Using R3 to photograph cricket - my first time

[mistral105]

Having asked for permission beforehand, I went to my local cricket team ground last night to see how well the R3 performs when shooting subjects other than wildlife, aviation and racing cars.

I haven't photographed cricket before though I have played it extensively.

I used the R3 + EF600mm f4 L MKIII + EF to RF adaptor.

The light was very bright and contrasty at 6pm though the occasional cloud came over and reduced the light level and contrast.

I set up the R3 so I was behind the wickets and moved slightly so I could see the bowler and the batter.

I used ES, shutter speeds varied from 1/1600s @ ISO 1600 to 1/6400s @ ISO 800. The lens was wide open, f4.

I had the camera set initially at 30fps and limited the continuous burst to 3 shots.

I tried different AF setups - eventually settled on Flexible Zone AF 1 that I made more rectangular. Subject detection was set to People and eye detect on.

I took 897 shots - amazingly all were sharp on the player I was focused on.

I converted the RAW in LR and the attached images are the resulting jpgs most are FF and not processed.

The images below are a selection and I sent them to the 2 captains to share with their teams.

It took me about 15 minutes to get the timing correct as I wanted if possible to have the ball in the image.

Next time I will try different positions around the ground e.g. side onto the wicket, slower shutter speeds to make the images more dynamic and take along a wide angle lens.

Comments and questions welcomed

Cheers

John

EmsworthCC2022-8.jpg EmsworthCC2022-7.jpg EmsworthCC2022-5.jpg EmsworthCC2022-15.jpg EmsworthCC2022.jpg EmsworthCC2022-17.jpg

[Trev B]

Nice set

[El Sid]

Looking good...

It's been a while since I shot any cricket but generally I found that shots with the ball in them tend to work best though pictures of other action can also work well. Exploding wickets are the holy grail but these are so unpredictable - all to often the wicket goes down when you decide to shoot the bowler not the batsman, hey ho...

[Stackman]

Good set. I've taken cricket photos for many years and still don't get wickets being knocked over very often.

[Daisy M]

Great set on a not to easy sport.

[mistral105]

Thanks everyone for the comments - have to wait until next season to try out some other ideas

[Bill53]

Good set, your set-up worked well.

[Colin W]

The set of photos look great, you done a good job.

[David Stallard]

nice set in a subject that is harder than people think, tried covering cricket once - not for me, give me a vehicle doing 100mph plus anyday ;-)

.DAVID.