Shooting youth soccer

Odds are, at least one of your kids has played organized soccer (or "football," as it's more appropriately called in most of the world) at some point.  It's an easy game to pick up and requires very little equipment other than a round ball & some open real estate.  Being an outdoor sport, it's also one of the easier pastimes to photograph.  I'm no Sports Illustrated photographer, but I have shot my share of kids sports.  There's also a lot of carry-over here from other types of event photography, which is my bread and butter.  Keep reading to find out what I know about shooting soccer.

Err 30 on my Canon 7D

A month or so ago, my primary camera body (a Canon 7D) started locking up on me and throwing an "Err 30" message.  I was instructed to pull the battery and try again, which worked only for a couple shots before the error reappeared.  The battery being used would then show up as being dead.  After going through a couple batteries in just a few minutes, I removed my aftermarket vertical battery grip (a Flashpoint / MeiKe).  With a battery inserted directly into the camera body, the problem went away.  The problem was solved... for a few weeks.

Rained out... almost

This summer, I was scheduled to photograph the third annual Cross Pointe Innovations charity golf tournament.  It's been a dry summer, and we hadn't seen any significant precipitation for six weeks prior to the event.  Of course, that meant that we experienced torrential thunderstorms for a solid twelve hours prior to tee time.  It made for an interesting day.