Tactical photography from my shoot with Training Cell Episode 5 with SOFREP TV ( NEWSREP ) and Houston Shaw. Houston is the owner of Shaw Shooting in Idaho, and competitive target shooting champion. The Training Cell team consisted of seasoned special operations soldiers learning new techniques.
Shooting around two video camera men, one shooting wide angle of the whole scene, and another moving by the subjects constantly looking for unscripted shots as the firearms class progresses in different stages and drills. That very limiting situation on where you can be forces you to think fast, and know were the best shot is that you can take in the situation before it changes. Everything was shot in one take. More importantly, I had to stay behind the shooters line of fire on several dynamic multi-directional shooting ranges throughout the days of filming. I ran a Canon 1DX and 200mm F/2.0 when possibl for most of the work, and a 5D MKIV for a back up, and wider shots with a Canon 24mm F/1.4L and 35mm F/1.4L primes. No speed lights obviously due to the video. The 1DX offers a major advantage for shooting firearms photography in action as its 14 frame per second rate helps the odds of catching the perfect photo with muzzle blast, shell casings in motion, and even bullet streaks at times. Primes on an active shoot are at a disadvantage, especially on one-take candid high pressure shoots. The potential to loose shots from being too close or too far is real, and many primes can have a slower focus speed. The 200mm F/2.0 has lightning fast and accurate focus. Probably the most accurate of the canon primes and I own the line up below 200MM. The 135mm F/2.0 is also very fast and accurate for telephoto primes. But anything wider starts to slow down. For example my 85mm on a canon 5DMK IV would be at a huge disadvantage for an action shoot. For most photographers, I think a Canon 16-35mm 2.8L, and a 70-200mm would have yielded high quality images also and more composition options resulting in more images. I personally love the primes slight image quality advantages.
The images from the shoot were used in several heavily promoted ads from NEWSREP (SOFREP and SPECOPS) brands generally as well as for the episode. I saw one facebook add from SOFREPTV with the featured blog image here reaching tens of thousands of likes. Thanks to Drew Wallace of SPECOPS TV, Nick Betts of Krupto Strategic / SPECOPSTV and the hospitality of the Shaw family.
View the teaser and more about this episode of Training Cell at the link below
https://thenewsrep.com/78234/episode-5-sofrep-tvs-training-cell-range-houston-shaw/
My favorite lens is easily the Canon F/200 2.0, and almost all of the above select photos from the Training Cell Shaw Shooting Episode were shot with the Canon 200mm F2.0L with the 1DX. You can purchase below at my Amazon Storefront.
Check out my other military and tactical photography here
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