My big boy plays football (EU), aka soccer (US), and as his trainer plays in a team in the Hungarian National League III, he was invited to play ball boy on game day. So I decided to make it a father-son programme and take the 300/2,8 to the test aswell. After shooting two games (and I hope a few more to come till end of season in May) guess what: this is not me testing the lens, but I feel the lens and the whole shooting situation is testing me out.

The Gear

I recently got myself a worn out EF 300/2.8 L tele-lens. It was a tough call, as it cost used around 15% of the original retail price, it still costs a good months salary for Hungarian terms. This without any service support is shaky, but I took the risk.

Paired with my good (and by now kinda old) 5d3 this is still quite a rig to work with.

Yet, I took some advice from a fellow shooter and got said: I shall take two cameras to shooting football (soccer), for several good reasons (e.g. backup), but mostly, because if you want to use not just one focal legth, there is no time to change lenses. I got said I also need some wide anlge if players come close, so I took a smaller rig adding the EF 35/1.4 L II on the 6D body.

For the second game I also brought an EF 135/2.0 L, and I left it with the 6D at my son for a half time, so fortunately he was able to take this werk image of me shooting the game. Yes, exacly: sitting on my butt, the monopod set to hold the big white lens on eye level, which is approximately 75 cm above the ground. This point of view combined with the tight angle of view of a long tele lens gives me a perspective spectators would never get, especially not from the grandstand.

Name of the Game

So what you do, once the game begins? You keep your middle focus area on the player with the ball and try to shoot at any interesting action, then drop the long lens and shoot with the short one if action gets close.

There is another 6 games until end of the season I could possibly shoot so now based on learnings so far I will think of how to do an even better job probably not just shooting the action but documenting some of the ambient and some social aspects. This would be quite a great challange, so I shall be tested.