Harpenden Cricket Derby – Bamville vs Dolphins

I was visiting in order to check out another way of shooting that might obviate a depth of field and a speed issue – I felt that if I could set up my camera on a tripod, manually focus such that I could choose a an aperture to give me the necessary depth of field, set against as low an ISO speed to achieve the necessary quality and use low loss JPEG in place of raw files, that I would then get the best response time, and rely on the live image to keep the mirror action out of the equation.

Well that was the theory. It fails because the screen is well-nigh impossible to use in bright sunlight, so setting the focus distance accurately really necessitates the use of a dark cloth! That would be like going back to the days when I was using Five by four and and ten-eight view cameras! The only saving grace being the image is up the correct way! Another negative is the screen is too small for such accuracy. The intention once set up was I would then shoot using a short electronic release and view the scene with the Number One Eyeball.

Cricket aficianados know instinctively that after seven balls there is a change of overs, and that if ideally one is shooting the home team, in this case Bamville, then if they bat first I would be concentrating on the batsmen. But I wish to cover both ends; not too difficult if one is hand-holding the camera, slightly more onerous with a tripod, on a bright, distinctly warm and moist summer’s day.

I went back to hand-holding the 100-400mm lens. As a colleague slightly later remarked: “If it ain’t broke…” I thanked him for his succinct summary! I did persevere, but that meant I missed several exciting moments and more overs, before reverting to using a DSLR as it was meant to be used. This ultimately stems from not having the right equipment for the task in hand, but the 1DX and 600mm are out of my league, but there is at least a record of some of the moments I managed to capture of a match which Bamville did come close to losing as the Dolphins put up a very strong battle towards the end, but I think their push was made too late. Towards the end it seemed the dell alongside the pavilion was a ball magnet, as most of the balls appeared to be heading in that direction, and the Bamville bowler, Simon, seemed to be delivering ever faster balls thereby adding to their terminal velocity each time they were hit!