Another Attempt at Professional Football
Last year I had the chance to photograph my first professional football match, the pre-season friendly between Stevenage and, my own team, Derby County. That ended in a 1-0 defeat for the Rams but it was invaluable experience as I got to observe and speak to professional sports photographers. This time around I was photographing not just my first competitive football match but also the first competitive match between the two sides. I was hoping for a better result.
Before even turning up I took few lessons from last time into my preparation. I brought along my monopod as tripods are not allowed, a small fold-up stool to sit on, and also an old towel to cover my gear in case it started to rain. All small things, but they added up to ensure a more comfortable experience. I no longer had to stand handholding my big 300mm F2.8 lens the full ninety minutes. Perhaps the one thing I should have done however was take out the polarising filter. Whilst it did make a slight difference in contrast, I think I would have been better served with dropping my ISO for cleaning images.
The atmosphere was completely different. Most of the stadium had been completely empty for the pre-season game but this time around it was almost a full house, and I sandwiched myself between the away end and the standing terraces with the noisiest home fans. The atmosphere is in some ways what makes a game so exciting, that feeling of energy from thousands of people as fans shout at each other whilst their teams battle it out. It also meant I could get the odd shot of the crowds.
There was plenty for me to learn during this match. As I haven’t used my monopod for sports photography before, I tried different combinations of setups. Standing, sitting, using and not using the small fold-out feet on the monopod. Looking at it afterwards I should have sat down the whole time, being low gives you a better angle on the players and I did notice throughout the match that I was the only one standing. I did also find it tricky to turn with the monopod feet deployed and also with the stool I had brought along. The smaller monopods and boxes the other photographers sat on gave them a greater ability to twist to follow the action.
Another learning curve was my new camera. Yes, you heard that right, this was the first proper test run of my Nikon Z8 which has turned up the day before. A very capable camera but also a very complicated one with even more settings than my Nikon D850. I tried out several different auto focus modes and found on the day that 3D tracking served me the best. Though I definitely need to test this further.
The other photographers were also using multiple cameras, though I also had my 70-200mm lens on my D850 handy, I never actually used it. Not being as well versed in sports photography as the professionals I decided to just focus on using one camera properly. But it’s here that I can see why it is important to sit down. If action gets closer, you can hold your main camera on the monopod between your legs and then use the second or third camera for close-ups. I doubt there’s a form of photography that requires you to do so many things at once. And that’s before we get into whipping out your laptops to edit as the match is ongoing. I however stuck to doing my editing in-camera during halftime.
Sadly, it was an even heavier defeat for Derby this time around, losing 3-1. But whilst the performance wasn’t very uplifting, I did manage to get a good set of images, some of which you can see in this blog. One final thing I do need to bear in mind, is that now I have a camera that shoots at 20 fps there is actually a real risk that my current 120GB memory cards may max out during the game! Something I hadn’t even considered before the match. So much to learn and consider, but that’s all part of the fun. Hopefully it won’t be too long until I am pitch-side again.
Thanks to Layth Yousif at Nub News for getting me in.
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