Kart Grand Prix held on Saturday, 12 May 2012 in Knysna.
FNB Classic Clashes – Kwaggas vs Struisies
George, South Africa – The Kwaggas took a full-house of victories during this year’s Interschools clash on 13th August 2011 between Outeniqua High (Kwaggas) and Oudtshoorn High (Struisies). The Kwaggas 1st XV rugby team, using their home game advantage, beat the Struisies convincingly with a score of 37-10, ending the season on a high note. More photo’s here.
Similarly, both the Girls and Boys o.18A hockey teams defeated their opponents.
Posted in Sport
Curry Cup Rugby First Division – Eagles vs Valke
George, South Africa – The SWD Eagles took on the Valke at Outeniqua Park in George and blasted off with three great tries to lead by 21-3 for the majority of the first half. The Eagles were however on defense since the 25th minute of the first half but managed to successfully keep the Valke from scoring any tries. The Eagles clinched the match by 24-15.
More photo’s here.
Posted in Sport
FNB Classis Clashes – Paarl Gim vs Paarl Boys’ High
The titanic clash between Paarl Gim and Paarl Boys’ High took place on Saturday 6 August 2011 at a jam packed Faure Street Stadium in Paarl. Both sides weighed up very well but is was Paarl Gim who managed to take the honors and beat Boishaai by 22-21. Although Boishaai scored two tries (le Roux, Basson) compared to Gim’s one (Cooper), the penalty count was in favor of Gim along with a dropkick by Johannes Human.
More photo’s here.
Boishaai on the attack - till the last drop of blood!
Posted in Sport
Rugby – Kwaggas vs Paarl Gim
George, South Africa – 23 July 2011. The annual derby between Outeniqua High and Paarl Gym was as always a battle to the end. With both sides playing great attacking rugby, it was the defense of the Kwagga’s that secured them the match. The game was won by Outeniqua High with 16-11. More photos here.
Posted in Sport
Rugby – Struisies vs Gim
Yesterday the Oudtshoorn Highschool (Struisies) played against Langenhoven Gymnasium in Oudtshoorn and beat the visiting team 39-22. The first half was overshadowed by the Struisies with the Gym slowly recovering towards the end of the half. Although the Gym fought hard to make a comeback, it wasn’t good enough as the Struisies retained their grip on the game.
The Struisies on Attack
Posted in Sport
Kwagga Junior Rugby Week – April 2011
Today we saw some great rugby from various high schools here in George, South Africa. Many of the well known rugby schools from all over the country came to take part. Here are some shots of the day.
Posted in Sport
Tagged George, Outeniqua High, rugby, School
Super15 Rugby – Stormers Outplayed Western Force
The current Super15 Rugby log leaders dished out another hiding on Saturday by beating the Western Force by 51-16. The Stormer outplayed the Force with a few spectacular tries. The first try scored by Jaque Fourie in the first few minutes spearheaded the Stormers onslaught.
Jaque Fourie try
Action Sequence Shots
This composition came as an afterthought during the processing stages of a day’s shoot. I tried to think of ways to create motion (without a blurry effect) and eventually combined four different photo’s into one. It now sounds much easier than it actually was as no prior planning was done.
I took these shots using an EF300mm f/2.8 lens and had the 1D Mark IV set to high speed to take multiple frames. This is important in the following actions you need to perform in Photoshop, as it provides you with many different “poses” to choose from.
If you properly plan such a shot, you need to make sure the first photo has enough “real estate” for the athlete to move in. If not, like in my case, it takes hours in Photoshop to stitch together a background that’s acceptable. Once your first shot is in place (athlete to the left and some good open space to the right), the next challenge is to do a selection of each athlete in the subsequent shots by using Photoshop’s Quick Selection Tool. This on its own could take you a while and depends on the background. Make sure you save each selection to a separate layer just in case something goes wrong.
Once each athlete has been carefully selected, use the Move tool in Photoshop to drag and position it in your first shot. The aim is to create a natural flow of actions throughout the entire movement and here it helps if you have more than just three or four photos to choose from.
Posted in Image Processing
Tagged action sequence photography merge photoshop
Stock Car Racing Photography in Low Light
I recently had the opportunity to take photo’s at a stock car racing event at The Oval Track in George, South Africa. This was my first attempt at stock car racing and it has been quite a learning experience. Light conditions were very poor as it was a night race and only limited number flood lights (guess about 6) lit the track. I took position at the opposite side of main stand almost in the middle of track behind the fence with rest of spectators. The straight section was not very well lit, but had a good view of both corners which were better lit.
In my bag I had the following Canon equipment:
- 1D Mark III and IV bodies;
- EF 300mm f/2.8 IS USM lens;
- EF 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM lens;
- Speedlight 580 EX II Flash.
My first attempt was with the Mark IV body and 300mm lens and no flash. This proved to be quite a challenge as the framing was much too tight and did not leave much room for the cars to drive into. Switching over to the Mark III body and 70-200mm lens solved the framing problem, but presented an entire new challenge. The Mark III body could not stop down low enough and all my photo’s were severely underexposed!
Usually with moving cars I prefer to set my camera mode to Tv (Shutter Priority) at around f/250 to f/320 as this provides sufficient sharpness while panning with the car -yet it it is slow enough to create some nice wheel blur. Both aperture and ISO was set to automatic to balance the exposure. Due to the low light, the aperture was at its widest (f/2.8) and ISO all the way up to 3,200 on the Mark III. Even with Exposure Compensation pushed with a full stop, all photo’s were underexposed.
Switching over to the Mark IV provided the opportunity for a much higher ISO. With the same settings as in Mark III, the ISO pushed up all the way to 12,800 to achieve adequate exposure. Although the results were very acceptable, it did require some additional work in post processing.
At a next opportunity, I would like to experiment with some remote flash techniques to improve on the lighting and reduce noise.
More photographs of this race could be viewed here.
Posted in Sport
Tagged racing stock cars lighting noise
