Sandy McAnally – Photographer

Game 1 North Texas Panthers at North Texas Longhorns

Game 1 for the North Texas Longhorns was at home against the North Texas Panthers. The game was very one-sided. First quarter alone the Longhorns scored 41 to the Panthers 0. The final was 64-0. Now that the first game is over, I’m sure the Panthers will come back and do well. They are a quality team, evidenced by the fact that they played in a benefit game for a local young lady, Taryn Farmer, one year ahead of my son at Lake Dallas. Wishing both teams a great season!

I got some good shots at the game. I’ve been shooting with one camera, two lenses the last couple of games. The first half I shoot with the 1Dx and a 300mm f/2.8. During halftime I swap out for a 70-200mm f/2.8 connected to a 1.4x teleconverter. At shoot at 1/1250 so with the 300mm I’m at f/2.8 and ISO 8000. With the 70-200mm + 1.4x I’m at f/4.0 with an ISO at 10000-12500. Even with such high ISO I still get good shots. This 1Dx is amazing!

I’m still shooting RAW + JPG. The JPGs come out really nice but I want the RAW of my favorite images so I can play. I have to be careful not to fill up my buffer when shooting or I’ll miss something but so far so good. This has actually made me more selective of when I hit the shutter. I don’t think I’ve missed any shots because of that. Plenty of other reasons to miss a shot (refs get in the way, looking at the wrong place, too far away, etc.).

Longhorns vs Panthers

Final Pre-Season Game

Last night was the final preseason game for the North Texas Longhorns. It was cold out but lots of fun. They played the Rose City Crusaders. I believe they’re out of Tyler, Texas. Great game. Both offense and defense but up points. Even the officials got in the action (reluctantly).

First Composite

I decided to try a sports composite. I used a shot from the Texas AAA Championship game and mask out all but the running back Joel Mckoy of the North Texas Longhorns. Here is the original image.

Next I added a background I photographed at John Clark Stadium, the Longhorns home field. I duplicated the player, scaled it up, and reduced the opacity. Finally I added a texture on top and used the overlay blend mode. Not bad for my first try.

Heart of Dallas Bowl 2013

I got to shoot the Heart of Dallas Bowl at Cottonbowl Stadium this past week, my first bowl game. It was really cold and the game was a blowout but I enjoyed it. I did learn one important lesson during this shoot. Check my images frequently. I found that I accidentally moved the dial and increased my aperture setting by a few stops. Since I was in aperture priority mode my shutter speed was significantly slowed. I got some nice blurry pictures before I figured this out.

My favorite shot of the day was of the Purdue kicker, Sam McCartney, kicking an extra point at the end of the game.

All in all I had a blast.

Arkansas State University @ University of North Texas

I got to shoot the ASU vs UNT game on November 3. There was a second photographer there so I decided to play with lenses. I brought two Canon bodies, four Canon lenses, and the Canon 1.4x EF Extender III with me in my backpack (yes, it was HEAVY). The bodies were the 7d and the 1Dx and the lenses were the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS, 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, 24-105mm f/4L IS, and 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5. The 7d ended up with the two smaller lenses, the 1Dx got the extender and the big lenses. As a bonus, the other photographer rented the Canon 400mm f/2.8 and I got to shoot a few frames with that one as well.

Before the game started, I trekked up to the top of one of the wings at Apogee Stadium with all my gear. My calves are killing me still.

I wish UNT played a little better but I did get some really good shots of ASU. Final home game is next weekend. Can’t wait to do this again next year! Thanks Blitz Weekly.

North Texas Longhorns Practice Starts

It’s a new season for the Texas “AAA” State Champion North Texas Longhorns. They had their first practice last weekend.

I really enjoyed photographing them last year and am looking forward to spending the whole season with them. They are a great team and give me so many opportunities to get good shots. Can’t wait to see what they do this year. Good luck guys!

Worldwide Photo Walk

Participated in the Annual Worldwide Photo Walk this year and had a great time. Our group walked around Deep Ellum, Dallas. I loved the graffiti everywhere and the metal statues were impressive.

I shot with my Canon 1Dx and 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. I carried a tripod so I could bracket some of the images. This image was bracketed and merged to HDR with Nik HDR Efex Pro 2. I had one without the little girl behind the statue but decided to use this one to show how big the statue really was.

Officially Published!

I recently started photographing the University of North Texas football games for Blitz Weekly. My first game was on September 22 against Troy University. I got some shots of a really bad injury to one of the Troy guys. Looks like he’s out for the season. Other than that I had a great time. One of my images was published in the October 3 issue on page 5. Now I am officially published!

Vegas HDR

While at Photoshop World Vegas 2012 I got almost no time to go out and shoot photos. I stayed at Mandalay Bay and had a little time after the wrap up. Some clouds were coming in so I took some auto bracketed pictures out of my window. After dinner with friends, I got back to my hotel and decided to go outside and take some more around the hotel, both single exposure and bracketed. I used the Nik (now Google) HDR Efex Pro 2 for my bracketed images. The first is of the pool area. I got some reflections from the camera in the window. This is more of a surreal image.

The second is at the front entrance to Mandalay Bay. I tried to go for a more realistic look for this one. I think I took this about 2am.

Photoshop World Pre-Con

I attended my first Photoshop World in Vegas. Wow! From the moment I landed in Vegas I was busy until the end of the wrap up.

I attended a great pre-con workshop, Real World Concert Photography, taught by Alan Hess and Scott Diussa. I love sports photography, crappy light with the players moving around where you have to try to get a shot, so concert photography seemed like the perfect pre-con for me. We had classroom instruction followed by a concert with followup classroom instruction.Very informative and I had a great time. If you go to Photoshop World in the future, this is definitely a Pre-Con to consider.