carl_auer2

<p>If you are there shooting for the newspaper, as a contract freelancer or as a employee, you need to have the approval of the newspaper to sell these images. Simple as that. You are not acting as a yearbook or a booster photographer, you are there as press or media. If you are just shooting it and submitting to the newspaper and hoping they buy something, you are not shooting for the newspaper, you are shooting for yourself and you may be ok to sell.</p>

<p>I say ok because this can be sticky on the contract level. If you are either cleared by the paper to sell photos you take while shooting for them or are a non contracted freelancer shooting in hopes of selling, the first thing you need to do is contact someone in charge at the school and make sure it is ok. Lifetouch (or someone like them) or a school booster photographer may have a contract in place with either the school, booster club, or school district giving them the exclusive contract to shoot and sell to parents. I know, it sounds like a raw deal, but it is a fact of life and the way the youth/high school sports business is run these days. I make my living off of youth sports, mainly shooting for a high school. <br>

I have my own contracts with the different booster clubs, stating various clauses, and one of my clauses is that I am the only one permitted to market photos (notice the word sale or sell is not there) to parents, students, and faculty of the school and visiting teams. Exceptions will be made on game by game basis for visiting teams photographers. Exempt from this restriction are student photographers, yearbook photographers, and news photographers. For the safety of the players, officials and fans, parents are permitted to take photos from the spectator areas only, and for personal use only.<br>

I do this for multiple reasons. Reason one, I am a photographer by profession. I buy food, pay rent, buy gear, provide for my daily life with what I make from photography. I do not go into a architects office and start designing houses because I have a pencil and can draw and then try to sell the plans to his clients cheaper. Reason two, I am insured. If someone runs into me while I have the camera to my eye, or if a strobe falls on someone, or whatever issue comes up, I am covered. If I am there representing a media outlet (I shoot for numerous wires), and I am representing them, some of them require me to carry my own insurance, others will cover me as long as I am shooting for them. But what if you or a parent is not insured for photography and ends up getting tunnel vision while on the sideline and a player plows into them and breaks his leg...... Reason three, I have seen a lot of parent photographers not know the "rules" and get in the fans way to get a shot, or even walk out onto the basketball court or football field during a live play to get a better shot. And the final reason I will give here is that since I am selling, I may have a vendor fee or a donation back to the team, boosters or school at the end of the season. If I have to plunk down a vendor fee at the beginning of the season and Joe Photo comes in to a game or two, takes pictures and starts giving them away (not selling, which is why my contracts state marketing instead of selling), he is cutting into my sales and he did not pay a vendor fee. Is that fair? Nope. As a clause in my contract, if an unauthorized photographer is marketing images from the games I shoot, my vendor fee is returned, so boosters tend to make sure things are ok.<br>

But now, that brings me to where I can not shoot. I can shoot the entire regular season and preseason for sales, but when it comes to the playoffs and state, I am only able to shoot for media use only, because Lifetouch has the exclusive contract for sales from the playoffs. </p>

<p>I say all this because you want to be sure that the school or someone else is aware of what you are doing. It is much more professional to inquire first than to shoot first and beg forgiveness later.</p>

<p>To the original question, as long as the paper and school has no problem with you selling images, you are golden. </p>

<p>Yes, Photoshelter is not cheap, but all that they do, it is incredible. I am very happy with them and they are worth every penny.</p>

<p>I would suggest dropping smugmug from the title. I am not sure if you can link a registered domain name to your smugmug account, but if you can, do it. If not, go someplace else, like Printroom or Photoshelter. In all honesty, smugmug is a hobbiest site. There may be people making a living from their smugmug site, but in my experience, smugmug would be the last place I would want to host and sell my photos. You pay for what you get, and the accounts at Printroom and Photoshelter are incredible and I have never seen customer service anywhere else like both of them.</p>

<p>If you select a name other than your own, be sure you stick with it, register it, get a business license under that name, and keep using it. Otherwise, go with brianbahnphoto.com, that way you can take it with you if you ever decide to expand beyond sports.</p>

<p>unless you have a 300mm or larger lens or are shooting at 1/less than focal length (I.E. 200mm lens shutter at 1/125) hand held, IS will not help you at all. IS is designed to allow you to handhold your lens at lower shutter speeds than you should normally. On a APS digital sensor, if you have a 100mm lens, under normal shooting conditions, 1/160th is the shutter speed that most people would be able to handhold the camera and get a sharp image. Some with practice may be able to drop down to 1/125 or even 1/90th. But with IS with a 100mm lens, you can get down to 1/60th or lower with practice. But that does nothing for you with action since it is not freezing the image, just reducing shake in the camera. (IS is great on super telephotos because, even on tripods at 1/1000+ movement is amplified and IS will really come in handy).</p>

<p>My suggestions on your shooting would be pricey to a lot more pricey to astronomical NASA costs...The 135 2.0 is a great lens. Good length, and it makes for a great portrait lens too. It is priced pretty well for a fast short zoom. A better choice would be the old Canon 200 1.8 lens. Fantastic gymnastics and theater lens. Great reach, super fast, and, under $4K if you can find one. But it is still pretty pricey. Lastly, its replacement, the 200 2.0 IS (or 200 2.0 VR for Nikon). Not as fast as the 1.8, but still one heck of a lens. It better be for over $5K.<br>

Another lens that I have used for cheer competitions is the Sigma 120-300 2.8. I have seen older models go for $1500 and it is, for its price, the best 300 2.8 you can find and a zoom to boot.</p>

<p>Most high school and lower games will allow for flash as long as you are not burning it out. My typical rig for shooting high school games at night consists of a 1DMkII with a 300 2.8 with or without a 1.4xtc and two vivitar 285 strobes. Usually I have both strobes on a bracket on my monopod about 18" bellow my camera. This will help cut down on the redeye effect and throw the shadows up into the dark sky as opposed to on the ground. Also gets up under the helmets. At 1/4 power on each flash, I can shoot small slow bursts at about 3fps. Anything higher and the flash would burn up.<br>

I tried something at the end of last season that I will attempt more this season. I kept one strobe bellow my camera and then had a injured player hold the other strobe and stay about 10 yards away from me, pointing the flash at the ball carrier. It tended to work pretty well. Well enough that I want to try it more. Without flash, at 2.8 I am lucky to get 1/125th at ISO 1600 and the company I shoot for requires ISO 800 or lower. It is a national outlet that supplies photos to a bunch of different media, and their standards are pretty high. With the flashes, I am limited to a specific zone in front of me. Usually between 20 and 30 yards away, but I get to shoot at ISO 640 and 1/250th at 4.0 (for a little larger DOF to help with the sharpness of the final image).<br>

Unfortunately, the Sony's, from what I heard, are not good at higher ISO and the X-Sync is under 1/200. That will introduce ghosting unless you are able to shoot with the flashes giving you at least three stops of light over ambient. Even then, I would expect a little ghosting.<br>

If any official or coach complains about the flash, it usually takes about 10 seconds with an official checking who I am shooting for to clear things up. No flash, night game, they get no coverage.</p>

 

<p>Armondo, you really should get your facts straight before you post a rant like this on a site where SportsShooter members do lurk and post from time to time. Since 2004 a sponsor was added to make it easier to join, but you do not need a sponsor to join. Only one time prior to adding the sponsor did SS shut its doors to new members while they restructured the joining process.</p>

<p>http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/1279</p>

<p>Open up a current issue of Sports Illustrated, Sporting News, or any other top sports magazines and look at the bylines and then look at the members list at SportsShooter and tell me that there are not top pros there and active. SportsShooter is a community of photographers, students, interns, editors, and the others. Full time staff photographers, full time freelance, youth sports photography business owners, journalism students, photo editors and more. They offer workshops that are incredible. The message board goes through its ups and downs, just like any other board out there, but the message board is only a small portion of the site, and viewing the board is free to all. In fact, with the exception of posting to the site, viewing all of the classifieds, or participating in the monthly contests (they host a yearly contest open to everyone), or the use of the Guide, it is open for everyone to utilize. But SportsShooter should not be viewed as a forum, because it is not. It is a tool for photographers to use. Member pages are great for touching base with potential clients and over the last 4+ years that I have been a member it has gotten me quite a few contract jobs with national and international media outlets. As for your boxing site that you shoot for, honestly, just glancing at the photographers list, two of the best photographers, and two of my friends, Max Simbron and Ed Mulholland are listed there, and you know what? They are active SportsShooter members. And Ed is the best boxing photographer, in my opinion currently shooting today.</p>

<p>To Stacy, <br>

another good site to check out is the Sports Corner at www.fredmiranda.com. Along with the Sports Corner, there are a number of other boards there, People, Wedding, Landscape, Wildlife, which offer a great deal of information. Another good site that sometimes offers sports info is Strobist. Not a lot of sports, but some good information on how to strobe gyms with a couple speedlights, and some good ideas for team and individual lighting set ups.</p>

<p>Carl Auer<br>

www.sportsshooter.com/carlauer</p>

Unfortunately, what you want to do, and what you are going to be able to do are two

totally different things. If you could fire your flash at 6fps at even 1/2 power, you are

going to end up with a hot, melting flash. When you start using flash for sports, like bmx

or skate, your initial thought is to fire off a burst of shots to get a whole series, but to

effectively, and correctly expose each shot, with a 580ex or any shoe mount flash, that is

not a "bright" idea. You might get 2 or 3 shots out of a burst with the flash and 3 or 4 that

are dark. You can reduce the amount of time it takes to recycle the flash by using either

the Canon external battery packs or one of the third part packs out there, but that can

cost quite a bit. Rechargeable batteries that are rated at about 2500mAH would be a good

place to start, since they tend to recycle faster than standard batteries. Steer clear of using

the high speed sync function of the flash because it will drastically reduce the range of

your flash, especially outdoors in daylight. And, HSS will not really flash, as it strobes over

the period that the shutter is open, say, 10,000 times in that 1/500th of a second your

shutter is open. For on camera flash with BMX, I would suggest that you check your

ambient light setting and set your ISO and aperture to give you a correct exposure at your

flash sync, which I believe on the 40D is 1/250th. So, on a bright, sunny day, at ISO 100

and 1/250th, your aperture might be anywhere from 5.6 to 11, depending on how the

light falls and your surroundings. you could even set the camera to expose the ambient a

stop darker for a more dramatic scene, but just to get you started now, forget about that.

Once you have your camera set for ambient, set your flash to manual mode and start with

it at 1/4 power and take a test shot. If things look good in the lcd, go for it, but if it is too

hot or not filling the shadows in, adjust the flash power until it gives you your desired

results. Set your camera to single frame advance and anticipate where the peak moment is

going to be and take a shot. At 1/4 power or lower (1/8th, 1/16th, etc) your flash will

recycle pretty fast and you should be able to take shots one after the other, but give your

flash time to cool down after 4 or 5 "semi-auto bursts" Now if you really want to dive into

multi flash shots at 6fps, your best bet is to rig a bunch of flashes and pocket wizards with

delays. Find out through trial and error the delay between each shot and use Pocket

Wizard Multimax units to delay triggering so when the first flash goes off, the second one

will not go off until a set time after the first flash, and so on. Not the best way to go about

it because it costs quite a bit of money for all the flashes and wizards. During football

season, I used a 550ex at 1/4 power with my 1D, I did have it set to 3fps, because at 1/4

power with a battery pack, it would recycle fast, but I limited my bursts to 3 and 4 frames

because I did not want to risk melting my flash, and I did not want to have a burst more

than that going into the face of athletes during action. I actually had a parent ask me if my

multiple flashes ever caused seizures. They hadn't, but it is something to consider. Lastly,

if you are doing BMX with flash, get that flash off camera. When I do pipe or park

shooting, I usually use a couple Vivitar flashes on light stands set up where the biggest air

will be, with flat land, I set the strobes up about 20-30 feet apart covering the entire

flatland area, and trigger them with radio slaves like pocket wizards. When you start

thinking about flash, do not worry about shooting at a shutter speed like 1/250th. The

camera is no longer capturing the image with the shutter, but the flash is stopping the

action. Good flashes have very fast durations, like from 1/640th to 1/10000 depending on

the flash and settings. So, as long as your flash is about a 1/2 stop stronger than ambient,

you should be able to freeze the action with the flash, fill in those shadows, and have fun

doing it. If you are more concerned with just filling in the shadows in the faces, try to not

use flash at all. Try to position yourself where sunlight reflects into their faces, or is more

direct. Use a reflector to add light if you want. By positioning yourself where the ambient

light works with you instead of against you, you can go full boar with the 6fps and fast

shutter speeds and not have to worry about flash at all.

Janice,

for non MaxPreps shooters, the info is very vauge. If you become a shooter for them, you

get emails from them with tips and reminders. Also, when you submit a portfolio, if you

include on camera flash basketball shots, you will more than likely not be accepted, and

you will receive a list of comments about each image or at least about what they want in

the images. I was luckey, not having to apply, but being asked by them a couple years

ago to shoot for them, but as the moderator of another photo board, I see a lot of people

get turned down by them and hear what they say back to them. I shot a basketball game

with two strobes instead of my normal 3 and they rejected the gallery because my strobes

were not covering the images as they wanted the strobes to. They are so strict with their

requirements I feel it makes me better each time I go out to shoot for them.

weird...my post got cut....

 

anyway, the 135, 50, 85, and 35 are great for basketball. Stay away from the 1.2 glass as it

is slow focusing. My kit ranges from 17mm up to 300mm for hoops, both high school and

college. As for MaxPreps, they do require you to strobe indoor sports if you can not get an

exposure of ISO 400 and 1/500-1/1000 at 2.8, and on camera flash will not work for them.

If you do go the strobe route, check out the strobist blog and sportsshooter for some great

strobe info and get liability insurance to keep you covered in case a strobe falls on someone.

Janice,

For ambient light in most high school gyms a 1.8 or even a 1.4 lens is a must in your kit.

But even with that 85 1.8 you might still be screaming for more light. For ambient light

on the Canon system, I like the 35mm 1.4, 50 1.4, 85 1.8 and the 135

The pocket wizard was more than likely connected to a remote camera somewhere in the

stadium. Many of the shooters will have remotes high up or out in the outfield. When he

takes a shot of someone swinging, he gets more frames of the shot from different angles

around the stadium.

 

As for the locations, every stadium is different for photo locations, some have 2 pits on

each side of the dugouts, some have one, some are lost to add more seats, some are down

the lines, between bullpens, in baskets on the second level, etc. More than likely, any

place that there is a tv camera, there are still photographers and/or remotes. Also,

shooting through the screen is easy. Just use a 2.8 lens or wider and go.

 

Here is a shot I took at a college summer league game through the screen behind home.

One thing it does is give you interesting bokah

 

http://www.fredmiranda.com/hosting-data//5262/28569FAIR01.jpg

Terry, you have gotten some very good advice and some not so good advice here. Let me try to give you a little help for tonights game (if you read this in time).

 

Forget about a monopod. That is not your problem. A monopod is a great tool, but really, unless you have a very hard time holding your hands still, with a 70-200 on the XT, you should have no problems. Practice your handholding technique. This is the most important part of things. If you can not hold the camera steady, sports is not going to be something that will work for you over time. Pan with the action but move smoothly as you do. Support the lens with your left hand and be sure to have your feet shoulder width apart.

 

Make sure you have the camera in AI Servo. Set the camera to M mode. Set your ISO to 800 and your lens to about 3.2 (I know, I know, it is dark. Trust me. 3.2). Set your shutter speed to the flash sync. The Xt is 1/200th I believe...it has been a year since I held one. Put your 420ex on the camera and you are ready for some test shots. Go ahead and set your camera to single frame advance. The 420ex does not have a manual mode like the 430ex or the 550/580ex does, but ETTL will work. Take a test shot on the field. Too bright? Drop the ISO to 400 or use flash exposure compensation and dial it down a stop or two. Not bright enough? try bumping the flash exposure comp up a stop or two. FEC (flash exposure) is set in one of the menus of the rebel. Do not worry about the shutter speed being too slow, the flash will be doing the work of the shutter. And, if you can, experiment. What might work for you, may not work for others and what works for others may not work for you. But use this as a starting point and tweak it to your liking.<div></div>

I think it is actually Canon and Rebok...rebock... They are not suppose to be big logos.

The problem is they are red and you will stand out more than the past photo vests made

you stand out. Before, the less photogs were seen the better, so photo vests were very

similar to the surounding area, green or blue and blended in with the turf or the padded

walls of the arena so when TV swung around you would just dissapear into the

suroundings. Now, you will stick out and be very noticable.

 

The problem is, we need photo vests. I do not know how many times my credential tag

has gotten tangled up a camera strap or flipped over or hidden by my jacket that I would

have to readjust to move around. Wearing a vest, while not a great fashion statement, is a

great idea. Problem is, while teams have money, it is much cheaper to have regular

credentials printed than to have vests done for each game. By out sourcing the costs to

Nike, Rebock, Canon, Nikon, etc, it saves the league money, so for the league it is a good

idea. Look at the photowells at some of the stadiums. On the outside they may have a

logo for a company sponsor or something. If newspapers or photographers have a

problem with it, they do not have to cover the games and that opens the field for more

wireservices and freelancers who could care less.

 

Now, that all changes if you are in position to take a shot and a NFL guy comes over and

says, "If you are going to shoot from here, can you turn more this way so we can see the

vest logos in our camera?"

Deb,

As an event photographer who has worked with written contracts and with verbal

contracts can give you and your daughter a little bit of advice that will make it a little

clearer hopefully.

 

It does not matter if the event is open to the public on public property or a private event

on private property. Lets say there is a youth league soccer game on a field in a public

park that you photograph in all the time. This does not give anyone the right to just start

shooting the games. The organization using the field will typically either have the field

leased or rented for the game and have to provide insurance information to the city.

Because of this, public park or not, the event falls under the organizations rules. So, if

this organization has a contract with a photographer, more than likely he bid on the

contract and more than likely had to pay a vendor fee or a kick back and should have

produced some sort of proof of liability insurance. Also, some leagues require background

checks on anyone envolved in the events so they realize that they are not contracting or

using volunteers that are child molesters, etc. Regardless if you give photos away, post

them for anyone to download, or take photos for anything other than your own personal

use, the organization needs to okay you. In my contracts which are between myself and

the league, include a clause that if anyone distributes photos other than personal use that

they take either in print or digital form, then the vendor fee that I pay must be returned to

me immediately. So, if a board member, coach or umpire see's someone on the field

taking photos other than myself or my employees or find photos being distributed by

parents other than those purchased from me, or on a web site, in order to keep the league

from loosing money, they take the steps to stop this.

 

But, while this may sound like a "greedy event photographer" tactic, well, it is, and it isn't.

It is protecting our business. Your daughter is 16. I am 35, I have bills, car payment, food

to buy and this is my job, so I need to protect my income. But, it is also for the safety of

the competitors. I mentioned insurance. What happens if a horse gets spooked by a flash

going off, or in background areas a athlete or coach trips over my bag, and breaks a leg,

is your daughter covered in case of a lawsuit? Also, I have had 3 or 4 incidents where

there was a specific athlete that I could not take photos of. 2 were in a nasty child

custody battle, 1 was the son of a woman running from a husband who abused her and

her son, and one was in witness protection. By not being in contact with the organizations

running the leagues, I would never have known that I could not take these kids photos.

 

It is real simple to get to an event, find someone in charge, ask if you can take photos and

if they say yes, go for it, if they say no, we have a contracted photographer, don't. There is

absolutly no reason why anyone neeeds to see a photographers contract. A league official

will let you know.

 

I recently had a situation where I took media photos and posted them to a website I use to

sell for media only and a fan contacted me wanting to buy some of the photos. My

response was to point them to the website of the official team photographer.

Gabriel,

Most leagues, like Little League, the board is made up of parents and they have full time jobs on top of working with the league. They may have a phone number with a voice mail and your message may be considered low priority if the season is close to starting. Trying to line up schedules, officials, etc is at the top of their list. The best thing to do is to find someone involved with the league and find out when and where they meet. Drop off a flyer or info packet about the services you want to offer and go from there. I was lucky with my main league, as they meet in the church I go to.

Jim, which Rebel. ISO Performance of the original Rebel from 800-1600 is not that great. Second, in Sports Mode on the original rebel, you are locked in at ISO 400, and in Aperture Priority mode your focus is stuck at One Shot. The Xt and XTi fixed the focus mode issue and have much better high ISO performance than the original rebel. The lens may be your issue, but I do not think it is the only issue. Are you having issues with anything else you are shooting, sports or non sports? With the original rebel, in Av mode, when you lock focus on your subject, and they move, it will not refocus like AI Servo in sports mode does. So, you may be locking onto the subject just fine, then they are moving out of your focus plane before you hit the shutter.

 

As for the lens, you can look for a used Sigma 70-200 2.8 for better performance. It will focus quicker, but like I said, I think there may be more going on here than just a lens issue....

 

Oh, and Digic is quick as long as you are using good cards. SanDisk Ultra II's clear out the camera buffer pretty quick. The Digic processor is taking the photos out of your buffer, processing them, then writing them to the card. The faster the card, the quicker the buffer will clear (to a point).

Good question. A couple ideas, starting with the cheapest would be:

 

1. Better Beamer. Flash adapter specifically made to extend the throw of your flash. It will take some trial and error to get the settings you want, but if I remember correctly, they run about $50.

 

2. As someone else said, enclose a flash in a underwater housing and trigger it with a PW. However, if the raft goes over, you risk loosing it, and more than likely you are going to need quite a few to get everyone in the raft.

 

3. Again, as someone else said, use strobes. I suppose you could mount 4 or 6 AB 1600's on the shore, pointed in the general area where they will come through....but it will again be hit and miss and add some nasty shadows.

 

My suggestion is to get out there and look over the shooting area and find the location that will best give you the ambient light you need and little to no fill. For the times you do need fill, go with the better beamer on something like a Vivitar 285HV and dial the setting to what works best for you.......

Hi Chuck. There are some good answers here. Let me give you a few more answers and ideas. First, go ahead and push up your ISO. If you have to shoot at ISO 1600, then do it. Noise reduction software can help greatly here. As for a flash, it can help greatly, but it can also be a pain in the butt. I like to get the flash off camera because it will give you bad red eye usually with telephoto lenses. I go about this numerous ways. If I am by myself, I will mount my lens on a monopod and have one or two flashes mounted about 18 to 24 inches below the camera on the monopod. Setting them on manual power anywhere from 1/4 power up. This reduces the amount of bad shadows and red eye. If I have an assistant, or can grab a kid from the crowd (pay him 5 bucks or buy him/her a soda) I will mount my flash on the monopod and have my assistant stay around 10 yards away from me, pointing the flash at the action and trigger it wirelessly.

 

Another thing to try, instead of trying to freeze the action, blur it. As long as you are getting lower shutter speeds, pan with the players and try to get some sense of movement and action. These kind of shots take practice, and will really drive you crazy at times, but are fun when you get a good one....

After living in Seattle for 20+ years, I was stoked to see UW topple UCLA. My weekend was spent shooting sled dogs in the coldness of Alaska...a couple Washington residents were participating...

 

None of the Washington folk on my SS page though....

 

http://www.sportsshooter.com/carlauer<div></div>

there is a exposure card out there that folds up to fit in your camera bag with pure white, neutral gray, and true black on it. Set your exposure, take a shot of this, use it for setting a black point and a white point as well as WB in a raw converter and you are good to go. I have used one to create a action in photoshop that goes in and sets the curves from it. Works pretty well but runs about $40 if I remember right.

Dave, unfortunately, no one can give you an answer. Not knowing what the gym is lit like, your 2.8 at ISO 1000 may be more than enough to give you a needed 1/500th or it may give you enough light at ISO 3200 to get 1/160th of a second. Best thing to do is hope for the best, expect the worst. Take the 50mm 1.8 along. On the 30D, this will be close to a 85mm on a full frame, and on the baseline to the corner where the baseline and sideline meet, you should be fine with that lens. I do suggest that you prefocus though. I have found with almost all 50mm lenses (never used the 1.0 or 1.2) they have a nasty habit of focusing on everything but your subject when shooting basketball. I like to focus somewhere between the hoop and about 5-6 feet out and just wait for players to come into that focus zone.

Before DSLR's the advice was always "Get the best glass you can!"

 

That advice still holds true. The 20D is a totally capable camera. Yes, the 1D gives you faster AF, better build, and so on. But look at what you need. Is the 20D holding you back or are your lenses?

 

Are you shooting more indoors or outdoors? If you are shooting indoors more, go with the 300 2.8. It is great for down court action in basketball, isolating athletes in gymnastics, and a great volleyball and wrestling lens. Shooting outdoors, it mates to a 1.4x great for that extra reach with field sports and combined with the 20D sensor size will really allow you to get into players faces.

 

Another option that you might want to consider is getting both a 1D and a 300 2.8 and keeping your 20D. No, I am not talking crazy. Pick up a used original 1D and a Sigma 120-300 2.8. The 1D still is a awesome camera and with outdoor sports in the daylight, and even evening and night football with a flash, it is great. Indoors, if you get to the point that you strobe, it, with its 1/500th X-Sync is awesome and even if you do not strobe, at high ISO, correctly exposed images with a little noise reduction still produce great files. And if noise is too much, you still have your 20D. Also, the 120-300 is a sleeper lens. I picked a used one (still with the new smell attached to it) for $1600 and was quite surprised with it. It is no Canon L, but it focuses pretty darn quick and is almost as sharp, if not as sharp as my Canon 70-200 2.8. It takes my Canon 1.4x TC very well and if you have a lot of light, a 2X is not out of the question, but will slow it down a bit. Plus it zooms down to 120. No Canon lens can go from 300 to 120 and retain a aperture of 2.8.

 

Since you said yourself you are an amateur photographer, you can look at other avenues than the MkII and 300L. I shoot for wire services and I had some shots picked up by ESPN with the 1D 120-300 combo and the local AP staffer is using the 120-300 almost on a daily basis...

Aram, you have way too many photos to really comment on, so let me just give you some advice. With basketball, there are two things I live by, go tight or go wide. I really like going tight on one on one action, but with a great arena that is packed, and a lot of banging going on under the hoop, a wide angle is awesome. A photo of a point guard dribbling is not to exciting, but charging into the lane and dropping a no look pass is much better. Do not always keep the camera up at your eye, especially if it is a new team that you are shooting. Get an idea of what kind of offense they are running and where the action is taking place. Avoid cropping at joints, like knees, ankles, elbows, as it makes it look like the player is an amputee. If you do crop, crop tight, waist up, mid thigh. Also, with basketball, 90% of the shots should have the ball in them, with shots, having the ball and part of the goal is the key. The other 10% do not need the ball, like players positioning for a rebound or playing defense.

 

Your boxing images look pretty good, but I would like to see them even tighter.

 

As for the cycling, when you pan, you want a slow enough shutter to really blur the background and show speed and motion, but you do not want it so slow that you introduce camera shake. You still want your subject sharp for the most part, specifically his face/eyes. A monopod works great for panning, and it looks like you used a flash for a few. Second curtain sync slow shutter panning can be real fun, but do not let the flash over power the scene and you may want to gel the flash to match the white balance of the ambient light to remove the flash look.

Melinda, I am going to go a different way here. I actually really like using my 70-200 2.8 for team photos, and here is why. I shot a high school basketball team a couple weeks ago and had absolutely horrible backgrounds to work with. So, I set the camera up at one end of the court, low, like about 18 inches off the ground, then had the team stand at half court, and then had the hoop on the other end of the court in the shot. I think I shot it at about 180mm and about f4. F4 gave me enough DOF for the team, and the telephoto compressed the distance of the team and the hoop behind them together, but threw the background out of focus enough that it was not something that would draw attention away from the team. Shooting low not only helped clean the background up, but also made the team look even taller than they were.

 

For a football team, with about 45 kids, I had them stand on a sloping hill, but with risers it works too. I had the 70-200 zoomed all the way to 200mm and was far enough back to get everyone in the shot. I had an assistant close to the team but out of frame with a walkie talkie so I could give her instructions on where to position some of the kids and let them know when to look at the camera. With the football team, there was no wide angle effects when trying to shoot closer at 17mm that I would have to deal with in post processing, and again, it compressed things together and with the DOF, I did not have to worry too much about having all the kids in focus.

 

I do use a wide angle lens for team pictures when it works, but I find it is best when you have great backgrounds or shooting locations. If I have a wonderful blue sky with white puffy clouds, I am probably going to go with the WA and underexpose the sky to really bring out the blues and details in the clouds, and will shoot at a aperture that will give me the best detail of both the team and the sky.

 

Honestly, just about any lens can be used for a team photo, just as long as you are close enough or far enough away to use it. And remember that the wider you are, the more possible distortion you will get, and the longer the lens and the further away you are the more telephoto compression you will have.