[PaddyK]

Hi all, I was debating whether or not to put my work up given the truly inspiring rugby images from the likes of tobers and bristol pete already published but in the end I thought why not...

I'm currently only an amateur rugby photographer; been taking photos at matches for a couple of years now... all from the stands or terracing. It's a dream of mine to one day make it onto the sidelines, be it at the Recreation ground in Bath, or the Twickenham pitch for an England international! If I'm good enough that is. At the moment I've only got extremely modest kit, a D50 and 55-200 Tamron lens, however I hope to upgrade to a D700/3 early this year sometime.

Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated. I try and get as low down as possible so as not to fill the frame with the green pitch and instead be at eye level, but sadly it's not always possible from the stands.

Here's a few of my photos, my portfolio is actually up and running here, if anyone is interested: PKimages.co.uk


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Cheers all, I love this forum, some truly fantastic work. Really inspiring stuff.

Patrick

[noops]

Some good stuff in there Paddy. Some could also do with a bit of cropping though IMO

No.1 needs a crop around the two players with the ball

No. 2 is excellent, my favourite

No.6 again needs cropping into an upright

No.9 There's two potential pictures there, one cropped right with JW and the small boy with his hand outstretched and a crop left with all the hands and the pictures being taken.

No. 15 I'd crop that to just the centre action.

All in all a good set.

I've covered around 12 rugby matches this season and on each occasion the light has been awful (rain, grey, dull days). I see most of yours were taken in good light, that makes so much difference in getting something worthwhile.

Nice work.

[Tobers]

You've got some excellent action shots there. You'd definitely benefit from being lower down if possible, but on Saturday the Getty tog was shooting from the empty stand at the Madejski during the London Irish game - have a look on Getty sports and you can see what he got. He was using a 400mm 2.8 lens though.

I'd imagine that you'd struggle with anything floodlit with your current kit. If you wanted to get into it seriously, you're talking D3 and a 300 2.8. From what I saw in the togs room on Saturday, there's plenty of "my D3's better than your 1D" type of banter going on, especially when it comes to keeping the shutter speed up and the ISO noise down. The stadiums I've been to so far have varied from ISO 1000 (Twickenham) to ISO 3200 (Saracens) to get a minimum shutter speed of 1/500th under floodlights with a 2.8 lens.

I only started covering rugby a few months ago. Keep at it - you've got some good quality stuff.

Tobers

[paulwIre]

Some really great images there. Nothing to be ashamed of, at all.

At this stage, I've covered a lot of rugby games, the vast majority under floodlights, mostly shooting between ISO 800 and ISO 1600.

It really does help getting down at the pitch. If you look at the majority of images printed/used, they tend to be on the level, if not looking up at the players. It's quite unusual to have images taken from the stands and looking down, unless it's for a specific effect.

Keep up the great work, and you should try to get photographic access to games.

[PaddyK]

Thanks all for your kind words, really appreciate it.

noops, having read your post and looking at my pics again, I'd have to agree with you that most of them could do with better cropping. Thanks for the tip. I suppose it's a balancing act trying to get the main focus of the image is obviously the most important thing, but it's knowing how much of the background details to include as well (other players etc). The other drawback from shooing from high up, means cropping can result in a lot of players faces chopped off at the top of the image, which is annoying but obviously wouldn't happen with shots taken at eye level. I thought I'd had the Wilkinson pic figured out and wanted to show him surrounded by eager fans, but will play around with the cropping on that one as well. As you say the lighting can be awful at rugby matches given that it's a winter sport. I don't think my D50 could handle bad weather with low light. It's actually annoying that at the Recreation ground in Bath, their floodlights are terrible so I don't bother with night time shoots. I seriously need to look into getting a D3. Thanks again

Tobers, I've had a look at the London Irish pics on getty and was quite surprised by the angle their photographer seems to have taken the pics at. Not entirely convinced to be honest, but I suppose it shows that it can be done. Completely agree about getting new kit. A D3 + 300 2.8 lens would be fantastic and I'm trying to see if my budget can stretch that far. I try not to even bother with ISO 1600 on my D50 at a floodlit game, the results really are shocking, although pic 6 was taken at that sensitivity; and it's very noticeable, even at that smaller res! But thanks for the tips, will reply by PM now as well

paul, "you should try to get photographic access to games" - figers crossed, would be amazing. I'll keep at it.

[Biscuit761]

Nice set, especially with your gear, I started off with a D50 and still have it as back up, currently using a D300 and 80 - 200 F2.8 Nikon lens, D50 to D3 is a huge leap, not to mention about the £5K you will need for camera and lens - are the rugby pictures paying ?

Will have to try to get top a game with a stadium, all my shots - Sudbury RC v Braintree RC, 4-10-08 - a set on Flickr seem to have is trees and fences in the background.

Bill

[PaddyK]

Very nice pics on flickr Bill. Trees and fences are great for getting across the grassroots rugby theme.

No none of my pictures are paying, not yet anyway fingers crossed. I'm debating either to go for a D700 or a D3, you might be right, D3 to D50 is probably the biggest leap I can make. We'll see, I might be tempted to rent a D3 for the day for about 80 quid, take it to a rugby match and see how I get on. I imagine when Nikon release the D3x, prices will drop on the original model a bit anyway?

A 2.8 lens is probably the most important thing though.

[paulwIre]

I'd recommend the lens before the body.

A prime - 300mm f/2.8 is brilliant for sport, especially if you have the money and take it seriously. After that, a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is great for close action.

Then you can consider upgrading your body.

[vulkan75]

They look good to me...the exposure on everyone is nailed and theres a good spread of action and portraiture

nicely done

[PaddyK]

Cheers vulkan, I was indeed aiming to get a mix of action and portrait/feature type photos.

Originally Posted by paulwIre

I'd recommend the lens before the body.

A prime - 300mm f/2.8 is brilliant for sport, especially if you have the money and take it seriously. After that, a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens is great for close action.

Then you can consider upgrading your body.

Thanks for the tip, I'm sure you're right in that a new lens should be my first priority. Is it worth paying extra for Nikon lenses, or will a Tamron be alright?

[ryanyboy]

Originally Posted by PaddyK

Cheers vulkan, I was indeed aiming to get a mix of action and portrait/feature type photos.



Thanks for the tip, I'm sure you're right in that a new lens should be my first priority. Is it worth paying extra for Nikon lenses, or will a Tamron be alright?

Some corkers in there. Keep going - you're dream will come true if you persist.

[paulwIre]

Originally Posted by PaddyK

Thanks for the tip, I'm sure you're right in that a new lens should be my first priority. Is it worth paying extra for Nikon lenses, or will a Tamron be alright?

Being a Canon user, I can't say.

But, I would bet that there is a clear difference in quality between the Tamron and the Nikon/Canon versions.

I know the Canon 300mm f/2.8 is one of the best lenses produced by Canon, and I assume the Nikon is also very high quality.