When you feel the heat, the world is at your feet
Originally published 19 August 2018
Crikey, time sure flew by quickly. I'm ashamed to call this a blog when there hasn't been much blogging going on! I've been very occupied since my last post, but it's mostly been with work or catching up on sleep. There was that wee Football World Cup thing that came and went. I won the ol' office Pick 'Em competition, buoyed by an unbelievable 100% record picking winners in the Round of 16 and Quarterfinals. Not bad considering I've only ever watched a full match once in my life (the classic Germany - Brazil 2014 semi) until the England v Colombia game. Anyway, this segue is getting too far on a tangent...
TL;DR I went to a workmate's game to watch.
I learned a lot of things from the afternoon. Some of it I already knew from theory, but it really is different actually seeing the results first hand.
One of the biggest things I took away is that being a sports photojournalist seems hard! Looking at all those great pictures from major sports events now I can appreciate the skill those photographers had to have taken those shots. Gear can help you take good photos, but there's obviously more to it in capturing truly great pictures.
With this shoot I used the Panasonic 45-175mm exclusively. The three main points were:
Lighting
Context
Movement
This lens shows that, even though it's not a high-end zoom lens, the look of a photo depends a lot on the quality of light. In bright sunlight the colours pop out more and the image is considerably sharp.
144mm, f/8, 1/320s, ISO 200 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
This next shot was at the longest end at 175mm, with a bit of cropping. Even then the image is still crisp, sharp, and punchy.
175mm, f/8, 1/1600s, ISO 800 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
Contrast the above image with the one below. This photo was also shot at 175mm, though not as cropped. The nearby apartment buildings were casting shadows at the half of the field this player was in, so the light is not as direct as the sunlight in the above photo. And because there's less light, the shutter speed is slower (1/320s vs 1/1600s). Again though, the colours look a bit muted compared to the one above, and the picture just looks softer overall.
175mm, f/8, 1/320s, ISO 2000 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
In terms of context, or getting the 'story' across, I found it challenging as I don't really know about football that much. While I was taking photos during a fencing competition, I could anticipate when something was likely to happen well enough to time my shots. In this case, I had no idea what actions follow what events. So I found myself either being late or out of position.
It was challenging finding the right focal length to frame the action correctly. Looking at the next photo, it's wide enough to include a bit more action around the goalkeeper, but I feel like it would have been better to frame closer with just the goalie and the blue number 11. Because the shot is so much wider though, I can't really crop in that much as the image quality will look worse.
175mm, f/8, 1/2000s, ISO 800 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
Meanwhile it's the opposite problem in the next photo. I ended up zooming too close in that the passer in the background is cut off. I think it would have been a good photo to show the pass fully and the start of the footrace to the ball.
175mm, f/8, 1/1250s, ISO 400 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
As far as movement goes, yeeesh. You'd think I'd be smart enough to go with shutter priority but nope, went with aperture priority. I figured I would stop down to f/8 as I didn't want to miss focus with a relatively shallower depth of field at <f/5.6 and I thought the minimum shutter speed would be quite fast anyway with the bright sunlight. Apparently I overestimated how fast the shutter would be. I guess it would have been fine if I set the ISO with a minimum of 800 (instead of leaving it on Auto-ISO) to guarantee the shutter speed would be around 1/1000s on average.
Below is a good example where a higher shutter speed would have made the shot significantly better. I think most of the motion blur is from me panning rather than the action being quick. Either way, I think it would have been good to get the photo sharper.
110mm, f/8, 1/250s, ISO 400 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
I did review the photos from time to time though, so I made some adjustments later in the game. This next shot looks better compared to the one above as, not only does it have more action context, it's sharper without much motion blur due to the faster shutter.
163mm, f/8, 1/1600s, ISO 800 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
One interesting thing I noted was the rolling shutter effect. Or at least that's what I think it's called. Basically as I'm panning quickly, the action moves sideways faster than the shutter closes (or something like that). It's easier to understand with the picture below, where you can see there is distortion with the vertical elements being slanted to the left. I've read of and seen examples of this before, but it's cool (albeit a bit of a waste of a shot) to see the result first hand.
175mm, f/8, 1/2500s, ISO 800 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
So I learned a lot in the span of one football match. While I don't think I'd understand and fully appreciate the nuances of the game, I think I enjoyed it enough to watch another one.
175mm, f/8, 1/3200s, ISO 200 | Panasonic 45-175mm f/4.0-5.6
