Another Friday night means another High School Football game at a local high school. Do I mind? NO WAY!Football is always fun to photograph and since I love sports photography even a High School game gets me excited!

Sierra High School Football (Manteca, CA) vs Rosemont Playoff Prep Football

November 9, 2012 – Sierra’s Jordan Lewis (5) runs the ball during a kick return resulting in a touchdown during game action against Rosemont High School in the first round of the playoffs on Friday at Sierra High School in Manteca, Calif. (Konstandinos Goumenidis / The Record)

This past Friday’s game was the first round of playoffs for CCS and I ended up covering Sierra High School in Manteca taking on Resemont at home. The game started at 7pm but I ended up being stuck in some bad traffic. Usually when I am driving from my 9-5 back home, Friday’s seem to be a lot lighter…unless there is an accident, wich for some reason is less likely to happen on the way back then it is on the way to work. Normally on the way to work, there is at least one accident a day causing a head ache of a commute. But this time it was not an accident that slowed me down but the new outlets that have been opened causing major back ups even on the weekend…just what I wanted.

Normally I try to get to a game at least 30min early especially on how cold it has been at night to allow my camera to adjust to the temperature. A lot of times when you come from a warm place like your house into something cold, your lens will fog over until it adjust to the weather, but this time I was not fortunate enough. I was a couple minutes late after fighting the traffic but since my gear was in the trunk for over an hour no temperature adjustment was needed but that didn’t give me enough time to adjust to the lights. Even though I have covered games at Sierra High School in the past, I have shot so many games in between that I forgot where the dead spots of the lights were causing a head ache. I have a very hard time taking photos in the first quarter of the game until I finally figured out where the dead spots of the lights were.

If you never shot a night game before you might wonder what I am talking about. Most fields have what is called dead spots. Dead spots in lights are basically lack of light in areas of the field causing faces to come out dark. To our eye it might seem that the lights cover the whole field but

November 9, 2012 – Sierra’s Anthony Cota (21) stiff arms Rosemont’s Sonny Yang (28) during game action in the first round of the playoffs on Friday at Sierra High School in Manteca, Calif. (Konstandinos Goumenidis / The Record)

when one runs down the field there are some spots that the light does not hit the same causing under exposure leading to an image that you could not use. One may argue as to why I just dont use a flash, but flash has limitations as well. When there is a lot of action you want to capture as much of that action as you can to see what works best. When using a flash, that limits you to a couple shots at a time compared to the 10fps my Canon Mark III provides. Granted in high ISO and low light situations I am probably not pushing 10fps but its a lot higher than one or two shots.

Some old timers might laugh at this post about high speed cameras but its a tool of the trade and the ability to use tools the way they are supposed to only makes sense. I started out by using film cameras and for the longest time had resistance to digital cameras but today I think those same old timers who used cameras with manual everything can agree that using these tools help make photos we only dreamed about!

Sierra High School Football against Rosemont Playoffs -Sierra High School Football against Rosemont Playoffs - Garrett DeVillanueva (2)

November 9, 2012 – Sierra’s Garrett DeVillanueva (2) celebrates a fumble recovery during game action against Rosemont High School in the first round of the playoffs on Friday at Sierra High School in Manteca, Calif. (Konstandinos Goumenidis / The Record)

But now back to the game.

After the first quarter was over, I finally had the flow of things. Found the dead spots, got used to Sierra’s plays, and was able to figure out where the next play could possibly be going.

It also helped that the second quarter ended up being action packed helping the fact I showed up a tad late. Normally I leave right at half time to make sure I have enough time to edit for deadline and the ability to fix any error there might have been but this time I stayed back and covered some of it. Enjoy the rest of the photos!

November 9, 2012 – Sierra’s Jake Pruitt (12) looks to pass during game action against Rosemont High School in the first round of the playoffs on Friday at Sierra High School in Manteca, Calif. (Konstandinos Goumenidis / The Record)

Sierra High School Football (Manteca, CA) vs Inderkum High School (Sacramento) CCS Playoffs

November 9, 2012 – Sierra Cheerleaders dance during the half time show against Rosemont High School in the first round of the playoffs on Friday at Sierra High School in Manteca, Calif. (Konstandinos Goumenidis / The Record)

Sierra High School Football against Rosemont Playoffs

November 9, 2012 – Sierra Cheerleaders dance during the half time show against Rosemont High School in the first round of the playoffs on Friday at Sierra High School in Manteca, Calif. (Konstandinos Goumenidis / The Record)

To view more images from the game visit:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kgphojo/sets/72157631971517503/

To view other photos from playoffs on the same day check out the Record’s gallery!

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=SR&Date=20121109&Category=A_SPORTS1512&ArtNo=110909999&Ref=PH&Presentation=desktop