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Hot Highschool football in SFBay Area--your recommendation?


scott squire  nonfiction

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howdy,

I'm looking to photograph some good nighttime high school football, on a well-lit field, in

the San Francisco Bay Area, preferably the East Bay (Oakland). I'm relatively new to the

area, and therefor not too well versed in what's out there.

 

Your recommendations and advice are welcome, particularly as regards nighttime sports

shooting.

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High school football...well lit...make up your mind, which is it?

 

I'm just kidding you, but I have yet to be in a HS field that was really well lit.

 

The proper way to do this is get a lens as big as a dinner plate and the fastest film you can find, and shoot from the sidelines with a monopod. My solution (shooting for fun from the stands) was to use TMZ3200 at EI 6400 with my 500 f/8 lens. (For reference, that gave me 1/125 to 1/250, f/8, at EI 6400- you can work out what that matches for your film and lens for comparison). I recently bought a roll of Fuji's 1600 speed color film, and the camera store guy was guessing I was going after HS football with it- evidently, it's commonly used for that.

 

Around here (Dallas), the different schools and districts have websites that show the football schedules and stadium locations, so you can start there. If you have statewide rankings and playoffs, check them out in the newspaper and you can find the better teams (and hopefully, the better games.) I have seen some of the playoff games take place in college or pro stadiums, which would have much better lighting.

 

There have been some other posts along the lines of getting press credentials for games- evidently, at middle school or maybe JV games, it might be pretty easy to get set up to shoot off the sidelines.

 

You might also check local college football. With popular teams, it might be hard to even get tickets, but some lesser colleges don't fill up their stands.

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Gerald: Thank you for voicing a not unimportant concern.

 

Stephen: I hear you about HS games not being brightly lit. I'll be shooting digital EOS,

which handles high ISOs pretty well, and have access to a long 2.8 lens. I'm hopeful on

that count.

 

Mostly I'm looking for hot tips on which schools around here have a good team, a good

field, or a combo of the two. Certainly can't fault folks from otherwhere for not knowing

my neighborhood better than I do!

 

Cheers,

Scott

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You might check with a local newspaper's website and get stats and names of the schools, then try a couple of phone calls. There are certainly areas which are economically better off than others and possibly have better lighting. If like down here in SoCal, some schools play some games at shared or civic stadiums or at local JCs, etc., and these may well have better lighting.

 

Establishing your credentials and getting access is something that you'll have to consider as well, maybe difficult for an outsider? But I think you'll find the lighting needed to play isn't necessarily all you'd need to shoot the games.

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"Nineteen of the top 20 teams won, but the one who didn't was a biggie. For the second consecutive week, No. 14 De La Salle (Concord, Calif.) lost, and dropped out of the rankings. De La Salle lost last weekend to Clovis West (Fresno), after having its 151-game winning streak ended the previous week." Looks like Concord is sorta that general vicinity? This is from USA Today, by the way, top 25 HS teams in the country.

 

Keep in mind, that at the top HS teams in the country, you might expect to find a lot more cameramen and even TV cameras that you don't see at your normal game. IE, harder to get access for yourself.

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