Category: Shooting

Today, I was shooting the second day of the Canadian University Rowing Championship at the Elk Lake. Armando and I were the official photographers of the event, so we had a dedicated boat that took one of us close to the racing boats (the other was shooting from the dock). Together with me in the boat was another photographer named Kevin, who is a former rower himself, and not just any rower, but no less than a national team member and a gold medalist. He has been shooting rowing for a while and had a very specific idea about types of shots he wanted to get, but a bit concerned about falling out of our little catamaran. The previous day, I was sharing a boat with another photographer, a young lady from Netherlands, so I knew that the boat was perfectly capable of carrying two photographers. I was also happy to learn more ways of making a series of rowing photos less boring – after all, rowing motion is very repeatable, which does not give a lot of variety of poses (although facial expressions of the athletes vary quite a bit!).

Over the course of several races, we refined a strategy that allowed us to capture a variety of shots. As the race started, we would wait at the side of the course at the half-distance mark. As the boats rowed past us, followed by the boats carrying the officials, then, we would cross into the middle lane and follow the rowers. Kevin and I positioned ourselves on both sides of the boat driver, shooting, literally, over both his shoulders. We both had Canon EOS-1D X cameras. I used a 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens with a 1.4X tele-extender and Kevin had a 600mm f/4L IS II USM. The key point, which took us couple of runs to figure out, was to drive the boat between  and just behind the two official’s boats, but in front of the point where their wakes intersected. This way, we avoided most severe wave vibrations. Another note is that men’s 8+ boats were fast enough to actually outrun our motorboat, which was kind of cool to watch.

As the rowers approached the finish line, we would ask the driver to kill the engine and drifted to take the shots of the athletes celebrating their victories. Then, we followed them to the dock and took some shots of the coaches greeting them after a cool-down lap.

Later, I shot some moments of celebration by the winners from the dock. Most notable was the throwing of the coxswain in the water by his grateful teammates.

It was long weekend, but an interesting experience of learning the dynamics of the rowing race and following it from the athlete’s perspective.

I was taking photos of our university’s women’s field hockey game last two weekends, and as an experiment, I shot each of them with a different lens.

Shooting field hockey is challenging for couple of reasons. First, the field is relatively small and it is enclosed by a fence, so on one hand, the action can come very close to the camera very quickly, and on the other hand, it is difficult to isolate the players from the background if they are at the opposite end of the field from the camera.

The second challenge is that the players are crouched down while fighting to control the ball, so if the light is harsh, as the daytime sunlight often is, the players’ faces are covered by deep shadows.

Third, the colour of the artificial turf is bright green, which creates an unpleasant cast on the faces of the players, as they bend down, looking at the ball.

The first challenge of the wide range of distances from the action can be overcome by using an appropriate lens. I shot my first game of this season with a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. I has a good zoom range, which is great to have when the action is close, it focuses very fast and it is relatively light. I had the lens mounted on a Canon EOS-1D X and carried it on a Y-strap. It was so easy to handle that I was convinced that if I had a single lens to choose, the 70-200mm f/2.8L would be it. Its only drawback is insufficient focal length for far-away shots, such as action at the opposite end of the field and close-up shots of the players celebrating the goals.

The next game, one week later, I shot with a Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens, and the success rate of interesting shots was much higher than I expected. In fact, I had to revise my opinion on what would be a single go-to lens for field hockey. The 300mm f/2.8L is at least a very close contender, if not the winner of that title, in my opinion. There are a couple of disadvantages of this lens: fixed focal length and weight. Both are manageable, though. The challenges in composing shots due to the absence of zoom can be overcome with practice. It took me about one season of shooting to become comfortable with the 300mm. I must add that I am deeply grateful to Armando, who gave me a free run of using his lens, for making this experience possible. The weight of the lens is also not prohibitive for using it hand-held. More importantly, I believe the interesting shots 300mm f/2.8L produces are worth the inconveniences.

To handle the lighting, I think the best angles with respect to the sun are either direct light, where the sun is behind the camera, or backlight, where the sun is behind the subject. The direct light is a bit flat, but produces bright, saturated colours of the players’ uniforms. The backlight produces low contrast and saturation, but creates very pleasant rim light effect on the hair of the players.

Note: The artificial turf is soaked with water before each game, so when its surface is struck with a stick, or even with players feet, a spare of small water droplets is produced. To capture it, a fast shutter speed (minimum of 1/1000 sec) works best. Also, the spray looks very nice when backlit.