KP celebrating his fantastic century against South Africa (Headingley Test 2012)
NEX-5N, 55mm-210mm E-Mount Lens @ 210mm, Aperture Priority Mode, 1/400 seconds, ISO 200, f/7.1
So, welcome back to my blog! I’m sorry that I have not posted anything for such a long time, but I do have a good reason. I have written elsewhere on the blog about the fact that I approached Sony UK for their help in making it as interesting as possible, which they kindly agreed to do, so the hiatus in my posts has come about because I wanted to wait until they had everything ready at their end (such as announcements on their Flickr and Facebook pages), in order to maximise the number of readers to help share their experience or learn from what I write. Let’s hope that happens now!
Anyhow, back to business, and the featured photo this time was taken by me when I spent a day in the hospitality suite at Yorkshire CC’s Headingley cricket ground, on the third day of the test match of England vs. South Africa. I was very good and didn’t drink too much of the free alcohol, so I think that I was able to maintain reasonable control over what I was doing with the camera!
A panoramic shot of the view from the hospitality box I was in – taken with the handy Sweep Panorama mode of my trusty NEX-5N
I have chosen the featured picture because it shows England’s Kevin Pietersen (“KP”) celebrating his stunning century (scoring 100 runs), which he made on the way to a match-saving total of 149 – a magnificent innings! I particularly like the moment captured in this shot because KP is actually saluting his wife, the lovely Jessica Taylor, who was at the other end of the hospitality suites to me (something I only realised quite late in the day, so their son may have been with her too at the the time of the featured photo).
Is Jessica texting the South African team with tips on how to get her husband out, because she has had enough now and would like to get home?
There are three photographs which come under this heading in David Busch’s book, so you can expect two more to appear in this blog at some point, showing different sporting scenarios and achievements. I approached this particular set of photographs in a fairly casual way, mainly due to the fact I was primarily there at an hospitality event with my work customers, but the balcony view was a definite bonus, especially with the handy railings on which I could steady my aim with the camera. I did travel down to the edge of the boundary from time to time though, because with only having a 210mm lens I was unable to zoom in to the action as much as I would have liked, and definitely nowhere near as much as the professionals were able to do. In fact, most of the shots that appear here have been cropped to zoom in further than my lens would allow by itself.
My lens was at its 210mm maximum for this un-edited shot from the hospitality balcony, showing KP hitting a ‘text book’ cover drive towards me.
Whilst it would probably have made sense to use the Shutter Priority mode on my camera, in order to freeze action or allow motion-blur in any fast moving objects, I found that the bright weather automatically pushed my camera to pick good shutter speeds whilst I used Aperture Priority mode, allowing me to control the focal plain of my shots more carefully. With this combo, I was happy with the resulting slight motion-blur visible in the very fasting moving objects, whilst all other subjects were captured in freeze-frame, so I didn’t bother changing any settings dramatically at any point.
Alastair Cook ducks under a ‘bouncer’ from Morne Morkel. You can see the slightly blurred ball isn’t too far from his head!
Alastair Cook again, kicking a ball about in the pre-match warm up – again, he is perfectly still whilst the ball shows a greater speed with motion-blur.
Whilst the shutter speed was a very important part in helping to tell a story in the shots with motion-blur, the drive speed of the camera was just as important in allowing me to capture each moment at the very best time. I used the Speed Priority Continuous drive mode for 99% of my shots that day, which allowed the NEX-5N to shoot at speeds of up to 10 frames per second, so that I could take a number of fast shots in the hope of capturing the perfect moment. In reality the camera shoots at this speed for just over 1 second, when the buffer memory then becomes full, slowing the camera down to around 5 or 8 shots per second, so I had to be sure that I was still pressing the shutter release at the ideal time, especially when the cricket ball is travelling at speeds well over 90 mph, with less than 22 yards between the batsman and the bowler.
One of the most popular shots in test cricket is not playing a shot at all – KP shows his mastery of the shot in this photograph. Speed Priority Continuous drive mode allowed me to select this photo, showing the moment the ball flies safely by the stumps, from a number of photos taken in quick succession.
A shot that is more typically associated with Kevin Pietersen, as he smashes the ball high into the air to the leg-side, attacking the South African bowlers after reaching a more sedate 50 runs. You can see the ball in the top left of the shot – a small red blur, against the white boards.
As much as I enjoy photography for capturing such sporting moments, I am also extremely interested in how we can also freeze-frame moving objects/people/animals and begin to see things which we would never be able to notice so well with the naked eye. I have just one last photograph to add today, and it demonstrates this beautifully, as we are able to see the unnatural strain and stress on the body of a bowler in the game of cricket.
This shot shows South African bowler, Morne Morkel’s arm being arched back in an unusual way, as he puts all of his effort in to bowling with fierce pace – we would never notice such strange effects bowling has on the human body without the ability to freeze the action with a camera.
Here’s to KP’s (almost) championship-winning score, and I hope that we see one of our greatest ever batsmen back in an England shirt very soon! Please share your experiences and advice in the comments section. OR, you can now follow my progress, and share your own photographs on Sony UK’s Flickr page, which should be here – http://www.flickr.com/groups/sonyphotochallenge/
Next weekend, I will be posting a photograph for Monarchs of the Air.
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