Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Temperature Cools Off While Youth Sports Heats Up

Summer is finally over here in the valley of the sunstroke. As we say goodbye to 100+ degree afternoons youth sports have kicked off. Although the first youth soccer game I captured back in September took place under a 105 degree, cloudless sky. I have to give those kids credit for giving 100 percent on the field under those conditions, and still managing to have fun. Luckily the following weekend was significantly cooler.

Here are a couple of images taken from recent youth soccer and flag football games. My standard equipment is the Sony Alpha 100 with the classic Minolta Maxxum 70-210mm f4 lens, also known as the ‘beer can.’ The camera is usually set to ISO 400 and focus mode at Continuous Focus.

Parents are happy to have the kids outside, without bursting into flames, and the kids have been playing with unbridled enthusiasm. Hopefully I can capture some of these moments to ensure lasting memories of these brief events in their young lives. I think the hardest part of these types of shoots is to keep focused on the action through the lens and not get caught up in the game itself. Occasionally I find myself pulling away from the viewfinder to watch the action, or reaction, and might miss a good shot. Luckily this doesn’t happen very often.

I’m definitely looking forward to the upcoming new DSLR cameras from Sony. I will probably wait until the ‘pro’ model is released next year to decide to either invest in that model or the upcoming A700 ‘prosumer’ model. Once I get the chance to compare specs and prices. For now the A100 does everything I need it to do in these youth sports situations.

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