On 10/1/22 my dream of being on the sideline for a D-1 Football game came true. I had the chance to photograph the Army Black Knights football game against Georgia State university. To say this was a pinch me moment in my photography career would be a big time understatement. As a mostly portrait and concert photographer I had sort of thought that my time on the sidelines would never come. But as luck would have it I would get two opportunities to shoot the Black Knights as I was back there this past weekend to document the Colgate game.
Having never shot a sporting event before, I was a bit worried I would mess up my camera settings and come back with absolutely horrible photographs from the game. Thankfully, with the aid of YouTube and the Unique Photo Rentals department I was able to put my fears aside. Besides having to tweak my auto focus settings just a bit, I had to get a longer lens then I previously owned. For the first game against Georgia State I rented the Canon RF 70-200 F2.8 and for the most part made some really nice photographs. Obviously I relied quite a bit on cropping into the photos and with my Canon R5 that was no problem at all, but for my second time out I wanted the chance to get even closer to the action.
For this past weekend’s game against Colgate I rented the RF100-500 F4.5-7.1 and oh boy was it fun to use. Luckily for me it was an incredibly sunny day that the F4.5-7.1 aperture range did not effect my images at all. If I was shooting a night game I would have been a bit concerned at how much I would have had to push my ISO but I’m fairly comfortable with the R5’s ability to push ISO and still get a good image out from my experience shooting concert photography.
This past weekend was a treat and the 100-500 really was able to get me closer to the action than I previously was at the Georgia State game. My favorite part was that I was able to shoot lots of photos but still make the edits in my style, with the film look something I was still able to provide via editing. Below are some of my favorite images from the two games and I hope you enjoy them!
