Atletico Madrid vs. Liverpool FC

Atletico Madrid 1-0 Liverpool FC

Atletico de Madrid inched past Liverpool in the first leg of their UEFA Europa Cup semifinal Thursday night thanks to an early Diego Forlan goal.  Despite a few good opportunities for Liverpool, the Atletico defense held, giving them the advantage heading into the second leg at Anfield.  

After several matches where I have been a distance from the field, I managed a seat in the fifth row near a corner.  Forlan's goal was unfortunately at the other end so I didn't manage to get the goal celebration, but I managed several keepers.

  

With summer approaching, the 9 o'clock start time meant that there was still some natural light at the beginning of the match.  With the lighting at the Vicente Calderon not so ideal, any natural light helps.

Next week Osasuna vists the Bernabeu for Real Madrid's next-to-last home match of the season.  I will be back in the fourth amphitheater will little chance for any decent pictures.  Hopefully Spain will play a match in Madrid before the World Cup so I will have some chance for additional photography.

More images can be seen on my website:

Trommer Photography

Real Madrid 0 - 2 FC Barcelona

Madrid, April 10, 2010

FC Barcelona took a large step towards securing their second consecutive La Liga crown with a 2-0 victory over Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu Saturday night.  The win takes them three points clear at the top of the table with seven matches remaining.  They also possess the tiebreaker, having won both head-to-head matches.

This was my first Clasico match as I was able to purchase a half-season pass at the beginning of February.  Unfortunately my seat is up near the top so it is difficult to get good pictures of the action.  I was, however, able to get a nice view of the moment of silence before the match in remembrance of those who died in the crash of the Polish presidential airplane.

Messi's first half goal was scored at the opposite end of where I was sitting so my 200mm didn't reach very well.  The second goal, however, was at the near end so I was able to get a few shots off.

I made my way down near the end of the match to get a few shots of the Barcelona players saluting their fans.

Unfortunately I have the same seat for the rest of the season so while it is possible to move down to the 3rd amphitheater if there are some empty seats, there is control in place throughout the match to prevent people from moving down any farther.
As for Real Madrid, there is still a chance that Barcelona will slip up in the remaining matches.  If Madrid keeps its confidence and concentration, anything can happen.

El Clasico

Madrid vs. Barcelona, April 10, 2010.  Going into the most anticipated match of the calendar in Spain, both teams are level on 77 points.  While not decisive, the results of this match will go a long way in deciding the champion at the end of the season.

For the first time I have managed a ticket, thanks to the half-season pass I bought a few months ago.  Unfortunately, though, my seat is in the 4th amphitheater, and with a railing from the stairs in my view, making pictures basically impossible.  I will still bring my camera to try to get a few pictures of the environment, etc.

Hala Madrid!!

Atletico Madrid vs. FC Barcelona

Atletico Madrid 2-1 FC Barcelona

Atletico de Madrid handed Barcelona their first loss in the league this season in the 22nd match week.  Unfortunately both of their goals was at the opposite end, so I didn't get a good view of the goal celebrations.  On the other hand, I had a very good angle for Simao's freekick goal.  I was a fraction of a second late, however, and managed to get the ball just after it passed the diving Victor Valdes.  

The Vicente Calderon stadium is really not ideal for photography from the stands.  First of all, the seats are elevated somewhat from the field, so that even sitting in the 10th row I was pretty elevated.  The primary problem, however, is the lighting.  It is between 1-1.5 stops darker in the Calderon than in the Santiago Bernabeu across town.  Since pretty much all matches are at night this is really a problem.  I am shooting exlusively at f/2.8, but in the Vicente Calderon I can only manage 1/500s at ISO1600.  I typically like to stay below ISO1600 to avoid excessive noise even with my Canon 5D MarkII.  1/500s is manageable for many situations, but not ideal whenever you have a ball in motion.

I ended with some keepers, but none that I consider to be exceptional.  The match, however, was a good one with Atletico playing a very good 20 minutes taking advantage of some defensive blunders by Barcelona and remaining unusually solid in defense.  The result is an excellent one for Real Madrid, putting them back in control of their destiny in the league.

More images can be seen on my website:

Trommer Photography

Atletico Madrid vs. Real Madrid

Atletico Madrid 2-3 Real Madrid

So I learned where not to sit whenever I visit the Vicente Calderon.  Ended up on the south end next to the Atletico hardcore.  On my right was a loud very aggressive fan yelling, trying to break things and almost getting in a fight.  On my left was the stairs with people deciding that was a better location to sit than their seats, making everybody coming down bump into me.  While I was in the front row, I either had people simply standing in front next to the railing or if not then still a large net across the entire end making photography pretty much impossible.

As a result I ended up with only a handful of acceptable images and none that I would put in my portfolio.  With the large net in the way messing with the autofocus, I had to work exclusively with manual focus, resulting in many slightly out of focus images.  While I was always shooting with an aperture of f/2.8, it only allowed me to shoot through the net with players a considerable distance away.  The lighting at the Calderon also has to be at least a stop lower than at the Bernabeu, allowing for less flexibility.

As for the match itself, I was also unlucky with four of the five goals being scored at the opposite end.  I completely missed the first goal from Kaka due to people standing in front of me.  The second goal quieted the crowd for a while before they started insulting everybody: the ref, the Madrid players, their own players, each other, the club president, etc.  Only in the second half after Sergio Ramos was sent off and Atletico scored two goals did the crowd start to get behind their side.  The Real Madrid victory was deserved, but it should have been with a greater margin.

Real Madrid vs. AC Milan

October 21, 2009 - Champions League Group Stage

Real Madrid 2 - 3 AC Milan

Real Madrid midfielder Kaká failed to impress against his former club as AC Milan ran out 3-2 winners at the Santiago Bernabeu.  The match was dominated by poor goalkeeping and poor defending, particularly on the side of Real Madrid.

Watching the match, I was fortunate in being on the right end of the field again.  Four of the five goals were scored on my end and I managed a few good shots.  Above we see the Milan celebration of Andrea Pirlo's goal to level the score at 1-1.

Raul had previously put the home side up after hideous goalkeeping by Dida, dropping the ball at Raul's feet.  My shots of Raul's celebration were not completely sharp, but this image captured the emotion of the first goal.

 Alexandre Pato had the best of the second half, however, with two goals to go with a few missed opportunities.  His celebrations came directly towards my corner which was directly below the Milan supporters' section.  It was particularly difficult getting clean shots of the goal celebrations with half of the Madrid supporters in front of me yelling insults.  This leads to another lesson to get as close as possible to the field to avoid having fans jump up in front of you.

Pato had an excellent opportunity to score the match winner with a matter of minutes remaining, but his attempt went over the bar.  He redeemed himself a few minutes later though a practically identical situation and slotted home the 3-2 winner.

More images can be seen on my website:

Trommer Photography

What Equipment to Use?

While the best equipment depends on the sport you are shooting, in general we are talking about long lenses and fast burst rates.  I am typically shooting football which presents several challenges and represents perhaps the most difficult situation: long fields and night matches.

Lenses
Since I shoot from the stands I prefer to bring an unassuming lens.  I would like to bring my 70-200m f/2.8L to provide more flexibility, but carrying in a large white lens can attract too much attention.  The policy at each stadium/arena is different and I thus far have not had any problems in bringing in my equipment, but would prefer to avoid any problems.  I therefore typically use my 200mm f/2.8L prime lens which is very sharp and fast.  This lens runs around $650 which is not a bad price for a "L" lens such as this.  The 2.8 aperture allows for a bit more light allowing for faster shutter speeds.  Although 200mm is not exceptionally long, with a APS-C sensor and/or a high megapixel camera, a lot can be done assuming you are close to the field.

Camera Body
Since I am not a professional sports photographer, my kit is not really optimised for sports photography, but use what I have.  My primary camera is a Canon 5D Mark II which, despite its low burst rate provides some advantages over other alternatives.  It has excellent low noise performance allowing me to use higher ISOs, and being 21 megapixels provides me with cropping possibilities.  If I would purchase another body now, it would almost certainly be the new Canon 7D which is close to ideal for this type of photography.  It has an APS-C sensor, providing a 1,6x multiplication factor to the lens focal length.  My 200mm lens would become equivalent to a 320mm lens.  It has an 18 megapixel sensor given additional flexibility for cropping and noise reduction and an 8 frames per second burst rate compared to the 5D Mark II's 3.9 frames per second.  It also has a 19 point auto focus system to help with fast moving subjects.

In my opinion, the most important characteristics for the equipment to bring to such an event are the following:

• Long, fast lens, at least 200mm and f/2.8 or faster.
  
• Camera with good high-ISO noise performance
  
• Lots of megapixels for noise reduction processing and cropping
• Fast continuous shooting
  

Some of these characteristics are not 100% necessary in all cases depending on the lighting availability, proximity to the action and size of the playing field.