Create the space, you know you can win

Originally published 2 June 2022

Don’t give up the chase - not like a huge New Order fan or anything, I only like a couple of their songs. I just find it amusing they had this song in their catalogue.

For the last month or so, I’ve been going to some Vic Uni football games to do some further ‘tests’ on my more recent equipment. It was also a great time to practice some more sports photography, since the few times I’ve done it (football and fencing) were quite a different experience to what I normally shoot. I’m more used to a slower pace of shooting, preferring mostly still or chilled situations where I can take the time to compose shots I think may be interesting. Doing these games was practically the complete opposite - where not being quick enough means the difference between a missed shot (no pun intended) and a usable one. There’s no do-overs, and not much time to think of creative ideas. And while I walked away at times thinking I could have done better and gotten more ‘interesting’ photos, I definitely enjoyed the learning aspect of it all.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 640 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Overall, the last few weeks shooting games in different conditions let me test and see how the gear performs under various settings. Again, while I still wouldn’t call myself a photographer, I have a better idea now of what gear to use ahead of time. And I have a good starting point for camera settings to try and cope with challenging lighting conditions. I may not have ‘more professional’ full frame gear, but at least I can squeeze some decent results out of the tiny micro four thirds system!

And why Vic Uni? Well, I live in the CBD and I don’t have a car, so I’m limited to easily walkable distances. And Vic Uni has the closest ‘home’ field to me so that was that. I may venture down to games in Wakefield Park or something since I can take the bus to the zoo earlier in the day - if I wasn’t feeling too lazy that is!

Anyway, onto the specifics…

For full game albums, I will upload them to individual galleries here. The links will be activated as they finish uploading.

Games 1 and 2

I started out with back to back games with a 12pm women’s game then the men’s one at 2:30pm. This was back in late April so the weather was still generally good.

Thinking that reach would be good, I stuck the MC-20 2x teleconverter on the Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8, which basically turned it into an 80-300mm f/5.6 (a full frame equivalent of 160-600mm reach). I set the OM-1 on auto-ISO with a 1/1000s minimum shutter speed to try and freeze the action as well as possible.

The shots with the MC-20 are still decently sharp, but “unfortunately” I have seen the sharpness coming from the 40-150mm on its own so I can’t help but compare the photos between those “with” or “without” teleconverters.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-20 @ 114mm, f/5.6, 1/1250s, 200 ISO | OM System OM-1*

I know that the sharpness and the details of the photos are really only noticeable when you zoom the pictures in to their full sizes. But because I edit them before posting, I basically can’t escape ‘pixel-peeping’. If I see the “with teleconverter” photos in more standard-sized screens (e.g. a tablet or phone where likely viewers of this blog would see these pictures from; I edit on a 27-inch 1440p monitor for reference), then I probably would think they are comparable enough in quality to those photos “without teleconverter”. You’ll see what I mean if you keep an eye out, especially with the ‘look’ of the photos, for the pics without the “+ MC-20” in the settings tag.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-20 @ 230mm, f/5.6, 1/1000s, 1000 ISO | OM System OM-1*

While the MC-20 isn’t bad by any means, I think it’s the inconsistency that is somewhat of a letdown (again, being very nitpicky here!). I think part of it may be the auto-focus being a tad bit slower compared to the 40-150mm without the teleconverter. Compare the next two photos below:

I found that with the MC-20 attached, the pictures tend to be sharper when the focus point/subject is closer towards the camera. When the subject is farther away, it starts to become softer. So the player #4 looks sharper despite being at 300mm, compared to the yellow shirted player who was farther away from me but with the lens only at 230mm.

The other thing that affects image quality is the ISO setting, where higher ISOs tend to look less defined to me - almost smudgy at the really high end. The next photo is also at 300mm, but at ISO 1250. Compared to the photo of the #4 player above (ISO 400), the photo starts to look softer. Yes, the girls are slightly farther away than #4 was, but as you’ll see in the “without teleconverter” photos later, the photos are still sharp even when the subject(s) is farther away.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-20 @ 300mm, f/5.6, 1/1000s, 1250 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Games 3 and 4

The following weekend, I decided to do a bit more of a ‘scientific’ test. I.e. I made the deliberate choice to shoot half the game with the MC-20, and half without. Because I had two back to back games again, I also tried to make sure the comparisons were under the same lighting conditions. So I went with:

1st half Game 1 - without teleconverter
2nd half Game 1 - with teleconverter
1st half Game 2 - with teleconverter
2nd half Game 2 - without teleconverter

Not a rigorous ‘scientific’ test, but at least there was some level of control for the variables.

Immediately you can see that without the MC-20, the 40-150mm has a different look on its own. I would attribute this to the wider aperture possible (f/2.8 wide open, as opposed to only f/5.6 with the MC-20).

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/1600s, 200 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Aperture is one of the variables that affect the subject separation, or the background blur as most people would say. The wider the aperture, the narrower the focus plane is. But if the subject itself is closer to the lens, then that gives a more pronounced blur effect as well. And lastly, focal length is another variable, where the shorter end (40mm) has less potential for background blur than the wider end (150mm). So basically…

Wide aperture + close subject focus + focal length = more blurriness potential

Compare the next two photos…

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 64mm, f/2.8, 1/5000s, 200 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Both the image above and the next one were shot wide open with the aperture at f/2.8. I was slightly closer to #10 above than to #5 below, but not by much. The bigger variable difference is in the focal length. With the above photo being at 64mm, compared to the 150mm below, the blur is less pronounced. The player in yellow above is also in focus more than the yellow player in the photo below. I’m not very good at explaining it but the difference is there, though subtle.

The difference in subject separation is more noticeable in the MC-20 shots below. I read up online on possible improvements to sharpness, and apparently the pictures are more likely to be sharper when stopping the aperture down to about f/8. So that’s what I did.

The next few pictures are somewhat sharper than the MC-20 photos from Games 1 and 2, but because the aperture is smaller here, there is even less subject separation than before.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-20 @ 170mm, f/8, 1/1000s, 1250 ISO | OM System OM-1*

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-20 @ 250mm, f/8, 1/1000s, 1600 ISO | OM System OM-1*

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-20 @ 300mm, f/8, 1/1000s, 640 ISO | OM System OM-1*

The photo above shows that the subject doesn’t stand out from the out of focus areas as much, even at 300mm, because of the f/8 aperture.

The contrast in look is more apparent when you look at the next picture, without the MC-20 (we’re in the second half of Game 2 now).

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 135mm, f/2.8, 1/2500s, 200 ISO | OM System OM-1*

What I like with the photo above is that it demonstrates how, even with a much smaller sensor compared to a full frame camera, you can still get that ‘professional look’ even with a micro four thirds system. And since I’m but a hobbyist, it’s cool to me to be able to get shots like that even if it’s not as frequent as a pro would.

But back to reality - sometimes when the other variables aren’t as favourable, it can still result in a more average photo. In the next photo, even at 150mm and f/2.8, there’s less subject separation because the subjects are too far away to have a visible effect (the photo is cropped quite a bit already). At least it’s still sharp.

And of course, the biggest variable in terms of overall image quality is light! Here the afternoon is well and truly in, with the sun behind the big apartment building next door to the park. So most of the field is in the shadows, resulting in less interesting light dynamic.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 400 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Game 5

In the next game, I decided to forgo the MC-20 altogether and stick with the 40-150mm range.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/1250s, 200 ISO | OM System OM-1*

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 120mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 1000 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Because of the shorter range, I have fewer photos with close ups of the players or whatever else interesting. The shot above is more typical of the composition, with it being as far as it can zoom in at 150mm. So if I were to focus on something farther away, say the lady in blue in the far background, that’s pretty much as big as they would be in the frame - less usable in that regard. The only way around it would be to walk around more and create the opportunities to shoot different subjects at a closer and manageable range.

The other thing I was learning was that photos tend to look more interesting when the people are facing closer to the camera. The previous two photos are good examples where there’s something kind of interesting going on with the action, but they would have been more interesting if the viewer could ‘connect’ more with the photo by seeing the subjects’ faces.

The picture below is somewhat better, but then the other learning that came up was using the space around me to get better line of sight. Here you can see some action happening, but the coach is ostensibly in the shot. The main focus is on the ball player anyway, but the figure on the right is too distracting in my view.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 640 ISO | OM System OM-1*

What is cool though is when I get some lucky timing to get a good (to me) shot. The one below happens to show the ball hitting the back of the net for the goal, but also the elation from the player after scoring. It may be a better photo if I had zoomed in closer than 67mm, but there would have been less chance of me getting everything important in the same frame.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 67mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 200 ISO | OM System OM-1*

One thing I forgot to mention is that in Games 1 and 2 I tried to shoot a more balanced coverage between the two teams playing. But I found that I was too distracted trying to be ‘impartial’ in getting the same amount of action shots for both teams, and also managing the memory card capacities across multiple games, I decided by game 3 to approach it as a team photographer rather than a more objective sports photojournalist. So from Game 3 onwards I mainly focus on the Victoria University players.

Game 6

While I preferred shooting with a bare 40-150mm lens, I decided to test whether the MC-14 1.4x teleconverter performed any better than the MC-20. The MC-14 effectively turns the 40-150mm into a 56-210mm f/4 lens (112-420mm in full frame terms).

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-14 @ 210mm, f/8, 1/1000s, 1600 ISO | OM System OM-1*

The picture above looks comparable in sharpness to the MC-20 at f/8. It may be a tad sharper, but hard for me to really discern a difference.

I tried opening up the aperture since the MC-14 can open wider than the MC-20, so in my head I thought stopping down from f/4 to f/6.3 should yield the same increase in sharpness as f/5.6 to f/8. I don’t think it actually works that way, but the picture below is still reasonably sharp. And even with the ISO at 1250, I had slightly better light compared to when I was there in the same field in Games 1 and 2. So the picture isn’t as noisy/smudgy below compared to some Game 1 or 2 photos.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-14 @ 210mm, f/6.3, 1/1000s, 1250 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Again I did the half-and-half approach to the game with some MC-14 photos and some without. The next pictures shows the difference between the choices.

The photo below is at the full 210mm, shot at f8 to make sure it’s sharper. Having it at f/8 though meant that I had to push the ISO up to compensate. Here it’s at 1600. So the sharpness gain from stopping down to f/8 is kind of offset by the increase in ISO. But I do get closer to the subject more easily.

The next photo down is at 150mm since I removed the teleconverter. But this is actually a heavily cropped photo (the previous one was only cropped for fixing the angle and slight framing choice).

Here’s how much it was cropped for context:

As you can see above, without the teleconverter I had to crop significantly to get the players closer in size to the one before. And you’ll notice that the players still don’t fill the frame as much as the previous one. Despite that, since it was shot at f/2.8 I can keep the ISO low - here it’s at 200. The means there’s less noise in the photo, and coupled with the 40-150mm’s sharpness when bare, there’s not actually that much difference in quality between having the MC-14 and cropping in.

So basically it’s a choice between having a longer reach but smaller apertures/higher ISO vs shorter reach but larger apertures/lower ISOs. And sometimes, the conditions make that choice for you, which you’ll see in Games 7 and 8.

But before we get there, here’s a couple of other decent shots from the set. I quite like the next one as it’s got good action and decent framing. Probably the only thing I would like more is if the light was better on the day. This was in the afternoon and already the sun was behind the campus buildings, on top of it being a really cloudy day. So it was mostly in the shadows for me during the game.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 95mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 320 ISO | OM System OM-1*

The next photo is one I like just because I managed to get a reaction shot. What happened was an opposition player got a head knock from a fast ball minutes earlier, and then the player in green (at the edge of the photo) hit that same player in the face. I can see why the girl reacted that way! The opposition was ok by the way, so no worries there.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 100mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 250 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Games 7 and 8

As I alluded to earlier, sometimes the conditions narrow down your gear choices for you.

It was a drizzly and cloudy day, with the rain starting up pretty early and then worsening as the afternoon continued. This first game was a good time for me to confirm my settings as it wasn’t too heavy with the rain yet.

Because it was dark, it was a no-brainer to forgo any teleconverters so I can keep the aperture as wide as possible to let more light in at f/2.8. That way I can avoid dropping the shutter speed too much. I started out at 1/1000s but then let it go down to 1/800s as a minimum later when it was getting darker.

I also deliberately set the camera to -0.7 exposure compensation, because I knew I can push the exposure up during editing and keep it cleaner with a lower ISO. If I didn’t set the compensation down, the camera likely would have had to push the ISOs up too high by itself, so I would be losing some sharpness there as well. Basically I prefer the quality of an adjusted ISO 200 compared to an unadjusted ISO 3200+.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 500 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Interestingly though, even at 1/1000s shutter speeds sometimes things like the ball still move fast enough to have motion blur. But this was few and far between so I was content to leave it at 1/1000s, or even 1/800 as you’ll see later.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 320 ISO | OM System OM-1*

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s, 1000 ISO | OM System OM-1*

The photo above is another example of cropping in still being ok. The image isn’t the greatest, but at least it’s cleaner at ISO 1000 instead of ISO 3200 or even ISO 6400+ if I used either teleconverters.

In the next game, the light was starting to dip some more. So I dropped the minimum shutter speed to 1/800s to gain a tiny bit more light for lower ISOs. You can see below that it was still enough to freeze motion, and also keeping the ISO at 640. I just increased the exposure in post-processing and it looks more correctly exposed.

Even though it was raining, I really enjoyed being out there to get some decent shots. I’m glad some of them turned out looking good - I think the colours of the team kits also helped to make the photos pop against the green backdrop of the field.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 115mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 800 ISO | OM System OM-1*

And of course the OM-1 autofocus system gave me more opportunities to get useable action shots.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 70mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 640 ISO | OM System OM-1*

I think the next photo shows the conditions quite well. While I increased the exposure during editing, I was also conscious of keeping the exposure to match how I saw the game that day. And boy it was getting gloomy with the rain and the clouds! But at least I still had the option of increasing the ISO if it got significantly darker.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 800 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Game 9

After the challenging weekend of Games 7 and 8, I decided to give the MC-20 another try. I figured that since the photos will only really be viewed online then it wouldn’t be a huge deal to have noisier, high ISO images. The first photos are both over 1000 ISO, and for the most part they look fine.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-20 @ 212mm, f/8, 1/800s, 1600 ISO | OM System OM-1*

I still prefer the shallower depth of field with a wide f/2.8 aperture, but I don’t mind f/8 as much as the other ‘issue’ I found.

Since I had gotten so used to the range of the 40-150mm on its own (including how far I need to twist the zoom ring to change focal lengths), I had a difficult time keeping up with the action when I had to adjust the zoom! I would either be too slow to zoom in/out, or I end up overshooting the framing.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 + MC-20 @ 96mm, f/8, 1/800s, 1250 ISO | OM System OM-1*

So in the end I removed the teleconverter and settled for what’s familiar. I may not be getting as close, but I end up with more keepers since I can still crop as an option.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 320 ISO | OM System OM-1*

I can still get close shots when needed, I simply had to learn to move a lot more during the game!

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 250 ISO | OM System OM-1*

I’ve mentioned in the past that I prefer not to ‘interfere’ with what I’m shooting, hence I wouldn’t ask a player to look at the camera or anything, regardless of them playing or not. So it’s nice when it happens organically by chance.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 120mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 250 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Sometimes I’m reminded of how much more I need to get better at. The next photo would have been an awesome shot of the goal if I managed to get the playing area in focus. In this case the autofocus landed on #3, so the actual header of a goal was caught in the out-of-focus zone. In a way it looks cool since you have that initial impression of it being an uneventful photo until you look closely, but maybe that’s just me trying to convince myself that I didn’t get it wrong :lol:

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 125mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 320 ISO | OM System OM-1*

At least I made up for it in the next shot, with the focus now in the correct area and managing to capture the elation of the goal.

Here again the OM-1 managed to get a well-timed photo. I did need to keep an eye on my memory card capacity a lot though since it was so easy to fill up taking quick bursts of photos.

Later in the afternoon the sun peeked out of the clouds for a bit, but because it was also shining in between the buildings it made the lighting uneven across the field. So it was a bit hit and miss with making sure the exposure is correct when dealing with both strong highlights and darker shadows in one photo.

*Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 @ 150mm, f/2.8, 1/800s, 200 ISO | OM System OM-1*

Anyway, I think it’s time to wrap up since this has been quite a long post in the end!

I know I may have sounded unimpressed with the teleconverters, I actually am not. Sports photography is such a different take on what I normally shoot, and requires certain assumptions like fast shutter speeds for example. Of course with the smaller apertures of the teleconverters I would be sacrificing things like ISO in order to keep up with fast shutter speeds. That doesn’t mean the teleconverters aren’t good, it just means they’re not suitable for this kind of shooting.

I would still use them for when I absolutely need further reach, and where I can get away with slower shutter speeds. E.g. when I go to the zoo, the MC-20 comes in handy for the double reach since I can afford to get down to 1/320s especially when the animals aren’t really moving around.

Again, the last few weeks shooting the football games have been a great exercise in knowing the limits on what my gear can do. Now I have a better idea of what equipment to use for certain situations and so in theory I can plan better, and also (hopefully) react better to changing conditions! Probably more importantly though is learning how to set my own expectations when it comes to results. Sometimes gear does matter - I wouldn’t have been able to get similarly decent shots if I used the same camera and lens as the first soccer game I shot in a previous blog post, for example - so it’s also about learning to accept that not all days will yield good results, and that’s ok, too!

At the end of the day, it’s the process of taking pictures that I enjoy most, getting good photos is a close second. So I should celebrate being privileged enough to be able to enjoy a hobby!

Once again, thank you for making it this far. I’ll be working on a post on my Food Show visit next - stay tuned!