The Big One
So, the World Game came to town (Wanderers vs Phoenix).
In Australia, Football (or Soccer as we still tend to call it) runs behind AFL, Rugby League and is likely on par with Rugby Union for fan base, but it still has a solid following.
Not sure of the lights, I still decided to give the 300 a go, but backed it up with the 40-150 f2.8.
I shot a youth game earlier in the day and the combination of 300 (600) and 40-150 (80-300) was ideal for both ends of the ground from any corner. Lighting was the question.
I did have some trouble at the UTAS stadium, not with overhead lights, but with the running “billboard” lights around the ground, with mild banding and sometimes a jittery-laggy view finder. The other two togs there were using Z9’s and also complained of banding.
After some success at the dim indoor pool with the 300, I thought it would be fine and once again that proved to be the case.
It does not hurt that the ground laid out for Soccer is half the size of an Australian rules ground.
The shorter lens, when I remembered to switch in time, also covered the close end.
This is already a decent crop,
from this.
This is down to about 10%, at ISO 1600 and f2.8, then run through ON1 just for kicks. Pre-ON1 this image had more “theatre”, the programme not only cleaning up noise, but occasionally removing small glints in eye, fine sparkling highlights and the odd drop of sweat.
Love the drama off the ball.
As usual this was mounted on the EM1 mk2, which seems to perform as well as the EM1x with this lens although I did notice the few files I dropped over to ON1 for de-noising, were from this camera, even with a stop more speed.
Another win I feel for the kit. The only thing I need is a little fold up stepping stool to sit on, like the other togs used (knees not what they were and recently watered ground was not nice).