Ooh... I'm in Love

Today was the first day of Erin's soccer league's Winter Soccer Camp. It's really a great deal - six 90-minute sessions that are run by high school and college coaches and players for $40! Too good to pass up. It'll give Erin a chance to get her soccer legs back before the the spring season starts. Plus, I figured I'd be able to put my new camera and lens through some paces before the "real" games start so I know what settings will work best. So this morning, we packed up the car with Erin's and my respective gear bags and headed to the field.  Erin knew that two of her friends from school would definitely be there, but was very pleasantly surprised to find that a third friend was there as well. The girls all had a blast! As for me, I was in heaven. I've spent three years of soccer seasons cursing (not so silently, I might add) my crappy old zoom lens, and this was the first chance I'd had to see what the new one (Tamron's 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 SP Di VC USD XLD, in case you were curious) could do on the soccer field. I was not disappointed! I'm thrilled with how clear and sharp the pictures turned out. This is night and day from what I used last fall. I was playing around with my settings a lot (I usually shoot soccer in TV mode with a shutter speed between 1/1250 and 1/2000), and over the next few weeks, I'll be seeing what I like best. The composition's not fantastic on the ones I shot today (I wasn't really focusing on that - no pun intended), but other than that, I'm really happy with some of the shots that I got!

So, here are the girls before the fun began.

Go Erin!

And, finally, some chillin' time after the session!