Cornell-Princeton lax photos

Danny Nathan vs. Princeton.

Photos of the Cornell at Princeton game are online. You'll laugh. You'll cry. See Cornell race to a 2-0 lead, see Princeton catch up, then see Cornell uncharacteristically miss point blank shots toed up to the crease, and then the sad finale late in the fourth when Max Seibald inattentively and uncharacteristically loses the ball near midfield (too late to affect the outcome). See the billhoward.phanfare site for a slideshow or to see individual photos. The same images, higher resolution (if someone wants high-res downloads or prints) are also on the billhoward.fototime e-commerce site.

Going through the photos again and seeing all the missed chances actually made me feel better about Cornell's odds were this to be a best two-of-three series. I don't think Princeton can look back and see itself doing markedly better in significant areas. Princeton didn't do well on faceoffs but maybe that's because we were better on faceoffs and Cornell got more close calls going Corell's way (I thought) but maybe that's because the ball really did bounce off Princeton before rolling across the line and that's how it was called.

Now Brown is a must-win game and we can hope Brown takes down Princeton, too.

Bill: great photographs; thanks for sharing. Did you take these from the stands? If so, what kind of lens did you use?

It sure is hard to win games--no matter who you play--when the other team goes on an 8-0 run and we don't score for more than 30 minutes. That's a hard way to lose such a key game.

From what people are saying, this game and the Syracuse game have some (bad) similarities: our offensive possessions were too short and characterized by too much one-on-one and/or one shot. And the other team was either able to get off shot after shot due to good backup behind the cage (Syracuse) or managed to hold onto the ball for long periods at a time (Princeton).

Brown's goaler is getting quite a bit of hype, and his stats are very impressive. Has anyone seen him play?

For sports I use a 100-400mm zoom whether from the stands (Princeton) or the field (when I shoot my own kids). When it gets late in the day and light fades, or if I want to get closeups (so to speak), I'll switch to a 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom, which is also the lens of choice for shooting hockey or indoor basketball because of the lesser light conditions. If have to buy one telephoto and you have $1,500 burning a hole in your pocket -- do it. Yes, f/2.8 makes a huge difference and so does the image stabilizer. If you want to shoot the offense it's best to be behind the goal (actually behind and off to one side) and for the defense near midfield so you so their front sides more often. Even from the opposite end a 400mm lenses pretty much covers a tight group of 3-4 players clustered around the goal (alas, that was mostly Princeton guys clustered around the Cornell goal).

I was a Nikon guy in school, now a Canon guy, it doesn't really matter which, but as you go from a $500 camera body to $1,000 to $2,000 you really do get better photos through faster focusing and better exposure control. I can't believe all the Cornell lax and football I shot was with 135mm and 200mm lenses max. The 100-400 is the equivalent of a 150-600mm were I using a full-frame camera. I use branded lenses (Canon) but my friends in the industry say the glass from the Tamron, Tokina, etceteras are essentially as good and the difference may be in the quality of the mechanicals, which won't be put to the test if you're an enthuasiast rather than a pro. The stuff is freakin' heavy to carry and I managed to strain an arm muscle lifting the sucker shooting four HS lax games in a week. I shoot with the lens wide open to move the background out of focus and the autofocus mechanism gets 18 of 20 photos spot on, 1 of 20 a bit off, and 1 of 20 out of focus.

100-400mm zoom? If you're standing behind the cage with that kind of equipment, any chance that Tambroni would want you out there as another pole?