Sports Workshop with Campkins
Tuesday 17th, Histon FC, Cambridgeshire.
I had attended the Sports Photography Workshop organised by Camkins Cameras (based in Cambridge). The owner of Campkins is also the Chairman of Histon FC, a semi professional team in the United Counties League. The Workshop was an in conjunction with Ben Phillips who is the club photographer for Cambridge United. There were around 15 attendees this year. Meeting at 7pm for a briefing in the Clubs media room. This also was a safe place to leave unneeded camera gear while the game was going on.
Ben suggested shooting in either Manual or Shutter priority. His recommendation was a shutter speed from 1000th to 16ooth of a second. Due to the very poor and uneven flood lighting at the ground I was shooting at 12,800 ISO for all the images below. I was using my Fujifilm XH2s with the 200mm F2 lens, and for closer activity my 50-140 F2.8.
Histon were playing Yaxley, with clubs are mid table and evenly matched. They managed a 4:4 draw, so we had plenty of action to photograph. Its difficult to get good clean shots and how the Pro Club photographers manage this and send JPG images to the club almost realtime has to be admired.
As last year I initially found it difficult, but as the game went on, it got easier. I had to watch the game through the viewfinder and follow the ball constantly so catch the actoion. Corners were easier as I prefocused on the goal posts and captured a sequence as the ball arrived in the Penalty area.
The shots below are in the sequence from the game, all have been cropped and Lightroom Denoise has been used to clean up the noisy 12,800 iOS images. I think they look alright, and shooting some more Football or Rugby is on the agenda for the coming winter.
