Bristol v London Welsh Rugby
On Friday night, Tom, the press officer at Bristol Rugby club very kindly gave me pitch side accreditation to their Championship Playoff match against my old club London Welsh.
It was a great game to watch, and The Memorial Ground, and the Bristol fans were just brilliant – a real rugby atmosphere at a real rugby club. Sadly for Bristol, the score went against them and London Welsh pushed for their place in the Semi-Final with a
36-14 win.
The following images are a selection from the night – which form part of an ongoing personal project that I hope will come to fruition at the end of next season.
The technical details: All images exposed using the Canon EOS 1D Mk IV, a 70-200 F/2.8 IS L (Mark I) with 1.4x Extender attached. As the match was under floodlights, in order to keep a fast enough shutter speed, every image was exposed at ISO 12,800
I don’t photograph these matches in the standard “press” way, rather, I’m trying to give the images more of a documentary feel to them. I love the old film styles, and always try to emulate film processing in my sports photography.
I hope you enjoy the images, and please do leave a comment if you can.
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Posted in: Personal Photography
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Great shots Kevin, its great to see a different take on sports photography – images look great at high ISO!
Some great shots in here Kevin, with some great action points in the game. Here are my favourites, 19 – kicker, 22 – tackle, 30 -chase,, 47 -tap tackle. what was it like shooting under the lights, quite tricky i imagine!
Its not easy under the floodlights Ben – but I’m confident with the camera at 12,800 ISO to get me a shutter speed of 1/1000th at f/4. Anything slower wouldn’t work….. Thanks for the comment.
Some lovely work there. I agree that the floodlights really add to the mood. I shoot my son’s under 12 team on a Sunday morning and know how hard it is to get good results in good light, so really very impressed by what you’ve done.
Kevin
Awesome pics – I’m a Bristol Rugby fan and had my Nikon D50 at the game – but with a max ISO of 1600 struggled, although I had a F2.8 lens. What are your tips to get the best out of what I have for floodlight matches at the Mem.
Chris
Thanks Chris – did you see the pics of the B&I Cup final I did this weekend? Anyway – back to your question – I was shooting with a 1D Mark 4 for the images above and every shot was exposed at 12,800 ISO. I kept the shutter speed at 1000. I could have dropped to 640 perhaps but the ISO wasn’t shifting so it made no sense to do so.
A monopod is essential for the floodlight shots. Set the camera up fully ahead of the game so all you need to worry about during the match itself is capturing the action. The lights at the memorial ground aren’t the brightest but I found being at the South End (small stand) seemed to offer most light falloff.
Good advice Kevin – thanks
The B&I final pics are superb considering the conditions – great work and tells the story perfectly. The picture of Iain Grieve head tilted back drinking the bubbly is a winner