Last weekend was my third run at doing a Sports Photography Workshop for Roberts Camera’s Education program.  This time around we went and shot the NASL Indy Eleven soccer team, which was a blast!  The class consisted of 7 people, and we started out talking things like autofocus, focal length, and even how pro sports can be very predictable as compared to amateur sports.  In fact several of the attendees even commented that they started to see patterns in that whenever a ball was in the air, it was likely going to be a header.  It was a ton of fun.

(Photo by Mike M at downshift photo, using a Nikon D600)

The attendees were also introduced to my friend Trevor who is the team photographer for the Indy Eleven.  You can see Trevor’s photos from that night here, in fact you can see almost the exact same moment above framed slightly differently in Trevor’s shots as well).  Trevor is easily the best soccer shooter I know, so it was awesome that he took a minute to say hello to everyone and give one or two words of wisdom before getting started.

(Photo by Bill H using a Nikon D800)

Equipment ranged all over for the workshop.  There were some D800’s, a D600, Canon 5D3’s, at least one 70D and a D7000.  Lenses all over the board too from rented 400mmF2.8’s and Nikon 80-400mm lenses, to 70-300’s and 70-200’s with extenders.  It was a really wide range of glass, skills and photographers which is always one of the best parts of the night because nobody sees the same shots the same ways, so getting a variety together to shoot always yields some awesome results!

 (Photo by Mark W).

Overall I would say the workshop was a great success.  Lots of photos for people to be proud of and that’s great.  Everybody seemed to have a great time, and even enjoyed experiencing lenses that a few had rented for the occasion.  I even shot a few frames of the game, but I was shooting using a 400mmF2.8 and a 2x Extender because… well…. ok so I don’t have a good reason but even I got to shoot a few frames!

(Photo by Rob B at Senna Photo with a Canon 1Dx)

After the workshop everybody seemed happy and there it seems as though there is a large interest in having another workshop.  I’ll do them as long as people are interested, because I love it.  There has been a request to see if we can get a football workshop together, which I would love to do honestly.  In fact, it came up because I shot the Purdue vs Iowa game right before the workshop which meant that the photography scheduling gods were on my side as any number of things could have gone wrong and would have made my day miserable on the scheduling front.  Instead, however I just had a 7 stories of stairs to get to the top of the Purdue Pressbox at one point in order to file my images because the elevator was shut down.  Carrying 3 bodies and 5 lenses (including a 400F2.8) definitely even made me feel like I Played football the next day, but I digress.  There is discussion of a football workshop for in the future and I really hope we can get it together, but we shall see.  Keep your eyes opened here, and at the Roberts Camera Education page.  Until then though.  More soon.

(Nikon D4s, 250ISO, Nikon 400mmF2.8VR2 with TC14eII extender making 550mm. 1/1250@F4.5)