Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]When I was growing up, I was too short for basketball and too light for football so I played soccer. At the time it was just a funny game of kickball played by guys who talked with strong accents. My kids started playing when they were six years old and kept it up through college. I coached kid's soccer for about 15 years, starting with the junior division and ending with the under 17 team that won the NY State championship. Indeed, soccer is a very difficult sport to photograph. The action moves quickly from side to side of the field and focusing is difficult. With trained teams you can see a play develop and predict where the critical action will take place but with the free form chaos of kid's soccer, it is largely a matter of luck. If you have a chance, shoot from the area behind and to the side of the goal. Here the action is generally moving toward you and the dramatic plays often occur near the edges of the box. I used to load my M3 with fast film, prefocus my 135 mm lens on the area about halfway between the box edge and the goal, about at the penalty spot, stop down, use a fast shutter speed and hope for the best. Click the shutter just before the striker kicks the ball ball. If your reflexes are like mine, the ball will have just left his foot and the keeper will just be starting his dive as the picture is taken. Often I used an Olympus OM2 with a motor drive and a 200 mm lens. This let me stand near the corner of the field and catch a bit more action. I also burned a lot more film. I would have killed for a modern digital SLR with follow focus and sequence capability. Larry Z On Jun 13, 2006, at 1:19 AM, lug-request@leica-users.org wrote: > Not bad, Eric--soccer is difficult to photograph because of the > fast-moving and unpredictable action. Hopefully these young lads grow > to > be players who can do better than the USA team's pitiful performance > against the Czech Republic last night... > > Nathan > > Eric wrote: >> And now for something completely different. Pics from a soccer match: >> >> http://canid.com/pics/060611_033.jpg >> >> http://canid.com/pics/060611_042.jpg >> >> http://canid.com/pics/060611_052.jpg >> >> >> All comments appreciated.