Track and field was sort of diffucult to shoot: Mostly due to my inexperience (last weekend was the first time ever I watched it live
, but also since there is a lot of things going on at different places simultaneously -- it is difficult to choose what to watch and when. Also I did not have a permit to get into the inner field which forced me into using some less then optimal vantage points.
This meant shooting from behind in many events, which worked ok with the high jump, but meant I did not get the athlets faces -- with some exceptions. Here the same jumper as in the previous shot after securing the victory:
Yet another backside of not being on the inner field was the unability to control the background:
or
Sometimes the best seem to be to try to use the background. Look at that sneeky Canon shooter, they were like coachroaches, scurrying around everywhere!
and
In other venues, the background was ok, but then again, no face
Another issue was crowd control, in this one the contrast is almost gone in the lower part of the image -- someones head popped up just in front of me:
Then athlets and organizers should be told to avoid white colored clothes and equipment -- there will be lots of shots where the most interesting areas (like peoples faces) are shadowed which mean all sun exposed whites get blown ...
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I guess this with blown highlights would be a huge problem in cricket, right?
Some sports are just difficult to, literally, get an angle on. You end up shooting very conventional shots:
And finally, sometimes it is hard to capture the tremendous explosion of force:
or the mindblowing altitude at which this sport take place:
Those pole jumping guys and girls must be nuts!
In conclusion
1) It was more fun then I expected to shoot track and field
2) It was great having a 300/2.8
3) It would of course have been better still with a 400/2.8 ...
