Double Take x2

I think Eric Ashley gets credit for the idea behind this post, and he has featured my photos in the past on his blog. Here, I'm shooting the SAA Guys Football game vs. the Alumni on Tuesday, August 25th. A staff photographer (If I knew his name I'd give credit) was shooting across the field from me during this acrobatic attempt by sophomore Mark Zelletti-Laur to catch the ball. These two pair of images were captured at nearly the same instant, and even have the other photographer in them. Take a look (Note: photos are unedited straight out of the our cameras):

Mine: (shot on a Canon 40D, 100-400mm at 135mm)

SAA Photog: (shot on a Canon 50D, 70-200mm f/2.8 at 200mm)

Clearly, the SAA photographer hit here, and I missed. If I recall, I wasn't quite ready for the moment, and the center focus point that I had selected grabbed on the pants of the other photographer and not the football player, Mark.

Next,

Mine:

SAA Photog:

This time, my positioning paid off (I got a face shot), and in the 1/10th of a second or so that my camera's autofocus had in between my 6 frames-per-second shooting, it grabbed onto the player for this one shot. In my mind, it could only be better if I hadn't been panning so fast and could have captured Mark's right foot. Then again, William Fandrich (the player in the brown shirt) would likely have blocked Mark's foot anyway. Oh, and if the football was balanced right on the tip of Mark's fingers as he stretched to reach it....