Northeast Regionals, Day One

For a couple of ultimate tournaments every year I rent some high-end camera gear and pretend that I make my living as a sports photographer, not a curriculum developer. This is one of those weekends--USA Ultimate Northeast Regionals at Devens, MA.

This is a big tournament for those of us in the ultimate community. Places in the Nationals tournament (held in Florida in a few weeks) are at stake, and more than any other tourney in New England, Regionals has the best wire-to-wire competition. I don't play because I'm out of shape and I don't feel like being on a team that will be destroyed by people who look like me but who take better care of their bodies. Instead, I rent gear and have a great time shooting.

For this weekend I rented a Canon 5D Mark II and a 300 mm f/2.8 telephoto lens. The 300 is a beautiful lens and gets me close to the action. The 5D Mark II is not an ideal sports camera because it maxes out at 4 frames per second, but I've been wanting to try it out for a while now, and this provided a good opportunity. (Oh--and also because E.P. Levine's doesn't rent the Canon 1D Mark III, my sports camera of choice.)

The subtext here is that although I love my Canon 30D, it is slowly getting beat up. The on-board flash does not work anymore (I don't use it much, but it is a nice little feature that comes in handy), sometimes the camera is slow to respond, and...ok, well, I just want a new camera. Sue me. In my dreams I buy a 1D Mark III, but even in my dreams the price on that body is a bit prohibitive, and I usually settle for the 5D Mark II. So this weekend I am auditioning the camera that I may, perhaps, buy at some point. Way down the road. After my kids have graduated college.

A long weekend of shooting affords me the opportunity to shoot a ton, try some different things, and (usually) come away with some images that I like. Shooting ultimate can be tough--players who have the disc are always stationary (unlike basketball or football, where players move with the ball), and there is a lot of cross movement (players cutting in, cutting out, turning, crossing paths). The "iconic" ultimate images tend to be those of two players contesting a disc vertically or horizontally. These do reflect the true spirit of ultimate (and they often hard to capture) but after a while I feel like all of these images tend to look the same. So for the past couple tournaments I've shot, I've been looking for other types of images--players in different positions, "emotion" shots, etc., to complement the obligatory layout shots. (Here's my gallery of shots from today.) I wasn't that successful at getting those types of shots today...but I have another whole day to improve tomorrow. Hurrah.

Crash landing

I'll take that, thank you very much

Snowbird gets a D on Quiet Coyote

The camera and lens combination worked out pretty well. As mentioned before, the camera's shutter is not super fast, but I found the autofocus to be accurate and quick. (I'm used to my 30D grinding slowly to acquire the subject...that feeling was largely gone with my rented setup.) And image quality is pretty ridiculous--I shot all JPEG today, and was still able to crop in tight on a number of shots without compromising clarity and detail.

One of the most exciting features of the camera is its super-bright display screen on the rear. Even in full sun I was able to review my images clearly, which enabled me to delete a bunch before I even downloaded them. This is basically impossible on my 30D.

Looking through my pics from today, I can identify some things--some technical, some tactical--that I want to try tomorrow. And while I wish I was good enough to be on the field playing competitively with my subjects, I have no desire to put in the training that they do--so I am quite content to just shoot, shoot, and shoot some more.