Flint Rogues Rugby Football Team - Team Photo

Since everything starts with the goals of the next airshow, follow me here and I will get to the Rugby team in short order.

Every year I think of what I want to accomplish in the next year's airshow season.  Last year - it was the use of Auto ISO and is it a benefit?  And every year is the battle to get better with prop blur.  In order to determine the goals, I search out airshow and general aircraft photos on line, and see what works for me.  Kills time on rainy days.  This year, I started looking at Moose Peterson's aviation photography.  Moose is primarily a nature photographer, with a fondness for the aviation subject.  He's very good at both.  And since he is a Nikon dude, I don't have to put his tips and tricks through some form of Rosetta Stone.

While looking at the technical aspects of his photography, one of his lines of non-technical advice is 'just show up'.  That gets to me - just do something.  Preferably interesting.

To the Rugby.  Just show up.  Post a few pictures.  Get a bit of an audience.  And it all works.  On Flickr, the Rugby album is the most active.  And popular enough that the team asked me to take their team photo - the 50th year team photo.  I expect they will use where appropriate.

This is my first project with a staged team situation.  I looked up a number of team photos.  I like shots close enough to see and count the rivets.  That doesn't happen here.  I'm used to using long lenses - again not here where a nifty fifty will do.  And the new D6?  In the bag as this is a situation for the D850.  Oh yea, and that pesky tripod thingie.

And if that wasn't enough pressure, the photo was date and time sensitive.  The date worked out as the fall storm clouds cleared.  The time not so much.  The time was less than an hour to sunset.  Oh, those client wishes/demands.  And the setting?  North goal post.  Can you spell harsh light?

I'd like the shots to be a bit lighter, but light is really tough to work at that point.  So it is what it is, maybe newer software will help at a later date.

Both shots were with the D850 and a NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G lens.

And just the Lads:

You never know what will happen when 'you just show up'.

Davison High School Football '22

Since the last high school football adventure, there have been a few new developments and processes.

As to the developments, there is a new camera in the stable. For the football games, at night, the D500 and D850 did real well.  I some time forget that that this is a hobby.  The D500 was not built for 'under the lights' photography.  That point is probably mentioned in the documentation.  But it has a virtually unlimited buffer.  I have never filled the buffer, even at 10 FPS shooting RAW.  Technically the documentation says it will hold 200 shots.  I never tested that.  But the D500 with the crop sensor does much better in daylight.  The D850 with the full frame sensor did very well at night, but it is built for portraits and landscapes.  The 48 mp files fill up the buffer quickly.  Yep, I lost a few shots.

Enter the D6.  Built for sports, or action shooting.  The 20 mp layout on a full frame sensor means the pixels are almost as big as a beach ball.  Lets in a lot of light - and reduces the noise.  What's not to like?  

First, it is a bit pricey.  I can deal with that.  I looked at a used unit from KEH.  I used KEH for a lens and was very happy with the transaction.  That being said, a lens is not as complicated as a camera unit.  And for a few $$$$s more, I could get a re-furbished unit from Nikon.  And I get all the accessories, including the most outrageously priced Nikon sells, the battery charger.  Easy decision.

The other minor decision is, why stay with DSLR and not move to a mirrorless system?  Everyone has their opinion, here's mine that applies to me only.  I have too much sunk into the system I have.  If I was 10 years younger, I might change.  My opinion is that adding an adapter between the lens and the camera (FTZ) won't help anything.  And if I was going to move on to a mirrorless system, it would not be with Nikon.  (Or Canon!) So a D6 it is.

I used the D6 for the rugby shots here.  It did not disappoint in the daylight, nor did I expect it to.  But it is here for night shots.

One other development in the past few weeks comes from the software world, and that is the introduction of Topaz's Photo AI.  In summary, it uses AI for denoise and sharpen.  In practice, I have found it useful for shots that need very little cleanup.  So in the cases of the rugby and football shots, this application works well and has sped up the post processing.  Not sure how it will go with the aircraft.  So far, for past shots - not as well.  The time will come later for real testing.

But for now, some football shots with the D6 and quick post processing.

Not sure how many more games there are this season, playoffs begin soon.  Hopefully this team has a few more games to go.