How to Photograph an Amateur Football Match?
For an amateur photographer looking to get started in sports photography, covering an amateur football match is a good choice. Football is the most popular sport in France, so it is easy to find a match nearby. Most district and regional league matches are played on Sunday afternoons, when there is plenty of light. There is therefore no need to own a very fast and expensive lens: a simple 70-300mm f/4-5.6 can do the job.

Which Matches Should You Photograph?

For French amateur football, there are roughly three levels:

– the national level. This is the most interesting level to follow, but not necessarily the easiest to access. It includes the N2 and N3 championships (formerly CFA and CFA 2), as well as the national youth championships (U19 for players under 19 and U17 for players under 17). Admission is paid, except for the national youth championships, and the referee may refuse to let you onto the pitch if you are not working for the press. In that case, you will have to photograph from behind the perimeter barrier. You can also try to arrange with the home club to regularly photograph their team: you produce albums for the club website and, in return, you get free entry… it is up to you to find an arrangement!

– the regional level. These are the regional league championships, including R1 (formerly Division d’Honneur DH), R2 (formerly Division d’Honneur Régionale DHR), R3 (formerly Promotion d’Honneur PH), R4 (formerly Promotion d’Honneur Régionale PHR), etc. Two championships are particularly interesting to follow: R1 and R2. Admission is sometimes paid, as it is for N2 and N3.

– the district level. These are the district championships, made up of many smaller competitions. The highest level is D1 (formerly District Excellence). Admission is often free, making it ideal for getting some practice!

On the FFF websites, you will find the essential information you need to prepare your photo assignment: date and time, stadium name and address, etc.

Equipment

A entry-level or mid-range camera offering a minimum burst rate of 5 frames per second is more than sufficient. For the lens, a long focal length is essential: ideally 200 or 300mm. Consult the lens buying guide to choose a telephoto lens according to your budget and mount. For less than €600, Canon users can consider a Canon 70-200mm f/4 or a Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8, while Nikon users can opt for a Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8.

Where Should You Position Yourself?

Photographing a Football Match

As you can see from the photographs below, amateur football can produce impressive and very varied images. Of course, the standard of play at a small municipal stadium is far removed from Ligue 1, but it is more than enough to get started in football photography. Just as in a professional football match, you find all the essential ingredients: aerial duels, attacking and defensive phases, joy, disappointment, collisions, falls, tackles, reactions from coaches and players… in short, emotions and everything you need to have a great two hours with your equipment!

When lighting conditions are excellent, you can use a low ISO sensitivity of 100 to 640 depending on the time of day, sunlight and region, in order to reduce grain in the image. Abundant light allows you to use a fast shutter speed to freeze the players’ movements perfectly (1/1000 or 1/2000) while using an aperture of f/4 or f/5.6. These apertures are ideal with a 300mm long focal length because they provide enough depth of field for two players who are not necessarily on the same plane to both be perfectly sharp. In this particular situation, with a long focal length whose aperture is opened to f/2.8 or f/3.2, only the player you focused on would be sharp, because depth of field becomes very shallow when combining a long focal length (300 or 400mm), a wide aperture and proximity to the action. With shorter focal lengths, such as a 70-200mm, you can instead use a wide aperture (f/2.8) to separate the players from the background.

When lighting conditions deteriorate, you need to increase the ISO sensitivity substantially, to 3200–6400 ISO.

For reference, depth of field can be approximated by NcD² / f², where N is the aperture, c is the value of the circle of confusion (in mm), D is the focusing distance, and f is the focal length in mm.

This formula immediately explains why there is such a difference in depth of field between using a 200mm and a 300mm: in the first case you divide by 200² (40,000), and in the second case by 300² (90,000).

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