Maxwell Kruger Photography

I got a 400 2.8! It’s the best lens ever. Seriously, I wasn’t expecting it, but the greatest fact about this lens is how fast it focuses. It is many times faster at locking focus from a stop than my 300 f/4. The percentage of shots in focus have gone up to at least 90% from probably 70. It makes such a difference and was definitely worth the investment. Other than that, it’s a good deal longer than my 300 and the depth of field is a lot shallower and the background bokeh is absolutely beautiful. The only disadvantage is that it’s a beast to haul around at 12 pounds.

Today was the first Penn State football game versus Akron. Last night kicked off the football season with Football Eve in Beaver Stadium.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/160, f/4, ISO 800)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/500, f/2, ISO 500)

Joe Paterno watches a film with his team on the big screen in Beaver Stadium.
(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/500, f/2, ISO 500)

Fireworks erupt in Beaver Stadium behind the football team.
(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 0.05, f/10, ISO 2000)

Here are some shots from the game. More after the break.

(Canon 1D Mark II, 400mm, 1/2000, f/2.8, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 400mm, 1/2000, f/2.8, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 400mm, 1/4000, f/2.8, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 400mm, 1/4000, f/2.8, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 400mm, 1/4000, f/2.8, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 400mm, 1/5000, f/2.8, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 400mm, 1/2500, f/2.8, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 400mm, 1/2000, f/2.8, ISO 200)

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I’ve moved back to school and have finally settled into my new house. First week of classes went smoothly, and I started shooting sports again. I am on the verge of buying a 400mm 2.8, so these will hopefully be my last photos with my 300 f/4. The extra stop will help a lot with night games, especially with my 1D Mark II which looks pretty bad at ISO 3200.

Anyway, here are a few photos from the last 2 games I shot. Excuse the grain from my 1D.

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/640, f/4, ISO 800)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/640, f/4, ISO 800)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/500, f/4, ISO 800)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/500, f/4, ISO 1250)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/500, f/4, ISO 1250)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/320, f/4, ISO 3200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/320, f/4, ISO 3200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/320, f/4, ISO 3200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/400, f/4, ISO 3200)

Katie Schoepfer scores a goal.

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/400, f/4, ISO 3200)

Tonight, Ian and I came back to my house sulking after destroying a camera beyond repair. The camera was strapped to the bottom of Ian’s plane and took a bad hit when landing. It had recorded 8 minutes of high altitude flight and the video was lost on impact.

However, we came back to constant lightning storms by my house. We immediately ran out and drove a few minutes to a field. As soon as I got out of the car, huge lightning bolts were striking very close and all around us. This is the 3rd picture I got.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 40mm, 15, f/5.6, ISO 100)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 40mm, 15, f/8, ISO 100)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/800, f/4, ISO 200)

I recently bought a simple remote control plane after much convincing from my friend, Ian. It’s a very basic plane made out of foam to be more durable for crashes since I’m bound to crash it a lot. I had to get a shot with it before its first flight, since I figured I’d crash it. Check out the video at the bottom of this post to see it crash.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/1600, f/4, ISO 200)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 135mm, 1/4000, f/2.8, ISO 400)

Although I didn’t crash it during the first flight, I recharged the battery right after and took it out for a second flight. While attempting to line up for a closer landing, I smacked right into a tree. No damage was done but it was wedged high up. With the help of a passerby, we managed to get it down by throwing shoes and logs at it. In the process, the wing and tail broke in half.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 135mm, 1/800, f/4, ISO 400)

I glued it back together and crashed it again the next day. It broke in the same place again and I glued it back together again. This time, I let Ian fly it cause I was sick of crashing. Not 5 minutes into his flight did he crash it right into a tree. This time it was way higher (around 80ft) and there was no hope in throwing items at it. We tried for a few hours to sling rocks at it, but couldn’t even come close.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 50mm, 1/100, f/2, ISO 1600)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 50mm, 1/30, f/1.4, ISO 6400)

Eventually, after it got dark, we had to hire my dad to climb the tree and knock it down with a 45ft pole.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 50mm, 1/30, f/1.4, ISO 6400)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 50mm, 1/30, f/1.4, ISO 6400)

There is an old mental hospital by my house that has recently closed down. Before that, many buildings that were condemmed in the 1980’s and left there to rot. The buildings are all still there and are overgrown. I took a walk around and shot some images last weekend.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, f/8, ISO 100)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, f/8, ISO 100)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 29mm, f/8, ISO 100)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, f/8, ISO 100)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, f/8, ISO 100)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, f/4, ISO 100)

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Some of my friends are living in Washington DC this summer for internships and asked me to take some photos of them before their internships were over. I went down Saturday with Ian, who came to assist me.

We met the girls at the National Mall and started at the Washington Monument. To reduce the amount of equipment, I took my camera bag with only the essentials (couple of lenses, roll of tape, some gels and some extras). Instead of a few lights and stands, I decided to have Ian handhold a single light and umbrella. I choose an umbrella instead of a softbox because it folds up much more easily, should we need to go low profile. I set up a 580 EXII on a short pole with a pocketwizard and 43″ shoot through umbrella for him to hold. I assumed we’d run into issues with authorities, so I tried to keep it as minimal as possible. He just followed me around and pointed the light where I asked him to.

It was going to rain so the clouds looked dramatic.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/250, f/6.3, ISO 100)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 135mm, 1/50, f/3.2, ISO 100)

After we took a bunch of different angles from that side of the mall, we made our way down to the Lincoln Memorial. I took a whole series of shots at slow shutter speeds to blur the backgrounds but I still had Ian there with the light to freeze the girls. I bet it was quite a sight watching me walk backwards with Ian to my side firing a flash into a big umbrella all the way to the memorial.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/15, f/4, ISO 200)

It started pouring so we took shelter under a small building until it died down and we braved the rain. This was after we emerged and it was still drizziling a bit.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/50, f/4, ISO 100)

Inside the memorial, I noticed that Lincoln was lit much more brightly than the rest of the room, so I underexposed the ambient a few stops to clean up the shot. I also got down low to remove all the random people. After a few shots, a security guard/policewoman approached me. She wanted to know if we were doing a commercial shoot because we needed a permit. I had to convince her that despite our appearance, we were just college kids.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/30, f/4, ISO 400)

It started getting darker, so I dropped the shutter speed a bit and shot this with a longer lens to create a halo around their heads.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 135mm, 1/30, f/3.2, ISO 400)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/25, f/4, ISO 500)

A few more miscellaneous shots from the rest of the weekend past the break.

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I got a flash sound trigger for my birthday last week. Spent a few hours configuring it tonight and got one cool shot at the end of the night. It takes a lot more work than expected to get the timing right. You can see the bullet that shot the bottle to the right. More to come. Explanation later.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 135mm, bulb, f/5.6, ISO 200)

This past Saturday, my friends Stacey, Kristie, and I went to the Honfest, a downtown festival in Hampden, where my mom’s store is located. There were tons of people with ridiculous hairdos and weird looks. Here are a few shots from the day, though I’m not really pleased with any of them.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 300mm, 1/1250, f/4, ISO 400)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 300mm, 1/125, f/5.6, ISO 400)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 300mm, 1/160, f/4, ISO 400)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 300mm, 1/800, f/4, ISO 400)

This is the world’s largest crabcake. Looks disgusting.

(Canon 1D Mark II, 17mm, 1/800, f/4, ISO 200)

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 300mm, 1/1600, f/4, ISO 400)

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