One Game at a Time

The Terps played the Braves in the third round of the 2007 NCAA Tournament. The Terps were looking for a College Cup but their hopes were dashed after a 2-0 lead dwindled to a tie in the final 2 minutes of regulation. The Terps played solidly in double overtime but fell with 1:31 remaining in the second overtime on a redirected header. You can read more about it and see my pictures over at the DC Sports Box.

This was a very difficult shoot. The lighting was abysmal as usual, but it was unusually cold. It was about 35 degrees at game time and there was some wind to make it feel colder. I had on my convertible mittens (yay) and they helped, but there's only so much heat you can retain after being outdoors in 35 degree weather for 3 hours. Towards the end my fingers and toes were numb. I was hoping for the Terps to pull it out so that we could go home after regulation, but the Braves forced the double overtime.

I chatted with Yuchen and Greg for awhile tonight and listened to my iPhone. It was fun listening to Greg talk about some of the jobs he's done. He's gone to the Olympics and it was neat to listen to him talk about working with the media people here and what they're like. Maybe I'll write more about it some time later. But for now I'm sleepy and cold so I'm going to go jump into my warm bed!

Tomorrow I'm shooting a wrestling match. I have no idea what that's going to be like...

On Thursday evening the Maryland men's soccer team took on regional challenger Loyola in their first round of the 2007 NCAA Tournament. It was pretty cold this evening, but I had a few people to talk with. Al showed up for the first half, and Greg was there for the entire game. The Terps played Loyola to a 0-0 tie in regulation, and the match went into double overtime. Still blanked after 2 overtimes the two teams went to penalty shots to determine the victor. The Terps got by on a 4-2 score on penalty shots to advance to the sweet sixteen. We decided to go with Al's shots from the game and I wrote the article. Please go take a look!

The Maryland men's soccer team was supposed to face the NC State Wolfpack on Friday evening but the rain over the past few days caused poor field conditions and the game was postponed until Saturday evening. This worked out perfectly for me because it meant I didn't have to choose between Volleyball and Men's Soccer.

On the other hand, the Maryland Terrapins volleyball team cleaned out Wake Forest in straight sets and by the time I made it in out of the rain after the field hockey game the lady Terps volleyball team was headed for the locker room with a win on their shoulders.

The football team played on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 and that game went horribly. Of course I didn't have a credential, so I set my eyes on the men's soccer game at 6pm that evening. When halftime came around and the Terps were down 20-3 I punted and headed home to get my photo gear. It was 5:15pm.

I returned to Ludwig field in plenty of time to catch the entire soccer game. I was very happy to attend the game because it started at 6pm and there was still some good light around for a bit to take some decent shots at low ISOs.

I used the 400mm for most of my shots before the night fell, and then I switched over to the 70-200mm lens. The lighting right before and after sunset is ideal. There aren't any sharp shadows and the light has a lot of color to it. You have a lot of flexibility in your settings and you can get some wonderfully in-focus shots.

The autofocus system on DSLRs is passive, meaning that it will only work if there is light bouncing off your subjects. In point and shoot cameras the AF system is active and an LED sends out an infrared beam that bounces back to the camera. The camera can detect the time delta between when the light was sent and when it returned to the camera and it uses that figured to determine the distance to subject and what the focal length should be.

Thus if you have very low lighting conditions a P+S with active AF can still focus properly, but a DSLR will struggle. Anecdotally I've noticed a huge difference in AF performance between day games and night games: during the day my AF is fast and almost always accurate. At night sometimes my AF goes all the way to one side and then back to the proper setting.

My shots for tonight were pretty good, and I opted to just publish the ones before night fell. I thought it would look crappy to lead with some good well lit natural light shots and then follow up with some high ISO noisy dark shots. You can read my article over here.

I also made a point of approaching Matt Lynch at half time and giving him my business card. We've been blocked from credentialed shoots of Maryland Athletics and his advice was to attend as paying fans to cover the games. I wanted to let him know that we had done that and I wanted to give him a card with a link to our site that showed all of our writeups and photos. Even though the Maryland gave us the cold shoulder I wanted to give Maryland a thank you and a link to our content.

Matt seemed somewhat sympathetic to our situation and thanked me for the card. I'm not sure if he'll actually look at the site. But I can rest easy knowing that I gave him the opportunity to review my work and comment on it in the future.

It's another Tuesday evening and the Terrapins Mens Soccer team played another night game at Ludwig Field.

So far I've covered 8 or 9 soccer games, all of which were at night except for an exhibition game and the game last Sunday. The night games at Ludwig are pretty difficult to shoot. The lighting is horrible!

My writeup about the game can be read over on the DC Sports Box.

This past weekend I traveled to NC and took pictures of the field hockey players. I shot "into the sun" for part of the game and I did some experimentation with the EV correction. I thought that my setting the EV to a negative value it would make my foreground images brighter while making the backgrounds darker. It didn't work well at all. If you check out my images from that shoot you'll find the last few that I posted are extremely dark.

Playing around with EV got me thinking about light at Ludwig. Yuchen only brings his 70-200mm lens while covering soccer games, and I've been primarily using my 400mm lens. I've used the 70-200 on the D2H a little bit, but for the most part I've relied on the 400mm lens with the D200.

I think I might be going about covering night games at Ludwig the wrong way. With the 400mm my subjects have to be VERY far away in order to get a shot that is properly focused. If they're too close I don't get them and the ball in the frame. They have to be around midfield for me to get a good shot. Any closer and it's getting tight.

The trouble with that is that if they're at midfield I'm shooting them with shadows on their faces because they're at a 90 degree angle to the light. Or, if they're in the offensive zone in the box I'm way too close to them. If they back up to the far side they are illuminated by the lights on the other side of the field and their faces are in shadow.

So basically if they're in the offensive zone at night my 400mm is too much zoom for the lighting conditions. With 400mm they have to be on the far side of the field, and if they're over there the lights behind me aren't lighting up their faces. I think that's why Yuchen only brings his 70-200mm lens.

If the player is at midfield they're equally lit by the stadium lights but even this is inadequate for proper exposure. It's good for your magnification factor, but it's bad from a lighting standpoint.

Even if the player is along the sidelines but at midfield you have a bad lighting situation. If the player is at midfield and looking up the field towards you one half of their face will be well lit (the side facing the lights near you) and the other side of their face will be in the shadows because the lights on the far end of the field don't reach them.

I think that a 70-200mm lens on a dark soccer field might perform better than a 400mm or 300mm prime. There's another soccer game on Friday evening and if I attend I'm going to try to use the 70-200mm on my D200.

It was great weather for the shoot... It's still unseasonably warm and it was around 72 degrees with pretty strong southwesterly winds. Since the winds came from the SW they brought warm air and it felt really nice. I wore my knee pads and they were extremely comfortable. The knee pads have been difficult during hot games because I sweat in them. But last night they were great.

The stands were pretty empty. Only about 1000 people attended. A few Georgetown people were present, and one of the sports information directors approached me during half time. He asked if I was covering the entire game. I nodded and he asked if he could use some of my photos for the Georgetown website. I said "Sure!" and we exchanged business cards.

I think that's the 2nd time that someone from the opponent's team has approached me and asked for photos. That reinforces my belief that a way for us to market the DC Sports Box is to talk with the opponents of teams that play local teams and offer our photos to them. If they're from really out of town they might enjoy the photos since it might be prohibitively expensive for them to send a photographer.

Still no news to report on our credential request to Maryland. Our requests have now been ignored 3 times. I think we're going to make the request to someone else to see if they actually respond to us.

The field hockey and soccer teams are wrapping up their seasons. This Friday's field hockey game is the last home game of the season. Hopefully the Terps will make it to the NCAA championships. If so we'll try and cover them. You have to make the credential request to the NCAA, but Al says that the NCAA has been friendly towards us in the past. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

The men's soccer team is also wrapping things up over the next few weeks. The women have 3 more home games, but I'll be out of town for the last one. Volleyball still has 6 games left and I'm happy to hear that. Next to Field Hockey I'm really enjoying Volleyball. Maybe it's because the games are short.. Or maybe it's because the court is small relative to soccer and that makes it a little easier to cover!

On Friday night there are 3 Maryland games. Field Hockey starts at 7pm. I'll be there for the entire game, and then I have to decide about whether I should go to the men's soccer game or to Volleyball. I've been looking at our server logfiles on DC Sports Box and Volleyball gets a lot of interest from people. And I enjoy covering Volleyball more than I enjoy covering Soccer.

But, there are only 2 more home games for men's soccer and I'll be away for one of them. If I bail on soccer on Friday night that's it for our coverage of men's soccer this season. I'm proud of my coverage of men's soccer so far... But I think that when I get into just covering Volleyball in a few weeks I'll be wishing there was some men's soccer to report on. Tough call to make...

Sorry about the quality of the photos. They were mostly taken with the 400mm on the D200 and they are way dark. I shot them at 1/500th to stop the motion but that was a bit too little light to properly expose...

I worked pretty hard on Saturday night to go through all of my field hockey photos and write my article for the DC Sports Box. I didn't go to bed until around 1am but I was happy I finished all my work on Saturday evening.

On Sunday there was a day home game between the men's soccer team from Maryland and the far-far out of town Cal State Northridge Matadors. This was the only men's soccer game this season that took place during the day, except for an exhibition game against Montreal. I was looking forward to shooting it!

It was another gorgeous day to get out and shoot. It's been unusually warm lately, and today it was around 80 degrees with decent humidity and a bright sun. Plenty of light to work with... My article is here.

I saw Yuchen and Greg at the game, as well as another photograph that Greg works with. I seem to recall Greg mentioning that he is the Capitals photographer. I've seen him at some Verizon Center events, as well as at Nationals games. I've only spoken about 5 words to him though so I don't even know his name.

Greg and Yuchen were on the far end of the field so I didn't speak with them during the first half. I know that Greg and his partner were there to shoot as much material as possible for the soccer book, and I understand Greg's presence at the far end of the field. I'm not sure I understand why Yuchen selected that position though.

I suppose he's following the "shoot where your team is shooting". I'm not sure how I feel about that approach. So far that's what I've done: I always follow my team and positioned myself to capture them scoring, shooting, or attacking. But lately I've been rethinking that approach especially when you're faced with difficult or poor lighting conditions.

The field hockey game is really what did it for me. The Terps weren't in the offensive zone at all, and the lighting shooting them in the offensive zone was really bad. If I had stayed in that position I had a low probability of getting my celebration shot after a goal, and even if I got my shot it probably wouldn't have come out very well because of the light.

When I changed my position it meant I was shooting more defensive players. But I shot a ton of them, and the lighting was great. So do you give up on field position in order to get better light? Or does field position always trump light? I don't know...

During the soccer game I decided to let the sunlight win and I stayed in my position the entire game. That meant that I shot the Terrapin defense during the first half and the offense during the second half. Not too bad of a tradeoff. The only downside is that if the Terps score in the first half and are scoreless in the second you lose your celebration shot (or you have to crop it pretty badly).

It's definitely something I'm going to think about and ask a few other photographers. I really don't know what they'll say...

I still have a difficult time seeing the LCD in broad daylight when the sun is over my shoulders. I think everyone has this problem though and it's not equipment or vision related. Maybe I'll look for one of those old photo viewers they used to sell us back in elementary school that allowed you to put a positive in it and hold it up to the sunlight to see the photo. Maybe I could get a big one and put it on some kind of necklace. Then I can cut off the end of it and have a protected little peeping tube I can use to look at my LCD.

My meter told me to shoot at 1/8000 on ISO200 with f2.8. I didn't believe it though and I decided to go with 1/6400th. After some review during a penalty kick I realized that even 1/6400th was too fast and I slowed down to 1/5000th. I didn't blow any highlights and the lighting looked good.

There was a lot of action on the field this afternoon, including a fight towards the end of the game. The police ended up arriving and walking onto the field. It made for a memorable shot (not a good memory, but a memory none the less).

I didn't get a chance to talk with Greg at all. That's unfortunate because I always enjoy hearing what events he's attended recently.

The game went into double overtime and Yuchen was really aching and tired from being in NC yesterday. I'm conditioned to a 6 hour driving because my wife and I own property in NC and frequently travel 6 hours to stay in our summer house over long weekends. But Yuchen said he doesn't like to drive and was very tired. He was really hoping for the Terps to pull away so that the game didn't go into overtime.

I was glad the game went into overtime because it meant more shooting opportunities for us!

This week we're going to approach Maryland again and request media credentials. I've covered 25 games so far this Fall, and that's way more than any other media outlet has achieved. I realize that one Terrapin Times or WTOPNews.com article reaches far more than our humble DCSportsBox.com website, but there's something to be said for commitment and effort. I'm hoping Maryland sees it that way as well, but given what has happened to us so far I'm not holding my breath.

The next soccer men's game is Tuesday night and on Monday we'll put in our credential request. The last time we submitted our request we weren't denied or accepted: we were just ignored. I'm actually expecting the same thing to happen this time: we'll hear nothing. But one can hope!

I was sad to take off from Volleyball so quickly because Greg was sticking around to photograph the players and their parents.

But I wanted to get over to men's soccer, and it was 6:50pm. I keep thinking that soccer games start at 7pm, but they actually don't start until 7:30! So I could have stayed and shot the players during the post-game celebration but I left early.

When I arrived at Ludwig Field I put my 70-200 away and put my 400mm lens onto my D200. I decided to not use my D2H at all because of the poor lighting conditions. In retrospect I wish I had brought it. After I saw how well Greg's ISO3200 volleyball shots came out on his D2H I'm interested to try again.

It's tough just shooting at 400mm. You get some great mid-field action, but shooting the goal zone is difficult. You really need a 200mm or a 300mm lens. 400mm is just too much. I compensate for it by backing up 20 or 30 feet whenever there is a corner kick. That kind of works, but it means I can't track any action in the box while the game is in play.

I spoke with Yuchen for awhile before the soccer game. I like him because he looks like he's out there enjoying himself. I suppose that's because he's a student and he's not trying to make any money off of photography yet. He's out there because he enjoys it, and that's going to make you more pleasant.

In contrast, I've sat alongside photographers at events that were completely miserable. I've been ecstatic to be sitting on the floor of the Verizon Center shooting the Mystics and they're there complaining about it. One man's trash is the next man's treasure I suppose...

Yuchen asked me if I was going to NC this weekend. I replied: "for the field hockey game?" He nodded and I answered "no. You?" He said: "a couple of us are thinking about going." That got me thinking... Maryland is ranked #2 and UNC is ranked #1 ... in the country. They're also both in the ACC. This is going to be one helluva game.

We're also trying to prove our commitment to Maryland and covering a road game would go a long way to demonstrating our seriousness level. I also love covering field hockey so it really got me thinking...

At issue here is giving up on a football game and a great tailgate session in order to drive 10 hours to cover a field hockey game. Would my wife Julie go for it? Would my fellow tailgaters give me a hard time for missing the party? Would I miss the football game?

I thought about it the entire soccer game. How long would it take to get there? When would I go down - Friday night or Saturday morning? Where could I stay? Could I make it back for the tailgate?

When I got home I asked Julie about it and she said I should go for it. She's been extremely supportive of my pursuit of sports photography and so I wasn't too surprised by her response. With her sign-off I started strategizing about how I could get to Chapel Hill.

At Zenoss I work with someone that lives in Raleigh who commutes to Annapolis once a week or so to attend meetings. I contacted him and asked him about flights, driving, and hotels. He told me that he had a "bachelor weekend" with his wife out of town and that I was welcome to stay in his suite. Hats off to my friend Mark Hinkle for helping me out!

He recommended Southwest for flights and reported you can get roundtrip fares for $120 sometimes. With gas costing $2.75 a gallon I started doing the math and it would only be marginally more expensive to fly if round trip tickets cost $120. Plus I would turn a 6 hour drive into a 1 hour flight, and I might be able to make it back for the tailgate and football game!

Unfortunately the only Southwest flights home I could take left at 2:45pm and 6pm. The 2:45pm flight is too early for me, and the 6pm game wouldn't get me back in time for the tailgate. And the price for a roundtrip ticket was around $265. That'd be pretty difficult to justify...

Al put in the credentials and UNC responded immediately with a "yes". If only Maryland was as generous...

So it looks like I'll be driving south on Friday evening and shooting the #1 and #2 ranked field hockey teams in the country. I'm very excited about it and anxiously looking forward to it! In the meantime I'm catching up on some book keeping and I'm updating shock to do some more things for us on the DC Sports Box.


My shots from the soccer game came out pretty well. I got a lot of shots of the players celebrating after goals. It was a blowout from a competition standpoint. Maryland blanked the Wildcats 4-0 and there was little Villanova could do to recover. As a result there were lots of shooting opportunities for celebrations.

Since keeper Thorne had kept the Wildcats scoreless I decided to position myself to shoot him after the game. I move to the endzone and waited for the seconds to tick down. As they did Thorne turned around and yelled. I caught a pretty cool picture of him. I wish it was during the day but oh well...

Greg told me that on Sunday when Maryland plays he and another photographer are going to shoot the entire Maryland book. He said Maryland only plays one home game during the day this season and so all the material had to come from that single game. That's pretty crazy and it just reinforces the need for the scheduling people to talk with the photographers.

If scheduling doesn't put any day home games on the calendar it means you won't have much marketing material. Or if wardrobe gives the team highly reflective uniforms it's going to make for crappy shots. Or if facilities lands 6 porta-potties next to the corner kick location you're going to miss some shots.

Pretty much anything the team does has some implication on our photographic output. We can work around a lot of problems, and we're expected to do that, but it's impossible to turn out quality work when you don't have any day games.

And what if you have 1 day game but your star player is injured? Or what if your team is crushed and looks sloppy? Wouldn't it make more sense to play a couple of home games during the day?

I guess those are the challenges a sports photographer at the college level has to face...

Volleyball let out and I high tailed it over to Ludwig Field to see if I could catch the end of the men's soccer game.

As I raced across campus I saw the lights from Ludwig on and I crossed my fingers for a late game. They keep the lights on at Ludwig on for hours after a game lets out so I knew that just because the lights were on it didn't mean the Terps were still playing.

I screeched into Lot-1 and I saw the clock read 3:25 and was ticking down fast. I parked, jumped out, and popped the back open on my red Ford Explorer Sport. I opened my Think Tank International and pulled out my 400mm lens. There was very little time left...

I skipped the lens hood assembly (no time for that) and I swapped out my 70-200/2.8 lens for the 400mm lens. The time was now 3 minutes to go... As I rushed through connecting the 400mm lens and attaching my monopod I heard an announcement over the loudspeakers: "The Maryland Women's Volleyball team has just defeated the Miami Hurricanes by a score of 3-1."

I checked my pocket for a ticket, slammed the door on my explorer and ran for the entrance. I could see the fans on their feet as I raced towards the entrance. The regular guys were there and I presented my "free entrance" ticket I earned from being a season football ticket holder. He waved me through without checking my stub and uttered "hurry up" as I passed him.

I jumped over the electric cords laid out across the track and headed towards my regular position (right corner side where the Terrapins shoot). There were a lot of people in the stands and Maryland brought in additional bleachers for this game to handle the crowd.

When I got to my spot I realized I would block a lot of fans. I tried to move out of the way while I extended my monopod and started shooting the last minute and a half of a 1-1 tie game. The CSC staffer that guards the media entrance was there, and she motioned towards me. She explained I would be in the way and let me into the media area.

I thanked her and said I would stay off on the side. I was happy she let me in because I would have been in the fans way and would have had to find another spot. With only a minute and a half left in the game I wouldn't have gotten off a single shot.

The settings from Volleyball were close to the settings I would use for soccer so I had to make minimal adjustments. I bumped the ISO from 1000 to HI.7 and kept my shutter at 1/320th and my aperture at f2.8 and started firing.

I shot as much as I could anticipating a last minute goal would end the game and I would end up with a dozen or so photos tops. Fortunately the game went into overtime and that allowed me to take some more photos.

At the end of regulation I moved to the opposite side of the field. I walked through the media area since moving through the crowd would have been disruptive. There were a ton of fans present and there were a ton of people getting up and walking around before overtime started. I didn't want to walk amongst them carrying $5k worth of camera equipment.

I think it was that point when my friend Reza noticed me. I left my phone in the car in my rush to get to the field, and when I got back after the game I noticed a text message on my phone: "How the hell did they let you in here?" Heh...

I moved to a similar media-privileged spot on the other side of the field in anticipation of overtime. Realistically there wasn't any difference in the photos I took from that spot vs where I would have to stand as a regular spectator. They are literally 2 feet from each other. The difference was that I was out of the way and not in anyone's direct field of view.

The Terps took Virginia Tech to a double overtime and that gave me 20 minutes of additional shooting. I was happy to see that because it gave me about 200 or so photos to work with. Some came out pretty well. Most didn't. The lighting at Ludwig sucks...

The game write-up was difficult because I wasn't there for the entire game. As a result I had to base my write up on the box score and just talk about the individual stats of players. I was able to write up overtime in detail, and that may have been the most exciting part of the game anyway.

As the final minutes of overtime ticked down I headed towards the exit of the stadium. I noticed that Lot 1 was packed and I remembered the traffic nightmare on Friday night when Madness ended. I was pretty hungry having not had dinner, and I wanted to get home promptly after the game let out. So moving to a spot on the field that was closer to the exit seemed like a good idea.

As soon as the buzzer sounded the end of the game I booked to the car, disassembled my lens, extracted my batteries and CF cards, packed up my body and headed out. I drove down past Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center to avoid the Lot 1 pileup and that worked pretty well.

I got back to the house and made a nice juicy sandwich and post processed both the volleyball and soccer photos. I wrote up my articles and got them posted that night and headed to bed around 2:30am.

It hasn't rained in over 30 days in Maryland, and of course it chooses to consider raining when there's an outdoor game...

During the afternoon I was glued to the Weather Underground checking for the line of thunderstorms everyone said would form during the late afternoon and early evening hours. I was watching for them because the Maryland men's soccer team was scheduled to play Lehigh at 7:30pm!

I've been doing a lot of reporting on the Maryland Terrapins over the DC Sports Box. You can all my articles and view my photos here. We just recently put in another credential request, and there's the possibility that Maryland is looking at our sight right now and evaluating if we are credential worthy or not. As a result, I don't want to miss any games until we through this important time.

I got home a little late from work this afternoon and I wanted to grab a sandwich before heading to the game. While eating a sandwich I thought about the potential for rain and decided to bring a towel with me. It's no Aqua-tech waterproof lens protector, but it's not too bad either!

I headed over to the game and arrived only 2 minutes late. Not bad at all. I love covering Maryland events because the competition is great and also because the venue is so close. From my house to the venue is less than 5 minutes. It's great!

I've been debating whether or not to bring my Think Tank suitcase with me to venues. Right now I'm not sure if I really see a need to do that since the only things I would possibly use during a shoot are my 2 bodies and my 400mm and 70-200mm f2.8 lenses. I have the MF 50mm/f1.8 but I doubt I'd use that for photojournalism.

I recently picked up an SB-800 off of Craigs List for $260 and I think I got a pretty good deal. It's sitting in my Think Tank right now waiting for a wide zoom to arrive (that's coming shortly!), and when that happens I'll consider taking my Think Tank with me to Maryland assignments.

But as it stands now, the only thing in the Think Tank that's not on my body during a shoot are my media cards and extra batteries. I can get one of those Think Tank media wallets for relatively cheap, and I'm sure there's a similar bag for batteries.

When I travel to RFK or to remote sites I'll definitely bring the Think Tank, but I think that for Maryland games I'll stick with just carrying my bodies and possibly getting a belt with some bags that can attach to it. I've seen other photographers use bags and belts and it seems to work well for them.

Tonight's shoot was a lot of experimentation. Now that I learned that I can consistently shoot at hi-7 ISO and 1/320th second standing under the stadium lights I wanted to try some other locations to see how I do. I've had trouble on the sidelines with shadows, so I decided to play around with that a little bit tonight.

I used hi-7 ISO and 1/250th of a second at times while shooting players on the field and was selective with when I shot. I avoided shooting the players when I could see the shadows on their faces through the viewfinder, and I only shot when they were standing in front of me facing the stadium lights.

I also backed up a ways during penalty kicks so that I had a wider area to cover. The D2H and the 70-200 don't do well at night at all, and I really rely on my D200 and the 400mm for 99% of my shots. During the day the D2H works really well. It's just at night that it's pretty lousy.

When I backed up I had a wider range and that allowed me to get some action shots of the players when they shot during a corner kick. In the past when I stand up along the side of the field the 400mm is simply too much zoom for that range. 300mm might even be too tight. 200mm is about the right zoom, and I'm sure that on another D200 those shots would look great. But on a D2H at night ... forget about it!

I'm thinking about not bringing my D2H to night time shoots altogether. Or if I do maybe I'll put my SB-800 on it and a wide zoom and use it for before and after game photos. It's just so darn noisy, and even at 200mm I have to do a lot of pixel cropping to zoom on some of the photos. It does so-so on up-front action at 70mm, but when you're at 70mm you get the overhead lights from across the field in the picture and they overexpose, leaving your subjects poorly lit. We'll see...

When I got to the game I could see a lot of lightning activity north of campus, and I wondered if that line of rain would move through. We made it through about 1/2 of the 1st half before it started to drizzle. When a few drops started falling I compressed my monopod and hussled over to hang out under the bleachers in the end zone. I noticed another photographer present with a D2Something and a 70-200mm lens. He didn't have a towel and he waited around a bit.

The mist turned into drizzle, and the drizzle turned into a shower. I was nice and safely protected with my towel under the bleachers but the other photographer was getting wet. He started hoofing it and I was happy I left my spot early and brought a towel!

I waited for a little bit for the shower to pass and when it turned back to drizzle I headed back out. I wrapped my towel around my 400mm lens and my D200 body, and I moved my D2H and 70-200mm lens so that it was located near my chest. There was some overhang from my towel and I used that to cover my second camera body.

I'm going to ask my Dad for some bungee cords. He's a nut for those things and has millions of them. I think they might be useful during potential rain situations. I can take a towel and wrap it around my lens and body and use a bungee cord to keep it roughly secured and in place. It wouldn't be perfect, but I think it might work.

Some of the photos during the rain came out pretty well. They weren't keepers due to focus problems. But the rain drops really looked neat. I bet you can get some amazing shots during the rain!

I didn't see any photographers I recognized, and nobody from Maryland talked with me tonight. One of the CSC staffers said: "hey how come you keep buying tickets and you've got all that camera equipment?". I told him we're trying to work our way in, and he said: "well keep at it!" It's nice getting to know the admissions people. Hopefully one day I'll be able to walk past them with a Terps credential on.

I've been enjoying writing for the DC Sports Box more and more. When I first started I hated writing the articles. I just wanted to post the pictures and be done with it. But now that I've attended 4 or 5 games for men's soccer, women's soccer, and field hockey I'm getting to know the teams. I'm now able to look at several of the players in the photos and know who they are, whether they are upper or under classmen, know whether they've scored a lot this season... It's pretty neat knowing the details of the players.

I made it back to the Men's soccer game in time for the opening fireworks. When I left after the women's game I went out the student entrance and said hello to the CSC guys. They noticed me carrying all of my photographic equipment.

On the way back I entered through the same place I left. They don't sell tickets there but I thought I'd give it a shot. The guys waved me on through. They saw my photographic gear and my MEDIA badge from another event and let me come in without getting a ticket. I was very surprised.

I walked over to the protected media area and told the CSC guard I needed to speak with some Maryland people. He didn't seem to believe me but I kept walking and headed over to talk with one of the guys that I recognized from several events. I told him that Greg had to go over to Gossett for a football event and he asked me to take pictures of the fireworks.

The guy told me roughly where the fireworks would be located and that they would go off during the signing of the Star Spangled Banner. I changed bodies and lenses and decided to put the D200 on the 70-200mm lens. I did that because it takes better night time pictures than the D2H.

They placed the fireworks in either endzone and that was going to make for a difficult shot at midfield. I decided to go into the stands in the student sections in the endzone and shoot the length of the field using portrait layout. I had to move quickly to get into position because they were getting ready to sing!

I made it up into the student section and positioned myself for the shot. I tried doing some pre-focus and it was difficult. I wanted to focus on where the fireworks would be but there wasn't anything there when I was prefocusing. My AF system kept locking on the trees in the background.

I ended up focusing on the team on the field and holding the shutter button 1/2 way down. In retrospect I should have just changed to single AF (rather than continuous AF). The shots came out alright - they shot 1 set of fireworks off and so that limited how many shots I could take.

After they finished singing I went back down into the media area. I thought they were finished with the fireworks because the media guys said they were just going to shoot them off during the national anthem. To my surprise they shot some more off when they introduced the Maryland team. I wasn't prepared for it and I missed the shot.

Next time I'm going to keep an eye on the field to make sure they actually remove the fireworks cannons. That will tell me for sure that they're finished!

The game was packed and my normal shooting spots were all covered by fans 3 people deep. I went back into the media area and just hung out right next to where the fans are located. I didn't have a wristband, and I kept noticing several UM people milling around near me. I kept waiting for one of them to ask me why I was there and to kick me out of the area.

I wasn't in anyone's way, nor was I making any noise whatsoever. I just didn't have a bracelet on, and I kept thinking back to how stingy Maryland was with giving the DC Sports Box a credential to some games. I fully expected somebody to say: "you have to leave", and given how packed it was around the field I was going to have to head home.

I also thought about what kinds of questions they might ask me. Who are you working for? Where's your media pass? Why are you in here? I didn't want to have to say the "DC Sports Box" because I didn't want our media organization to continue to get blacklisted from events. The truth of the matter was that I was there for Greg to shoot the fireworks, and by the time they were over all the people were crowding the sidelines. My gear was in the media area, so rather than leaving the media area I just hung out 1 foot from where I would normally hang out.

When the end of the 1st half arrived I felt relieved to leave the media area and retreat to a safer position where UM wouldn't hassle me. I ended up parking myself under one of the stadium lights and shooting the rest of the game from up there. Those shots came out better anyway because of the way the lighting works at UM.

I was also happy to see Greg return from Gossett. I figured that if anyone asked me what I was doing there I could always have Greg verify that he had asked me to shoot the fireworks.

The pictures came out so-so because of the poor light in Ludwig. I'm glad I went and wrote up an article, but it was pretty nerve wracking sitting on the sidelines and waiting to be yelled at by a Maryland person. I hope that we soon get our credentials for Maryland events and I can stop being nervous while covering events...