Purdue Soccer Forces a Draw on Senior Night

Last night was another of those bittersweet nights when you cover college sports. Another great group of seniors played their last game for Purdue. Before the game they were honored, and I tried to make a few pictures that conveyed the emotion of the moment. This is both a happy and sad time as the players are moving on to bigger and better things. Of course the sky decided to humor us, and gave us a great background to shoot with.

Testing Out the Canon 7D Mark II Again

This was another great chance to test out the Canon 7D Mark II. I tried a few things that I don’t normally do with the camera just to put it through the paces. During the first half of the match I put the 2x converter on my 300mm lens just to see what I could get with it. Sometimes I think that the converter gives me soft images, but I think it was the drive on my old 60D that was doing that. I kept the converter on the lens the entire half having fun making images of the goalie from across the field. I figured that with the 1.6x crop factor figured in that I was shooting the equivalent of a 960mm lens for most of the first half. I did have my 70-200 around my neck for the close up action, but it was interesting to try and fit the action in the frame with something getting in that close to the action. The shot above is one that I made with the tele on the lens.

So far I can see many positives with the 7D Mark II. At one point I cranked up the ISO to 10,000 just to see what the noise would look like. It really was not that bad compared to what I had been using. In fact I pushed it farther last night than I thought I would. This is a great camera that I really have not even scratched the surface of learning yet. It does everything that I need it to though, and it also does it fast. The one drawback so far is that Lightroom does not support the RAW files yet. I can convert them in other places, but I like my workflow just the way that it is. That is the price that you pay to become an early adopter I guess.

More Multi-Exposure?

Yes I have one more multi-exposure for you. That is until I can think of another way to use the function on the camera. I have been thinking about this shot since early in the season when I saw this unique throw in by Christa Szalach. I knew that a properly executed multi-exposure would show the beauty of the move. I was kneeling when I made this so I was not quite as steady as I could have been. I needed one more throw in close to me to nail it, and of course that didn’t happen. I have next season to try it out I guess.

One Last Practice Run

This coming week I will be photographing the Big Ten Soccer Tournament for the Big Ten. I really have not shot much soccer this season so I felt that I needed a good night under my belt. That is probably why I went out in the cold to shoot this game more than anything. It is funny how things work. When this soccer season started we were worried about heat stroke. Now of course the weather has changed dramatically. I think it was a 70+ degree temperature swing from the first to the last game of the year. As the week goes on I will warn you that I may have a few more soccer photos to post as I will be covering seven games in three days. There are some days off in there, but of course I will fill them with something else sports related I am sure.

Bonus Photos

As usual I will post a couple of other shots that I enjoyed from the game below. I also created an Exposure.co page for the match so that I could share a few more photos than I normally would. I like to do this on senior nights/days because I usually end up with a bunch of images that I like. You can find that Exposure page here. For now though enjoy these photos.