Footy Fever!

For anyone that is confused as to why there are shots of basketball, Wrestlers and now rugby league on here, it is because I'm in the process of building a more well rounded portfolio, which encompasses some more traditional sports. More shots and words after the jump. I went out to Leichardt Oval yesterday and shot a game of rugby league. It was a state cup match between Balmain and North Sydney (basically there's the NRL, then Toyota cup then these guys). I've never shot footy before, but i had a good idea where and how i had to shoot it. I always look to see where the photographers are positioned during televised sport, no matter what the sport or my interest (or lack of!) I still take note of where the photographer's position themselves to get the shots. The thing about football is that it is super fast from one end to the other, to stay in good position to shoot the attacking team you need to constantly run up and down the sideline. Given that i am probably a little unfit at the moment( a lot unfit) I am hurting today! Anyway here's a few shots. All shot on Nikon D200 with a 300mm f2.8 AFS Nikkor lens.

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Basketball

SO my flatmate, Chris plays Basketball in a bit of a low key local comp and i figured I'd tag along last night to see if I could get a couple of shots! I've never shot Basketball before and found there were more than a couple of hurdles! More shots and details after the jump. I knew the first issue would be the amount of light in the gymnasium. It is held at a local school so I knew right away the lighting would be lacking. The other problem was the amount of space, there was pretty much two metres between the sidelines and the brick walls of the building, not a lot of room to move around the court. The bricks proved to be a bit distracting too, although one can't always hope for a full stadium with a big out of focus crowd to "clean" up the background!

All these shots were at 2000 ISO! It's not pretty, but even at such a high ISO i couldn't get a fast enough shutter speed to control the action. 8 out of 10 shots had motion blur. !/125th sec was the best i could do wide open @f2.8...

It goes without saying that either I need a D3 or just forget about trying in such lighting conditions.
One other major thing I learned about the limitations of my equipment last night was the old Nikkor 80-200 2.8D series lens really lacks the auto focus performance required for such fast moving/erratic sports.
This was something I already kind of knew, but figured it might work out ok with the odd shot dropped due to the AF not being able to keep up with the frame rate on the camera. It's funny, because this lens has been my most used and abused lens for all my snow and other action sports work, I guess they don't require much focus tracking though!

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Australian Snowboarder magazine - Issue 2 Cover!

Just got the new Australian Snowboarder mag and am super stoked to get the cover shot!It's been a while in between covers, my last cover was in 2006! What i'm most excited about for this particular cover is that the rider in the cover shot is Erin Tanner, it's significant as there has never been a female on the cover of the Aussie snowboard mags. I also love the shot, it was the photo from my whole time away in the USA that I knew had cover potential.

Tech details: For anyone that's interested my setup for this shot was Nikon D200 with 10.5mm fisheye lens, one Metz 45CL-4 off camera flash fired remotely by Pocket Wizard. 1/250th sec. f14 @ iso 100

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WWE Presscall

OK, so back from the presscall today, Got some decent shots, not sure where to send them but all in all it was a good chance to get to a press conference and go shoulder to shoulder with the other photogs (most of whom seemed so unhappy to be there!)

One thing that i couldn't get past was the sheer size of wrestler "The Great Khali", the man is a beast! Check the photos, and remember the dudes he is standing next to are big guys!

Absolutely massive!

Check the bling..Michelle McCool and Batista

Edge

The Great Khali

I'm pretty sure that's Khamal on the left!

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WWE Photo Smackdown!

I'm off to a WWE photocall/press conference today. Apparently there might be some kind of "argument" between the wrestlers during the press conference! Sounds like it could be interesting!

I will post some shots here later!

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Piano Man

Last night went out to see Joel Sarakula play at a little underground basement bar in Kings Cross.

Anyone who knows me, knows i'm a punk rock music fan, but I've gotta say Joel was fantastic!

The venue reminded me of something you're more likely to see in Melbourne or even New York, small, dark with a good sized crowd and a very attentive barman. Baby grand in the corner and just enough room to squeeze a small drum kit and a couple of little amps on stage for a rad little jazz vibe. Nice.

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The Beginning

Queenstown, New Zealand 2007

I have had a bit of time on my hands lately and thought it might be a good idea to start a blog and share some of the things I've been doing with the camera of late.

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