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.

Real Madrid vs. Olympique de Marseille

September 30, 2009 - Champions League Group Stage

Real Madrid 3 - 0 Olympique de Marseille

The key to getting good images is to be close to the action.  I typically try to get tickets in the first few rows behind one of the goals.  These tickets are generally relatively inexpensive due to the fact that while you are close to the field, you really do not have an overview of what is going on.  In this case I was 8 rows up directly behind a goal, perhaps the worst possible view as I had the crossbar directly in front of me.  Despite this fact I managed a few acceptable images including this shot from Cristiano Ronaldo.

From this location direcly in the middle behind the goal it is possible to get good images of players on the wings preparing crosses or dribbling towards the goal.

After realising that there were several empty seats in the far corner, I decided to try to move during halftime from my location to the other end of the field near the goal to which Real Madrid would be attacking in the second half. I fortunately found an unoccupied seat on the side near the corner flag again around 8 rows up. 

This turned out to be a very good decision as I ended up being almost directly in front of the area where the Madrid players came to celebrate all three goals.

In this picture Cristiano Ronaldo gives the thumbs up after scoring the initial goal.

The Swedish referee awarded a penalty on this occasion after Souleymane Diawara brought Ronaldo down with a hard tackle in the area.  Diawara was shown his second yellow card on the play and was sent off.

 Finally, the best images are always about capturing emotion and the expressions of the players.  This image shows the three new stars on the Real Madrid team: Kaka, Karim Benzema, and Cristiano Ronaldo celebrating after a goal.









More images from this match can be found at http://mtrommer.zenfolio.com/madrid-marseille