SARI Soccerfest 2007

City-Exile

Good to meet Paulw & bovril again today.
Spent a few hours up in the Phoenix Park, discussing the merits of the 40D.
Once again, we would urge people not to buy this camera.
It's simply not wort the money.
Get yourself a nice 400D instead.

Anyway, the SARI Soccerfest 2007 was on & here are some of the shots.

P.

Paulw

A great day and a good scene for the football. Also, some good fun stuff going on too.

Just a few of my images -

The Tackle


Scoring a goal


The save


Fun and Games


Punjabi Dancers


Well worth going to today, and maybe tomorrow.

Spyral

3 ftw ! its full of life !

Borderfox

Great shots, just for info how many shots did you take? rat a tat tat !!!

Paulw

Errrr ... I took a few. Only about 500 images, I think.

Borderfox

City-Exile

Yeah the silly 40D just rattles off.
What a silly camera.
Rat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat...
Very noisy...

Paulw

Yeah, with the 40D you waste a lot of memory because of the number of shots it takes. Certainly not worth buying the camera, unless you want to buy loads of memory cards too.

Third_Echelon

Some good shots there lads... looked like a good day out.

bovril

yep it was a great day alright here are a few of mine. First time shooting football but I did have my 350D which is about 50 times better than the 40D. Shocking workmanship on the 40D. I wouldn't take one even if someone offered me one for free. **


** Is that the kind of thing you wanted me to say about the 40D lads??

City-Exile

Good stuff there, bovril.
Glad you enjoyed the day out.
I saw some Polo being played across the way, when I was leaving, but I was already running late at that stage, so I gave it a miss.

bovril

I think the polo is played at 3pm every sat and sunday during their season. Must have been over when I was leaving the soccerfest as I was keeping an eye out for it.

Paulw

Great photos there Bovril. I didn't get as many actual football images as I thought. I guess I was deleting too many as I went along.

bovril

thanks Paul. I took tonnes of shots and didn't get that many good ones. Sports photography in general is very very difficult. I still find it fun trying though.

City-Exile

Because you generally can't engineer situations for yourself, when shooting sport, it's not always easy to get many shots that you're happy with.
The better the level of players, the better the quality of the action.

The Phoenix Park was quite a difficult location to shoot football.
I think we all did fairly well though, considering what the "professionals" were hawking from the back of their van.

Paulw

I must admit that I do enjoy sport photography.

But, each sport is different. I found I got much better shots at the horse racing, I've captured some good shots at show jumping, and I really enjoy photographing rugby. I still have to get the hang of football photography though. I might leave that to people like City-Exile who obviously has the talent for it.

City-Exile

Beware Paul, rugby is next on my list of things to try.
I'll be in touch for the next game as I'll be looking to you for advice.

City-Exile

This picture is listed as having 4 views, on flickr.
Now I find this very strange, given that there are comments from 3 individuals & I've got messages from 4 others, saying they love the picture, or they want to sign him up. ( )

Does anyone else think the view counter isn't accurate?

Calina

I've always felt the view counter was some form of black magic, tbh.

bovril

Yep it's a weird thing alright, I posted two pictures on boards for the phoenix park races incorrectly. I used the tool to insert an image and I pasted the link to the the page in flickr with the image not the actual static image if you get my drift. I left the post alone cos I didn't have time to fix it and next day both pictures had counts on flickr of almost 300.

It seems to remember IP addresses too I think so if you go back to a picture you once looked at it doesn't increase the count. I don't pay it too much attention.

OnLooker

The 40D looks impressive especially for sport with the 6.5 fps.

I was going to go for the 400D but I am thinking of making the jump to the 40D cos I know I will want it in the future because all I cover is sports.

Is the 40D too advanced for a SLR beginner?

I have been using the Digital Bridge Camera's for the last few years & work in the S/W Industry so they can't be that hard to pick up.

City-Exile

I've been using SLRs for over 14 years & moved from the 400D to the 40D. There's still so much that I'm finding out about the camera. It's a totally different beast to the 400D.

By the way, this is one example of a set taken using the 400D...

OnLooker

I am just thinking that I will eventually want to upgrade from the 400D to 40D so why not just get the 40D straight off. At the moment I have 5 fps which is especially handy for hurling.

City-Exile

If you've got the budget, then go for it, but you'll need a decent lens, regardless of the body!

OnLooker

Was thinking of the following: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/183198-USA/Canon_2578A002_70_200mm_f_4_0L_USM_Autofocus.html

City-Exile

It's not a bad lens, but the f/2.8 would be better for sport.
Look at the shots bovril got at the weekend, using an f/2.8
Also, with a 200, you'll find that a lot of the action is quite far away from you, especially if GAA is your thing.

OnLooker

So you reckon go for the 400D & pay more for a better lens. You don't think a 200mm would have enough range?

soccerc

OnLooker wrote:

So you reckon go for the 400D & pay more for a better lens. You don't think a 200mm would have enough range?

No, a 200mm for soccer is really only good for the last quarter of the pitch. I use my 80-200 (Nikon) as a secondary lens on second body for the likes of corners close frees etc..

At Croke Park for soccer it was next to useless.

An 300mm f4 wouldn't be a bad choice but you'll soon find as I did that once the light drops it too is not ideal.

City-Exile

OnLooker wrote:

So you reckon go for the 400D & pay more for a better lens. You don't think a 200mm would have enough range?

A good 2.8 lens will give better results, as the shallow depth of field can mask a lot of the busy backgrounds.
At GAA, the big pitch means you have to use a 400 or plonk yourself in one place & hope the action near you is good.

bovril

just my 2c.. the reason the 200mm worked on saturday was due to the pitches being so small. As city and thimbleful said the 200mm would not do the job on a full size pitch. You could use and extender but then autofocus will be a lot slower and also your min aperture will double. You can't beat a prime for a fast lens. It will set you back a fair bit though.

OnLooker

City-Exile wrote:

A good 2.8 lens will give better results, as the shallow depth of field can mask a lot of the busy backgrounds.
At GAA, the big pitch means you have to use a 400 or plonk yourself in one place & hope the action near you is good.

Thats what I normally do. One end of the pitch usually see's more action.

OnLooker

thimblefull wrote:

No, a 200mm for soccer is really only good for the last quarter of the pitch. I use my 80-200 (Nikon) as a secondary lens on second body for the likes of corners close frees etc..

At Croke Park for soccer it was next to useless.

An 300mm f4 wouldn't be a bad choice but you'll soon find as I did that once the light drops it too is not ideal.

Its very rear that I would cover a GAA match under lights. Not many clubs in Dublin have flood lights so most of my shooting is done during the daytime.

Calina

Daytime doesn't necessarily mean you've got great light. I don't know an awful lot about shooting team sports so City Exile can correct me if I really mess up here, however: the summer has been abysmal.

Most of last summer into August I could shoot at shutter speeds of 1/4000 on a 300mm zoom. This year I just couldn't. I was happy if I got up to 1/2000 on occasion, and even in the middle of the day on days in August I just often couldn't get up as far as 1/1000 without shoving the ISO up, which, incidentally, I'm allergic to because of what it does to faces on a 350D. Okay, so I've a fast shutter speed/low ISO fetish, however...it's something to be borne in mind.

It's not just daylight, it's the quality of that daylight and frankly, it's been awful this summer.

Ultimately you might get a nice prime - I think DarrenG had a very nice 300mm for his Nikon - but you lose some versatility when you don't have any zoom.

Up to you at the end of the day.

soccerc

OnLooker wrote:

Its very rear that I would cover a GAA match under lights. Not many clubs in Dublin have flood lights so most of my shooting is done during the daytime.

As Calina pointed in her response poor light on a summers day can be just as bad at f4 for sports.

Under floodlights that are in use in Ireland you'd be lucky to get anything clean and clear. Even the best pro's lament the lighting standards here.

mdebets

I was there for an hour on Sunday. Unfortunately I didn't see any of you guys to 'borrow' one of your shiny new cameras.

Here are some of my pictures.

bobbalina

Hi, I was playing in that but we never got any pictures of our team playing. I dont suppose you have them pictures hosted online somewhere?
thanks,
Bobby

Paulw

If you give some details of what team you were playing for, and what colour you were wearing, you never know your luck. One of us might have a good photo or two.

bobbalina

Our team were called "plus" - we were just assigned that name as we entered late. We were all irish lads running around blindly and . I have a mop of ginger hair and was wearing a Holland jersey them days. We were in the same group as the Polish team ( the chaps in the blue kit although im not sure if there poles) So if any1 has any pictures I would be grateful if you could pass them on.
Thanks