Amateur photographer having fun with photos
A much-improved Rogers High School came to Pullman. They were fast. They were good. Hats off to their dramatic improvement. Pullman had some shining moments, but I found that more of the photos showed highlights from Rogers.
Pullman High School welcomes Moscow High School in a border battle. The good guys came out on top. It was a fun game with some good action.
Friday was a big day for me as a photographer. I started with doing photos at Chief Jim Krouse’s funeral. He died in the line of duty fighting a wildland fire near Colfax.
That evening I was in Pullman to shoot the first game of the 2021 football season. Pullman had a tough time playing against Toppenish High School. Toppenish has a top-ten wide receiver who had more than 200 yards receiving. Congratulations to that young man, Jason Grant.
Pullman got out to an early lead scoring their only touchdown while the score was zeros. After that it was all Toppenish. In fact, as I was going through my photos I found many more showed Toppenish in the favorable light. I was able to pick around 35 photos to display. I had more than 1,000 photos to choose from.
The way I started to shoot photos last year, with the camera on high resolution JPG and no RAW increased the number of photos I take by almost 100%. I also like my other settings, such as Auto ISO, which have helped me get high quality photos, overall. I went into more depth in a previous post. Unless I learn something better I think I will be keeping the settings.
Due to the weather it was a light misty-rain when I arrived, I wasn’t sure if I was going to get photos. As it turned out there was no rain to speak of once kick-off happened. But due to the worry about the rain I only had one camera with me. These all were shot with the Canon 6D with the Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 lens.
This evening Pullman High School took on Rogers High School from Spokane at Hobbs Field at Pullman High School. It was senior night and I wanted to make sure I got photos of all the seniors. I wrote down all their numbers and checked them off when I got several photos. This photo set is a little larger than most because of the extra photos of the seniors. I also was able to get a photo of all the seniors after the game when one of the coaches was taking photos.
The game itself was pretty well controlled by Pullman the whole way. At half time Pullman had a 14-0 lead. Then in the second half Pullman scored three more times to win 35-0. It was a sweet way for the seniors to finish at home.
I used the same set-up I have been using this season with one change. I went from a 50mm prime lens on the 70D to a 18-135 zoom lens. This allowed me to do even better when there is a play that happens incredibly close to my location. Prior to the game I was doing some test shots of the team practicing. I found my back-up SD card I was using was not up to snuff. Although it is a higher end card it was slow when saving when I took a bunch of photos. So I changed it back to the primary SD card and from there forward there were no issues with just holding down my shutter button.
The seniors, according to the Pullman High School roster are:
Hyatt Utzman #2
Carson Coulter #8
Ryan Bickelhaupt #10
Justin Tran #15
Maxwell Wolsborn #19
Jason Tran #23
Mason Emerson #24
Joel Moore #30
Jace Wright-Druffel #44
Zackary Farnsworth #45
Tanner Richartz #53
Gabriel Westensee #54
Kyle Volk #58
Kaleb Wilke #68
This evening I shot the Pullman High School football game against our Quad City neighbor, Clarkston High School. Clarkston got out to an early lead. They lead the whole game until the final minute of the game. Pullman had tied up the game at 34 to 34 with a chance for a PAT to go up by one. It failed but the opportunity for the game winning field goal was not missed and Pullman went on to win 37-34.
I shot with my normal setup — a 70D with a 50mm prime lens and a 6D Mark II with a 70-200mm lens. But with the crop factor of the 70D the lens acts like a 70mm. That is pretty much what I am already using. I used to put a 18-135mm zoom lens on the 70D but it is not fast glass and I miss some shots.
I have two things I am going to learn from tonight’s game. Number one is to periodically check my shutter speed. I accidentally dialed it down to 1/350 which is way too slow for football. I started the game at 1/1000. After I got home I found some blurring in a lot of photos because the shutter was too slow to stop the action.
Secondly, after tonight I realized having a camera set up that does exactly what my other camera does is pointless. Next time I will use the zoom lens even though it is slower glass.
