A month ago, I got the question if I could come to IKSU and take a few photos during their competition ”Norrländska Ju-jutsuligan”, I think they said it was the 19th time. I’ve been a photographer at 2-4 previous occasions, but it was a few years back. Anyway, it was an excellent opportunity for practicing, so I said yes.
It’s not the jutsu style I’m familiar with, we have no competitions like this, but the different styles are very, very closely related, so I recognize most of the techniques and can usually guess what is going to happen. A clear advantage when photographing an event like this.
This time I decided to experiment a bit. I frequently use a flash, if I can, since it give me crisper, clearer photos. But I ”recently” got a new camera which handle low-light situations better than my old camera, so I decided to try to take most of the photos without flash. And as a second experiment, I decided to use two cameras: the old Z7 which is OK but has its flaws when it comes to sports photography, the other, Z6 III, is much newer, has better autofocus, is faster and is generally a better camera for sports photography. So, I put a 28-75/2.8 on one camera, and a 70-180/2.8 on the other.
I really liked having two cameras, since it allows me to quickly change focal length (does anyone want to gift me a Z8 or Z9???), so this is something I’m going to continue with.
As for flash … this is more complicated. Without flash, I can shoot bursts of photos without missing any frames, but it’s not really my style, instead I usually try to capture the right moment using single-shot mode. The ”arena” yesterday was fairly well-lit with large windows on two sides + fairly strong artificial lighting, much better lighting than the places I normally frequent, so it worked OK without flash … or at least until it started to get dark outside. But, I still missed the light the flashes give me. So, I’m going to continue to pack my flashes for these types of events, and hoping I’m allowed to use them.
The result? Well, here are a few images, but I haven’t checked the photos yet, I just picked a few random images for this post.
