My first sports photoshoot...

I walked up earlier than usual this Sunday so I decided to take the D70 along with my Sigma 170-500mm for its first sport action photoshoot. I knew there was a regular soccer league at Tempe (Kyrene and Guadalupe) on Sunday so I decided to drop by and take some shots. I had to fill up the wife's SUV with gas anyway so it was a good win win opportunity.

After choosing a good location (a big tree with some good shade ... its still a little bit warm here in Arizona), I settled down and started taking pictures.

I knew I had to use aperture priority to make sure I get good shoots of the action. I also turned on ISO to 400 to make it faster as my zoom lense is f5 to f6.3 which is not really fast. After taking a few test shoots and checking my histogram for good exposure distribution, I set apperture priority to 1/1000 sec which I used for most of my shots. In retrospect, I should have used manual mode and locked down the fstop a few more clicks (f8?) so I can get better depth of field and have more of the actions clear especially if they are not in the same field.

I took probably 150 shots over a 45 minute period. Below are some of the best shots of the day. I say not bad for a first time sports action photoshoot. Had to leave the game early as family is waiting to go to church. I was pretty pleased with my first attempt at sports action photography. Will find more opportunities in the future. Maybe I can volunteer for some of my friend's kids sports league and take their pictures. Unfortunately, my son, LJ is not yet into sports leagues.