Bruce Bennett knows his drop kicks from his kickoffs—an important attribute to have if you’re photographing a girls’ high school soccer team on the field. Bennett, who recently accompanied Andre Costantini to a video and photo shoot (www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2TBxyy46Ho) for Tamron, used the new Tamron 70-300mm VC lens to get up close to all the action from the sidelines.

“The range of this lens is great, especially for kids’ sports,” Bennett says. “It’s really the perfect focal length, whether you’re up in the stands or permitted on the sidelines—it gives you the opportunity to get in tight on the action.”

Bennett has used technologies that cut down on vibration in other lenses but usually found it distracting. “The lens would sit in your hand and vibrate,” he says. “On the Tamron lens, I didn’t notice this like I did on other lenses. Tamron’s VC technology allows me to use a slower shutter speed, especially when shooting events at dusk when I’m slowly losing the natural light.”

Even with the best equipment in hand, however, the biggest factor to ensure your pictures capture the fast pace of the game is instinct. “Your experience will let you anticipate where the play is headed,” Bennett explains. “Like I say in the video we made, shooting sports is like playing them—you’ve got to be fast to get the winning shot. At any of these outdoor sports, whether it’s soccer, baseball, or football, it’s critical to have a basic knowledge about how the game is played and what the players are going to do. The more you shoot a specific sport, the better you’ll get at it.”

For such a fast-moving sport as soccer, Bennett is constantly searching for different backgrounds and places where he can get more creative angles. “At the girls’ soccer game, there were bleachers, so I was able to go up high and minimize the background from that higher angle,” he says. “I also like to have the players coming directly at me. That allows for more full frontal facial expressions. If it’s not a heavily frequented game, that’s OK—that means there are lots of empty sidelines that you can wander around to look for a good vantage point.”

Scope out the field before you hit the turf to determine where you’re potentially going to get the best shots. “I always say look high and low, 360 degrees around,” says Bennett. “Never be satisfied with the background until you know it’s clean. Usually most of the field will be OK, but there may be other areas where a great action shot can be marred by a less-than-acceptable background. What you want to do in that case is opt for a higher shutter speed and a wider f-stop so that you can blur out the background and minimize what’s in focus in the background.”

Bennett gives a yellow card to soccer moms and dads who make a common mistake in their quest for an album-worthy game shot. “Typically what I see is that the images are too small in the frame—they leave the frames too loose,” he says. “You want to crop in tight, then crop in even tighter.”

This is especially important when you’re trying to show the look on the players’ faces as they make that corner kick or head the ball into the goal. “I can’t stress the importance of showing great faces not only in tight, closeup action but also in the overall action shots,” Bennett says. “For me, the facial expression is what really makes the shot.”

To freeze some of the offsides antics, Bennett recommends shooting at least at 1/500th of a second. “Realistically, I’d rather be at 1/800th of a second if there’s enough light,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll bring my shutter speed down to about 1/40th of a second and bring my ISO down to 400 so I can pan with the action and get a motion effect. The 70-300’s USD (Ultrasonic Silent Drive) technology also makes focusing superfast and helps everything I shoot come out tack-sharp.”

A little bit of blur can help accentuate the quick pace of the game. “You could end up with some minimal blur in the ball, or in the arms or legs, but this offers a nice illusion of action,” says Bennett. “Shooting multiple frames in a row can give you more opportunity to select which frame is more acceptable in a series where the blur in the extremities is minimal and accentuates the action instead of deters from it.”

Bennett shot the girls’ soccer game late in the afternoon, so the lighting was generally excellent. However, he acknowledges that the 70-300’s VC technology is important for this type of photography where he’s usually handholding and continually staying mobile. “If I’m shooting at dusk or where there’s less light, I use the VC and can get some decent action hand-held photography even shooting as low as 1/320th of a second,” he says.

In fact, it was as the sun started to descend in the sky that Bennett was able to use a slower shutter speed to get some more general game shots—and when Mother Nature decided to provide her own illuminating effects. “When the sun was going down, it provided a little bit of rim lighting so that the girls with lighter hair had a halo effect around them,” he says.

For more of Bruce Bennett’s photography, go to www.brucebennettstudios.com.