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Semi-high-end equipment:
These photographs, of Capital Coed Soccer
League (CCSL) games, were shot with Nikon F100 cameras and a Tokina
300mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro autofocus lens. The monopod was attached to the
lens's rotating collar, which allows easy changing from horizontal to vertical
format. When shooting with the F100 I also mount an MB-15 Battery Pack, which has a
second shutter release, command dial, and AF button located on the base for easier
vertical shooting. Depth of field with the 300mm lens is narrow -- a slice
about two-feet deep
sixty feet from the camera at f/2.8. Stopping down to f/4 only gives you
an extra nine inches at that distance.
Photos #1 through #5 were all shot on Fuji Press (ISO 800) film at either f/2.8 or f/4 with shutter speeds ranging between 1/750 and 1/500...It was a dark, cloudy October morning. Most of the shots that day were at f/2.8 -- and even at that aperture the shutter speed was slower than what was needed to really freeze the action. The quality for web publishing is O.K., but marginal for enlargements 8x10 and above.
Photos #6 and #7 were also shot on Fuji Press 800, all at f/4. With full sunlight, shutter speeds were typically 1/3000 to 1/6000. "Sharpness" is much better because motion of both the camera and the subjects is minimized.
A good quality moderate telephoto zoom lens:
These photographs were shot with a Tokina 80-200mm f/2.8 AT-X Pro autofocus zoom lens
mounted on the Nikon F100 using Fuji Press 800. A monopod was
attached to the lens's rotating collar. The aperture was set to either
f/2.8, f/3.3, or f/4, depending upon how much sun I was dealing with.
Photos #5 and #6 only include about 20% of the original frame --
even fully zoomed out to 200mm, the lens lacks the reach to even get to
mid-field. (Washington Area Women's Soccer League teams (WAWSL)
Riptide in blue and Frogs Unleashed in green.)
A typical amateur lens:
These photographs were shot with the
Nikon F100, Fuji Press 800, and a Tokina 24-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AT-X
autofocus zoom lens. The camera body was mounted directly to a monopod,
which means you can't rotate the camera between horizontal and vertical formats. The lens
was shot wide open, which means that the f-stop changed as the lens was zoomed
in and out. Resolution is not up to the standards of the 300mm lens above,
and the autofocus function did not always fully complete by the time the shutter
was fired -- even with the fast-focusing F100. I broke my own rule with
this set -- I shot the photos from the sidelines exactly as I had been with
faster-focusing lenses. I have since traded this lens away. (Washington Area Women's Soccer League teams (WAWSL)
Riptide in blue and Upstarts in gray.)
Note: All these example images are cropped. They are not full-frame 35mm images. Sometimes I use almost the entire frame, while for other pictures I may use as little as 30% of the original frame. If you are passing out 4x6 machine prints to players, they're going to see something a little less dramatic than a cropped photo. However, if you're web publishing, you have the luxury of getting down to the essential elements of the picture.
The "Semi-high-end" and "typical amateur lens" photos were scanned from negatives at 2400 ppi using an HP S20 film scanner. All others were scanned using a CanoScan FS-4000US scanner at 2000 ppi. I crop, adjust color, and fix the dust spots (if necessary) at the high resolution, and then downsample the images using PhotoShop's "Save for web" feature. I use the JPEG 30 setting, and reduce the image size to 33.33%, 25%, 20%, or 16.67% of the original, so that it fits within the layout frame.
(Updated October 2004)
