First Fall 2010 Flag Football Pics Using Canon EOS 7D DSLR

The 2010 Fall youth sports season is finally here.  I captured the first two flag football games of the season this past Saturday (103 degrees in September!) and the kids played extremely well.  I'm looking forward to more games this weekend, including some Pop Warner football.  Baseball and Soccer games are also lined up for the near future.  Below is a link to a small sample gallery of the GYFL Colts and Cardinals flag football.  All images captured with a Canon EOS 7D camera and Canon EF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS lens.

Unfortunately the games were at Noon and 1pm so in a few cases that overhead sunlight made for some annoying lighting conditions.  Sometimes you just have to do your best with what you've got.

First Fall 2010 Flag Football Pics

Sports Portraiture Using The Canon EOS 7D and Canon EF 85mm f1.8 USM

Another sports portrait I'm very happy with.  I setup two cold lights, each one at about 45 degrees and three feet behind the subject.  Front lighting was just the ambient room light.  In front and left of camera was a large white reflector.  At each side of the subject I set up a single black 2x3 piece of black foam board about head height just off camera to reduce light spill from the back lighting.

Image was taken, hand-held using a Canon EOS 7D with Canon EF 85mm f1.8 USM AF Lens (my favorite for portraits).  Exposure was 1/60 @ f2.8 set at ISO 400.  Image was adjusted using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.2 and Adobe Photoshop CS5.  Hard to believe this is a nine year old boy.  He looks like a high school kid.

Another Image From Old Downtown Scottsdale

Here is another image from a recent walk around the old downtown Scottsdale shops on 5^th avenue.  Taken with a Canon EOS 7D using Canon EF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS AF Lens at 35mm.  Exposure was 1/60 @ f5.6, ISO 400.  Image adjusted using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.2 and the new HDR Toning feature of Adobe Photoshop CS5.

I had originally taken three exposures of this bench to import into Photomatix Pro for HDR, but really didn't like the way the software rendered the final image.  However, I discovered that importing just a single exposure into the HDR Toning feature of Adobe Photoshop CS5 provided the look I wanted.  Sometimes you just have to try different tools to accomplish your goal.

Canon EOS 7D Takes a Walk Around Downtown Scottsdale

These shots are of  the 5^th Avenue fountain in downtown Scottsdale taken one June morning.   Both shots were hand-held using the fantastic Canon EOS 7D DSLR with the Canon EF-S 18-200mm f3.5-5.6 IS Lens.  Exposure of the left image is f3.5 @ 1/4000, 18mm, ISO 400.  The right image was captured at f16 @ 1/250, 32mm, ISO 400.  Both images were processed for HDR using Photomatix Pro, then adjusted with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 and Photoshop CS5.  I decided to go ‘over-the-top’ with the HDR on these two images.  I just liked the comic book look to them.

More Images Captured Using Sony Alpha 300 DSLR

Here are a couple of other images taken with the Sony Alpha 300 DSLR and Sony 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DT lens.  The lighting was simple, a single tungsten hot light on either side of the camera about 45 degrees to the subject.  The left image was taken with a setting of F6.3 at 1/50 using ISO 800 and a focal length at the lens maximum of 250mm.

The right image was taken with a setting of F4 at 1/60 using ISO 400 and a focal length of 210mm.  Both images were hand held.  Gotta love Image Stabilization.  Both images were also adjusted using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 and Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Portrait Using Sony Alpha 300 DSLR

I’ve been going through some previous Lightroom collections and finding some RAW images I never got around to working on. This image was from a photo shoot back in February 2010 when I borrowed a Sony Alpha 300 with Sony 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 DT lens.  I can’t say there was much difference between my old Sony Alpha 100 and the 300, other than the body of the A300 is smaller and more annoying to handle.  The sensor is improved as these images were taken at ISO 800 and still usable; something that my older A100 couldn’t accomplish.  I have since jumped ship and become a Canonite with my wonderful EOS 7D.  No regrets.

The lighting setup was simple, just a single tungsten hot light on each side of the camera at around 45 degrees to the model.  This image was taken at f5.6 @ 1/100 with a focal length of 150mm.  Adjustments were made within Adobe Lightroom 3 and Adobe Photoshop CS5.