"Miss Valentine" gymnastics, Feb 2008
Held for the 14th time, with reigning world champion Anna Bessonova in attendance
Comments:
Event - The best gymnasts from near and far gathered for a world-class women's individual and group gymnastics competition called "Miss Valentine".
Photography - This was more of a test of equipment than an actual photo shoot and the pictures themselves are more of a side-product of said product testing. In fact I wasn't even planning on going, but a few of my friends kept prompting me about it and I was thinking "Ok, I got the 6.5 FPS 40D and the Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 sitting on the shelf doing nothing, if nothing else, I should at least see what they can do".
And here's what I found. First off, the 6.5 FPS does not substitute timing. I still got more consistent high quality shots by timing my shots than I did by just keeping the shutter pressed and hoping it also caught "the shot. It didn't. Maybe 10+ FPS would do that for me, but 6.5 FPS is not enough. It's a good thing to have and it did give me some shots I would otherwise probably have missed, but it won't make you a sports photographer. Onto the lens. The 50-150mm range is ideal. It is perfect. I can't imagine having to shoot with a maximum of 70mm wide angle on a crop-factor camera. Even 50mm was way too narrow at times, but at least it was manageable. But 70mm? All you guys shooting with 70-200mm lenses, you don't know what you're missing. As for the 150mm maximum, that was all I needed. Never did I feel like I'd want to zoom more but I can't. Not all is perfect though and I have to say, the bokeh at F2.8 was disappointingly sharp. I guess I've been spoiled by my F1.8 and F1.4 primes, but at F2.8 the stuff in the background is way too much in focus. Way too much. I was expecting not to be able to see all the adverts in the background, but there they are, clearly legible and distractingly in focus. Oh well, I guess you can't have it all. I've tried switching between primes during fast-paced performances before and when I got the shot, it was great - object sharply in focus, bacground nicely blurred. But that was when I got it and I'd rather not think about all the times I missed it because I didn't have the correct prime on the camera at the correct moment.