Big Ten Men's Golf Championship

May 2 2009

This weekend is the Big Ten Men’s golf championship. I photographed the first round yesterday. The Nittany Lions started on hole 10 at 9am (which I wasn’t happy about when I woke up early to get there at 8). I borrowed my friend’s Nikon 200-400 f/4 lens to use so that I could get some more length than my 300mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter. With a 1.4x, you the lens gets a max 550mm. That’s sweet and it definitely helps a great deal because it blurs the background more and lets you get further away from the golfers so as not to disturb them. I can’t wait to pick up my own 400 2.8.

I was also able to get really close by using the silent shooting mode on my 5D.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 40mm, 1/320, f/4, ISO 400)

It rained on and off throughout the morning which was moderately unpleasant.

Golf is an incredibly fun sport to shoot for me because it is so beautiful. I love standing at a corner of 2 or three holes and bouncing back and forth between them, all the while getting all totally different shots. If I could, I’d shoot golf every weekend but there are only big tournaments once or twice a semester at the Penn State courses. It really helps having 400 and 600mm lenses and it’s such a pleasure to use a long lens. You really can fill the frame and the backgrounds become so clean.

(Nikon D300, 550mm, 1/400, f/5.6, ISO 800)

While waiting for a pair to finish up a hole so the next could tee off, I spotted a family of ducks crossing the the 1st hole green.

(Nikon D300, 550mm, 1/400, f/5.6, ISO 400)

Hole 14 is beautiful with a small pond behind it. I hung around there for a while. I could shoot the end of 13, all of 14, and teeing off at 15.

(Nikon D300, 370mm, 1/640, f/5.6, ISO 500)

(Nikon D300, 550mm, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 500)

(Nikon D300, 460mm, 1/400, f/5.6, ISO 500)

(Nikon D300, 550mm, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 500)

(Nikon D300, 280mm, 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 500)

(Nikon D300, 550mm, 1/800, f/5.6, ISO 500)