Celebration

April 2023

Joel (pictured) and Ray are new strikers, finding their feet at the club. In an otherwise close match, Ray scored early and Joel scored twice. He seems quite pleased.

Our new 2nd replacement keeper, “Captain” Mainwaring (in orange in the gallery below) also had a strong game including crucially saving a penalty which would have equalised at half time. It was his first game for the club, so I ran to the half way line to try and get a good shot for his family. But they took it quickly. Lesson learned.

It’s surprisingly difficult getting good celebration shots of this club. They tend to be quiet in their satisfaction, with perhaps a manly hug.

The weather was sunshine and clouds. The bright sunlight makes focus easier, at the cost of blowing out some of the whites.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III; f/8; 1/1250 sec.; ISO-400; 182mm

Still experimenting with aperture. I could have gone down to f/4.625. Which would have blurred the background a little more. I’m thinking of investing in the 70-200 f/2.8 lens, sacrificing reach for a shallower depth of field.

I’m also still experimenting with file formats. On Saturday I was shooting RAW, sacrificing speed for detail. I’m reasonably happy with this, though I did fill up the CF card and overflow onto the slower memory card late in the game (including this shot).

My workflow (well, more of a playflow) is simple: take lots of pictures; select about 1 in 15 in File Explorer on my PC. Import these into Lightroom with auto tone and white balance. Individually straighten, crop, tweak tone and sharpen; load to club site and tweet. This takes about a day of solid work. I am in awe of the professionals who do this on the fly. There is a lot to learn.

Which is of course what makes this fun.