Bristol Rugby vs. Bath Rugby - 4th Sept 2008.

Apologies for not posting much, I have been very busy of late.

First game of the new season and thankfully, the rain stayed away. Whilst I do love covering Rugby in the rain as it helps the pix, it was nice to stay dry, and given that I left my rain cover on the dash board, it was jolly nice to get through 80 minutes without worry.

My day started at 11.30 when I rolled out of bed. Quick check on my kit of which I decided to shoot with the D3, 300mm F/2.8, 70-200 F/2.8 and a 2 x TC so I could shoot at 600mm from the corners.

Bad start - left the house but realised I had left my keys inside so had to phone my girl up who was out shopping so she could bail me out.....got on site about 14.15, collected pass, bibs, team sheets and programs and then looked up to think about light. In the meantime, had a chat with a couple of photographers who are currently shooting Canon but are ex Nikon users, relating to Nikon's buy back policy where they are offering to part ex Canon kit and resupply working pro's with Nikon bodies and glass at discount. Anyway, all are happy with what they have and advised one chap that more Canon goodies are on the way.

So, onto the game. I shot the first half with the TC engaged so was at 600mm. However, dont forget that a 2x TC costs two stops of light so I was at F5.6, which is fine for middle of the park rugby as DOF is all relative to your distance, the subject and the background. However, my ISO was higher than it normally would have been, in order to keep the speed at a minimum of 1/500th. This is the speed that I have found can freeze action, aside from a boxers punch. I was nearer 1/800 however, as I always apply the focal length reciprocate the speed thing.

Lightwise it was a very flat cloudy day, but cloudy WB was too warm so I let the D3 work it out for itself by staying in auto WB. Exposure wise, when you have flat light, with sport you can shoot manual and control your exposure or use aperture priority and let the camera look after the shutter for you. I choose aperture today as I was feeling lazy. Whilst I mentioned that manual control results in better exposure overall, here it is less critical as these images could end up in print at 72 dpi so it's a moot point. Also, manual can be tricky on sunny days of course, especially if a ground is half covered by the shadow of a stand though auto ISO can be a godsend.

In all, I shot 120 frames, which is a lot less than I was shooting two years ago, but then I have gigs of rugby stock and dont want much more! Wired images throughout the game,departed the ground after returning passes etc, then had the long drive home. When back I settled down with a nice cup of tea and watched the X factor, which I had sky +'d from the previous evening.

Onto the pix. Enjoy. You seen one, you seen em all !

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He Luke.

D3 pretty much as is. Fine JPEG, +2 on the sharpening, standard colours, 21 focus points in C mode of course.

Your work looks ok, too much on there however, and you could crop up some better shapes and action. Example - 14 could be deleted. 193 could stand up to a nice 5 x 7 crop around the action after the horizon has been levelled out.

Don't forget that mine have been resized and sharpened by flickr.

Hope this helps.

D.