Tips on taking youth football team photos: Pro Digital Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review (2024)

I have been asked by my son's football team to take individual and team photos this weekend. I plan to use my Canon 17-55 f2.8 IS lens for the group photos. Someone suggested using my Canon 135 f/2.0 L lens for the individual photos. I was origionally planning to use the 17-55 for all of the photos to keep things simple. Any ideas on this?

Also, I would appreciate tips/advice on the setup and suggestions for posing the individual shots.

Thanks.

I use a 17-50 to keep it simple. When outside I avoid changing lenses, especially baseball teams because the diamonds are just dust bowls here in Tx.

I shoot traditional team photos and I also shoot individual poses (different one than the "formal" pose) for a composite team photo that I make into a panoramic print.

Honestly, most of these parents dont buy large prints and are so used to horrible quality, that if you just get a good clear image of their kid thats in focus, you will be doing better than 1/3 of the shooters out there doing T&I (at least in my area), without stressing too much over gear.

I have moved to indoor sets now as even I am tired of seeing the same , kneeling in the grass shot, but if you dont have a studio, I understand its hard to do much else.

This is the set I built for football this year, and will use for spring baseball too. This is the test with my son, I have since stained the bench a shade or two darker to look better and cleaned the lockers up, but you get the idea..

EXCELLENT work ! I love it ! I'm also planning this year on doing some thinking out of the box. I was laughing reading your email as it was my son's football team's photo session this past Sunday, and as you say, typical knee on the grass photo that we get EVERY year.

I will start doing hockey soon, and I was thinking of doing something in one of the locker rooms, or perhaps even at the team bench, again, something different! It's our job to be original

LMR, you don't mention what body you're using, but on a crop, I personally think the 135 f/2.0 would be too long ? I use my 50mm on a 40D to take indivudual shots and team shots, although in hockey the teams are way smaller than football hence the 50mm for me anyway is still acceptable. I wouldn't go too wide with the lens while taking the team shots to not introduce too much distortion on the outside.

Cheers,

Bernard

lots of things to consider -paperwork, order forms, products, a lab, packaging, data entry, sales tax, insurance (if a kid gets hurt...). I've spent 25 hours doing data entry and time sorting pics and by picking the right lab, software, etc, that same league now takes 2 hours. Accuracy is important unless you enjoy having parents calling you with 'you mispelled jhonnyie's name' or 'i'm missing a button', etc.

lighting - monolights and backlit with the sun works well outdoors. but you can't move the sun so you have to be able to deal wtih teh BG that may be there. Please don't shoot at F11! The athlets is teh subject not the next county! The earlier comment about crap quality stems from these lighting and DOF issues. It's not that hard to do it right.

Things go much faster with help- a table/paperwork person, a photog, a posing person. You must keep the paperwork organized - which pics (you will take several per kid) belong to what kid? Football is a bit easier as they've got big numbers on their shirts. Easier for posing too.

got some way to pose 30 or 40 kids for a team pic? And to have them all behave and looking at the camera with 'normal' expressions on their faces? Here you need more DOF so watch teh BG.

I use 40Ds for my sports work, 16-35 for buddy and team photos and usually my 70-200 for individual but sometimes 24-70 (for inside shoots).

You do have a plan in case of rain? You are prepared for wind? (things blowing over, paperwork blowing away).
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If I knew how to take a good picture I'd do it every time.

Re>Someone suggested using my Canon 135 f/2.0 L lens for the individual photos.

Who? Any reason for you top believe this person has a clue about photography

Put the 135mm lens on your camera.

Look through it.

Decide if you think that you will be at a comfortable working distance.

Make up your own mind.

BAK

We know it is a so-called crop camera because the 17-55 lens only works on a crop camera.

And you are right -- a 135mm telephoto lens would be just plain silly.

BAK

The suggeston probably came from a full frame owner who takes full body shots of the players. It works.

Regards, Bill

Maybe if you're doing just a HS team a prime would work.

For football (and most sports) mom wants a full body shot -shoot only head and shoulders and you will hear complaints.

So if you shooting say, midget football you've got kids from 7 to 14. It's the same for most other youth sports too. That means there's a 2 foot difference in height from the smallest to the tallest. For workflow reasons you need to have everyone framed about the same - so you're gonna need a zoom to do that.

Could you move the subject? No, tehn you have to move the light and or BG. Can you move? Possibly. if you use on-camera flash (i don't recomend that) backing up will change the lighting. With a prime (or any lens) it will change the DOF and the bokeh of the BG. Have a parent with a small kid and a big kid and you get one customer with two pics that don't match. You'll do that and call yourself a professional? A hack one maybe.

There are many different kinds of lenses for a reason. Pick the right one for the job.
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If I knew how to take a good picture I'd do it every time.

I use the Canon EF24-70/2.8L lens for the individual player shots and for the team photos, I use the EF24-105L lens.

When you pose the team, make sure you have the tallest players in the back rwo. I am presuming the team is not bigger than 24 players. If this is the case, you can use standard benches. The first row, players will be sitting (usually the shortest ones). Then behind them, standing, will be the second row. The third row will be standing on the second bench.

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