Night Football with Flash

July 20, 2008 | Filed Under football, off-camera flash, photography tips 

If you are a sports photographer and frequently shoot high school night games of football, soccer, or lacrosse, you have probably experienced poor lighting.  Some of the newer fields have decent lighting, but a majority of the ones I visit are marginal at best.

Prior to Bel Air High School being remodeled, if I shot a game without flash on the old football field, I would usually come away disappointed with my results.  The light reading on that field was ISO 3200 f/2.8 1/250 on the best lit areas of the field. The team wears dark blue uniforms and shots from the endzone and sideline would be horrible, unless you shot at 1/60.

If you shoot at night with a flash sitting on-camera, you will end up with a majority of your subjects with red eye or ghost (white) eye.  Pupils are dilated and the light from your flash is so close to the lens axis that red eye is unavoidable in that situation.   To use flash without getting red eye, the flash needs to be distanced from the lens axis.  One way would be to put the flash up high above your camera.  Well, in doing that, you being nimble and having the ability to move up and down the sidelines quickly is probably hindered.  What I do is put my flash below my camera. This allows me to move up/down the sidelines pretty much the same way I would without flash. The flash below keeps the weight low to the ground and doesn’t affect my shooting ability.

I setup my monopod with an L-bracket attached with a hose clamp (purchase at any hardware store) about 15″-18″ below the camera. I mount my 580EX upside down with the camera still able to talk to the flash with an off-shoe cord.  I shoot football with my Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 DG at ISO 1600; f/3.5; 1/250 with the flash on E-TTL -2/3.   In doing this, the ghost-eyes are eliminated completely, and red-eye will only be seen in a small percentage of shots.   What the flash does is pops the color and lights up inside the helmet to see eyes and faces –  for that’s what the mom’s really want to see!  The downside to having the flash below the camera is that it creates some funky shadows, for the light is coming from below, but it really lights up underneath the helmet and will produce many more good images than without flash.

My setup isn’t pretty, but it works.  You too can create this setup for little money.

#1: Hose clamp and L-bracket placed onto monopod. Tape to protect the monopod.  I suggest using gaffers tape — I used blue duct tape, DOH!  Washers used because the thin bracket causes the bolt to bottom out before getting tight.

#2: Canon 580EX flash attached upside down.

#3: What the players see. (My father’s arm typically isn’t attached though)

#4: Side view of setup.

Another alternative to the hose clamp and L-bracket is to attach a super-clamp to your monopod and use a lightstand bracket to attach your flash to the superclamp. The super-clamp method will add more weight to your monopod. If that isn’t an issue for you, that method is very simple to setup.

Below are some samples of what this setup can do.

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