Blog — M

Back to the beloved Jubilee Oval to watch the Dragons go around against the Newcastle Knights. The Dragons are in a massive form slump and its been a long time between drinks since the last win!

I have not been able to go out to a day game as I missed the last home game against Cronulla which probably was the last time we had won a game! Due to it being a day game, I decided to try my hand and grab (or hire) some equipment to see if it makes a difference before attempting to buy better equipment for my quest to become a sports photographer.

Everyone says you need a 300mm or 400mm so I made the trek out to Sun Studio in Sydney today to hire something to get me the zoom distance. It was a toss up between getting a Canon Extender 1.4X III or 300mm f/2.8 L lens. I played with both and as much as I liked to have taken the 300mm beast I decided that since I only had one camera body with me, the smarter choice was to get the Canon Extender 1.4X III. There are the obvious negatives which meant that my Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L MK 1 lens was going to be stopped down to f/4 but the positive was that I was still able to zoom. So today I will be getting a reach of 280mm out of my 70-200mm. The 300mm seemed quick at focusing but the lack of zoom just got me a little worried since I sit next to the fence and will need to zoom to the shorter end from time to time.

I'm not much of a reviewer, the extra zoom did help and I got keepers that way. Apart from the aperture slow down, I did notice and had read about the focus speeds being a little slower. It did feel slower but being a newbie the missed shots may have just been me.

This has got me thinking now, where can I try the Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 DG OS HSM (Sport). I better save my pennies, I have a sneaking suspicion this may just be the lens to get me further into sports photography. I can take this in to some venues where as a 400mm f/2.8 I am sure I will need a media pass.

For those interested in the statistics, the Dragons came out on top. It was Marvel Super Hero week and the Dragons had their IronMan jersey on and the Knights had their Spiderman jersey's. They had a great start and then fell away and were trailing the Knights at half time. They then kicked in to action. So I thank the Dragons to make it such an eventful day.

OK with out further or do here are the pics. Everything was taken with the extender on the camera and paired to the 70-200mm on my Canon 1Dx.

ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA 46 (J Dugan 2 T Frizell B Marshall W Matthews M Rein G Widdop tries G Widdop 9 goals) bt NEWCASTLE 24 (A Clydsdale K Gidley J Mamo T Randell N Ross tries T Roberts 2 goals) at Jubilee Oval. Referee: Gavin Reynolds, Grant Atkins. Crowd: 10,236.

Big Dell greets Fox presenters Braith Anasta and Jimmy Smith

Former premiership winning Dragon, Jeremy Smith

Opposing captains, Gidley in the No.1 and Jason Nightingale leads the Dragons out

Gagai holds up Dugan whilst Widdop watches on

Try Try Try, Mitch Rein crosses for the 2nd try of the afternoon, why is the Ref going to the video?

Happy Dragon is definitely happy that's 12-0

Ball and All, Peter Mata'utia locks up Clint Newton

Jack de Belin hits it up strong through the middle

Benji does the smart thing and passes before Smith gets a hold of him

Half time interval is almost done and the Flames are warming the crowd up

de Belin and Marshall are arguing who is the real IronMan

Woohhh that's lifting almost above the horizontal

Josh Dugan a 2 try scorer in this game, hits it up.. tatts and all

Duges has played tough all year, probably a bit busted after Origin but going well enough

Joseph Tapine tries to get away from Benji and Dugan

Jake Mamo... close but no cigar... NO TRY

Red and White Army are happy !! It's looking like a good Sunday arvo

Captain Creagh tells the boys, follow me and I'll lead you the way ... to a WIN!

Desperate try line defense is returning Marketo and Creagh are wrapping the Knight up

That's a bit awkward, Thompson, Aitken and Widdop all want a piece of it and Dugan watches on

And that is full time, the good old score board tells the story

I'm a huge fan of Scott Kelby, I mean who would not want to take photos of premier sports in the US. I've gone over his "YouTube" clips a million times and looked at his blog with his NFL shots in awe.

After a month or so, playing around with the Leica M6 range finder, I decided it was back to using AF, and what better equipment to use than the Canon 1Dx to see if I can get in to the groove to do sports. My dream is to be a NRL photographer, for those who don't know what the NRL is, it is basically a Rugby League competition played in Australia. The competition basically has teams made up from the east coast of Australia, plus one New Zealand team. It is an elite competition with some the ferocious hits in a brutal contact sport. True gladiators play this game !!

Tonight I have bit the bullet and decided to go watch my beloved St George Illawarra Dragons come against the North Queensland Cowboys. Both teams are a little under strengthened with both sides having players represent the annual State of Origin series.

I used the SpyCal to calibrate my 70-200 f/2.8 L IS lens (version 1) and teamed it up with the 1Dx. I know I do not really have the reach so I got a seat closest to the fence and prayed there would be no balls or players flying at me.

I benched myself before the start of play (actually watched the game before hand) to try and get familiar with what kind of shots I will be able to get. I choose to get a seat pretty much behind the goal post so all the traffic coming down my way would be running towards me. From memory the camera was set to Scenario 5 which was for erratic behavior and to my surprise it tracked players very well. For those interested in the settings, white balance was set to cloudy, aperture f/2.8, shutter 1/1250, ISO 3600, single point auto focus.

The score ended up favorable to my beloved St George Illawarra Dragons and I hope my photos do justice to the Dragons on a special day where we remember the late Great Reg Gasnier. What a special player ... what an IMMORTAL.

ST GEORGE ILLAWARRA 27 (J Nightingale 3 A Quinlan C Runciman tries G Widdop 3 goals G Widdop field goal) bt NORTH QUEENSLAND 24 (A Winterstein 2 C Rona T Sims J Taumalolo tries E Lowe 2 goals) at WIN Jubilee Oval. Referee: Gavin Badger, Adam Devcich. Crowd: 12,082.

Oh and would i love to get a real paying gig to do this stuff.. you bet i do !!!