Only a few weeks in, or days really seeing as I only do two a week, I have scored a few Saturdays, which are sports days primarily. Friday tends to be a flurry of editorial, but Saturday is all about things done with balls.

I was allocated the bugbear of all, Netball. the reasons it is not loved by all are several.

The game has a natually stop-start nature, no flow like Basketball with movement of the ball prohibited and the ball carrier is also limited to a few seconds before disposal (not that top end players wait more than a split second).

Add to this generally poor indoor light, a small and reatively crowded court (7 players a side) with sometimes very little movement room around the edges. It is fast at this level only adding to these limits.

And finally, players may switch position every quarter, so their allocated bib may not match the pre-assigned player from quarter to quarter. This last is vital as we have to caption images correctly and my last game had look-alike sisters who played in similar but constantly changing spots, so you may find yourself trying to match action shots to old club team images. At this level, the players do have their names printed on the back, but even then, you need to get the shot, then get the back of the player in the same sequence. Some of the shots below could not be submitted, because I could not be sure.

Tactics?

M43 actually gives you a massive advantage here. My 150 f1.8 equiv 75mm, used wide open still means I need ISO 32-6400 at 1/1000th or so, but with C1 and ON1, that is not a problem and depth of field is nearly ideal, being f2.8 full frame equivalent. I can get the main player(s) razor sharp and some pleasantly softened support characters.

Stalikng one player can be the best way of guaranteeing one player, but you still need to get the others around them (or exclude them). This also requires a certain amount of time.

The EM1x and this lens are almost empathically fast to focus. I set a 1x3 tall AF point pre-set in vertical (I wish Olympus would allow a 2 wide, but they only offer 1 or 3), to cut through groups to the subject I want and it also seems to work ok in horizontal for longer shots.

Many of these are cropped, some quite heavily, but I have my full 20mp to play with. A full frame with the same lens at half the magnification would need to be 40mp+ to match that with a similar lens or you would need to use a longer, probably slower lens and loose the ISO advantage. It would also be focussing on a wider area, so less precise.

So all that taken into consideration, I had to shoot either end of a football match, with Netball in between and the transit time was about 10 minutes either way. I managed a quarter at each contact, which can be plenty. My big error was to try to do the football with only my shorter tele and the 1.4x (56-210 for 110-420 equiv). This proved a little short for only two quarters of the game, relying on all the action being on my side of the ground. Next time I will go back to what works, my 300 and 40-150 in tandem, so much for saving the back!

Practice will make me improve and I am already getting an eye for the editors preference (tight), but on a technical level, all is good.

The EM1x with an EM1 mk2 as my second camera, 12-40, 40-150, 75 (indoors) and 300mm kit is perfect and the lot can be transported in a single shoulder bag!