understanding the sports you are going to shoot makes a huge difference as well.  The other thing is the flow of the game, boring games are more challenging than exciting games,  good games help you get mentally into shooting.


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## BillM (Oct 6, 2014)

You did a great job and you did it without knowing the game, plus you did it with a lens that is afraid of the dark !!!!!

Just another example that the button pusher is just as, if not more important than the button.


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## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

I was using the new tamron. I did switch to my f/4 70-200 but it was too short and still pretty dark. A 2.8 would have been perfect.

Yeah I have a hard time following the plays. They did a bunch of fake hand offs and the tricked me more than it did the defense.

The game was an absolute blow out. They were playing 3rd string guys in the second half and still scoring.


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## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

BillM said:


> You did a great job and you did it without knowing the game, plus you did it with a lens that is afraid of the dark !!!!!
> 
> Just another example that the button pusher is just as, if not more important than the button.



My genius knows no bounds


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## MSnowy (Oct 6, 2014)

Nice set.  Big lens aren't really needed if you can move with the plays along the sideline. The last game I went to I shot from the stands with 70-200 with 1.4 tc and got some ok pictures. Under the Lights | Photography Forum


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## runnah (Oct 6, 2014)

MSnowy said:


> Nice set.  Big lens aren't really needed if you can move with the plays along the sideline. The last game I went to I shot from the stands with 70-200 with 1.4 tc and got some ok pictures. Under the Lights | Photography Forum



Wow those are a lot brighter. More lights?


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## MSnowy (Oct 6, 2014)

runnah said:


> MSnowy said:
> 
> 
> > Nice set.  Big lens aren't really needed if you can move with the plays along the sideline. The last game I went to I shot from the stands with 70-200 with 1.4 tc and got some ok pictures. Under the Lights | Photography Forum
> ...



 Could be this is a new field with new lights.


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## ISU_Fan3 (Oct 10, 2014)

Your pictures are pretty good, they aren't to noisy and your lighting is better then some fields. A lot of the fields I shoot at really small schools and the lighting is super blochey and the endzones are dark. I also use a Sigma 70-200 and it does pretty good but I also know the coaches so i get to really roam the side lines with some of the teams. I would definitely like to buy a bigger lens in the future!


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## greybeard (Oct 10, 2014)

I grew up looking at B&W sports shot on Tri X pushed to 1600.  I don't even notice the noise.  Nice shots


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## imagemaker46 (Oct 10, 2014)

I find that shooting at 2000-4000iso the images end up looking a little mushy, I add a little noise in post, it makes them look a little sharper.  Something about the grain makes them look "right"


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## runnah (Oct 11, 2014)

imagemaker46 said:


> I find that shooting at 2000-4000iso the images end up looking a little mushy, I add a little noise in post, it makes them look a little sharper.  Something about the grain makes them look "right"



What AF option do you us on the mkiii?  Not like servo but the 6 menu options.


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## imagemaker46 (Oct 11, 2014)

I shoot with a 1Dx and change up the menu options for the sports I shoot. The setting I use most is the one for general overall shooting, which is the first one listed.  It seems to be the best one.


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## Philmar (Oct 13, 2014)

What were the Tamzooka's strengths and weaknesses?


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## Brand000n (Oct 14, 2014)

lol, would love to see those captions in a newspaper


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## ruifo (Oct 14, 2014)

Pretty good shots there, Runnah.
Using the Tamzooka 150-600mm at night might be quite tricky and challenging.

The noise is very manageable as well.
Well done!


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## runnah (Oct 14, 2014)

Philmar said:


> What were the Tamzooka's strengths and weaknesses?



Strengths: long and fast focus
Weaknesses: high fstops makes for limited low light use. Plus iq isn't the best at 600mm


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