New Sports Tog in Yorkshire

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mjukphoto

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Mark
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Hello my name is Mark and I'm based in Leeds though originally from Woking in Surrey.

I'm 22 and started photography in my later years at school before doing Darkroom photography for A level. Originally a Minolta (and subsequently Sony Alpha) user I jumped ship to Canon after a long long wait for a a700 replacement. Started shooting kids sports tournaments for an events firm and at the same time took up shooting sports in my own time.

At the moment I'm working for Leeds Metropolitan University as a photographer for their sports teams shooting football, hockey, basketball and rugby mainly. Also still shooting kids tournaments from time to time.

Had a few pictures published in local papers and highlight so far was a national magazine cover (Kid's swimming magazine 'Aquazone').

Really hoping to get know the sports photographers on here as there's a lot of really great advice and some quite lofty names! Hoping I can learn a lot from those with experience and maybe offer some of my own to those starting out.

Good to meet you all!
 
Funnily enough I'm from Leeds (but now living in York) and just starting out in sports photography. I'm also after a 7D at some point, how do you find it for the stuff you do?

Can't really say welcome as I've only been on here a short while myself but hello!
 
Well the biggest plus (and I compared here to the 5DII being its biggest rival in terms of price and features) is the 8 frames per second shooting which is fantastic for sports. Biggest downside is that its handling of low light isn't anything like as good as the 5DII or 1DIII/IV

Thats just about the only thing I can fault it on though really. Solid as a rock and gets the job done day in day out. Battery life is surprisingly really good too. Regularly shoot three or four games in one day on a single battery.
 
Having had a go at shooting football for the first time last night (see here http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=275281 ) I can see what you mean about the frame rate being beneficial. Thought shooting at 1/250 on continuous shooting I'd get a good selection but typically for a shot at goal you'd only get 2-3 frames..

Not sure if I'd rather upgrade to a 7D or bypass the 7D and go straight to the 1DIII/IV. Won't be changing for a while anyway so got time to think. Need to get some decent glass first :)

Sounds quite intense shooting 3-4 games in a day, what does a typical days workload consist of in your job if you dont mind me asking?
 
Yeah I had a look over your shots. Hell of a lot better than my first football game (I shot with a Sony A100 and 18-70mm 4.5-5.6), the gear does make a big difference to what you can achieve. If you haven't already well well worth checking out James guide to shooting sports http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=226122 I'd echo his advice that 640 is generally the shutterspeed you need to aim for.

Well my day looks something like arrive on campus (wednesday) about midday in time to start shooting football on the fields at 1pm, quickly dump cards onto laptop then shooting either one or two hockey matches back to back then dump cards again to laptop. Longer break spent in the campus cafe editing the photos from the morning before heading over to the gym to shoot Basketball in the evening. After the basketball I head home and finish the edits to post the photos to my viewbook page. Thursday is then spent (in part) emailing various parties to provide latest links (the coaches, the media department, the student paper's sports and picture editors, etc)

Then saturdays can be similar or sometimes a bit quieter (only shooting home games at the moment so some days are busy some days dead quiet). Saturday games tend to be more attended and much better atmosphere though.

Its certainly not a bill paying day job but its great fun and I personally really enjoy the pressure :)

Any other questions let me know.
 
Welcome and enjoy the particularly enthusiastic sports speciality section.
 
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