Equipment | Sandy McAnally

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

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.

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.

Canon 7d fixed

In the middle of a motocross shoot my Canon 7d died with the dreaded ERR 40. I’ve had the camera for a year and a half but the battery grip was new. I tried all of the suggestions to clear the error but no luck.

I looked inside the battery compartment and noticed the contacts were dimpled where ever the grip had a pin to make contact with it, some more than others. I think it’s possible at least one of the contacts may have shorted through to the next layer which appears to be a power or ground layer.

I sent the camera and the grip to Canon for repair. To my surprise, I got the repair at no charge even though the camera is out of warranty. The details stated that “the power supply assembly had shorted the unit” and the “power supply assembly was replaced”. They examined the grip and found no problems.

I got the camera and grip back this afternoon, error gone. Removed the grip and still see indentations, not sure if it’s the same board or not. I haven’t had a chance to take any photographs yet. I hope I have no repeat of this problem.

Thanks to Canon repair in Irvine CA for a quick turnaround.