As noted on Saturday, football season is upon us again. I’ve lined up a couple of newspapers to shoot all of the home games for again, good to keep me from getting rusty.

The big change for me this season is my switch from Nikons to Canon gear. After 19 years with the black and gold, I’ve gone red … my trusty manual focus 300 mm f/2.8 lens (that I bought, used, in 1993) has been retired at last and a (used) 400 mm f/2.8 lens now takes its place atop my 20-year-old monopod. (Geez, why am I so cheap?)

Results were … okay. The game was not of the highest caliber, partly because of its place early in the season and partly because of the opponent. My timing was a little off, but it got better throughout the game. Next Saturday will be stronger. I wasn’t fussing with the cameras or lenses much, something I’d feared. (Control layout and menu structures are vastly different, I was concerned of forgetting where somethings were.)

The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer posted a gallery of about half of the images I sent them, the other half will probably be used for follow-up stories through the week. 

It felt good to be out there again, making frames and seeing the world through the lens. Of course, by Saturday night I was pretty sore … knees and back, signs of age creeping in. Thank God for ibuprofen …

Canon EOS-1D Mark II N, EF 400 mm f/2.8 L, ISO 160, 1/1250, f/3.5