Fujifilm Does International Rugby

Last weekend I posted some images from a local rugby match at North Berwick which was a test of the X-Pro2's capabilities in a sport environment, something that it acquitted itself very well.  I can now reveal that last weekend was really a test run for the camera and myself because the ultimate test was yet to come.  I was going to shoot the Six Nations Rugby showdown between Scotland and France at the home of Scottish rugby Murrayfield.

This was the first time I had shot a team sport at international level and the pressure was on.  I had joined Scottish rugby photographer Rob Gray who has just moved from Nikon D4S to Fujifilm and had shot the Scotland v England game on an X-T1 and 50-140mm f2.8 with a 1.4x converter.  As well as trying the X-Pro2 and 100-400mm in this ultimate team sports challenge, I wanted to see how Rob found the same combination in a fast moving stadium environment.  This will be the subject of a separate Q&A later this week.

Back to the task in hand and I fitted the X-Pro2 with the 100-400mm, the X-T1 with the 50-140mm f2.8 and kept the 16-55mm f2.8 close to hand in case I needed to swap it out.  I also had the 10-24mm in my pocket for some wide shots if necessary.

Best view in the house - my position from behind the deadball line in front of the South Stand

The rules for accredited photographer were quite strict.  We had to sit behind the posts at one end and were only permitted to move behind the goal line and to one side upto a certain point.  Each end had a colour - we were in green bibs - which determined which end you were given.  Photographer were permitted to swap bibs if they need to cover one team but only if they could find someone willing to swap ends.

We were in front of the South stand with Scotland playing away from us in the first half, so we decided we would stay at the same end for the second half when Scotland were playing towards us.

The X-Pro2 was initially set to 1600ISO which gave me an exposure of 1/1250 @ f5.6 but as the game wore on the light started to drop as the stadium lights came on and by the end of the game I had boosted the ISO up to 6400 to maintain the shutter speed.  The X-T1, which was fitted with the 50-140mm, had a two stop advantage over the X-Pro2, so I was able to keep the ISO at 800 (with f4 selected) and then moved to 1600 with the lens at f2.8 at the end of the game.  However I didn't pick up the X-T1 much as I found the AF on the X-Pro2 to be superior once again, something that Rob confirmed at the end of the first half.

One of the most important aspects of sports photography is to capture the decisive moment and for that you need a camera with a fast continuous  auto focus and a good frame rate.  The X-T1, after the version 4  firmware update in 2015 became a capable camera for sports photography and myself, and three fellow X-Photographers, have been using them in motorsport as the main camera system to capture the World Endurance Championship and European Le Mans Series.  

However team sports is a different environment.  The action moves very quickly in different directions and you have other players running between you and the action.  This was going to a big test of the X-Pro2s new AF system and I have to be completely honest here, it was fantastic.  I am not just saying that, look at these two shots of Duncan Taylor's diving try.  What you don't see is the fact that there was another player between me and Taylor and the camera had very little time to latch onto Taylor as he made his lunge for the line.

Another example of timing is the shot at the top of the blog of French Captain Guilhem Guirado's early try to put France into an early lead despite a crushing tackle by Scotland's no8 Josh Strauss.

While the f5.6 maximum aperture on the 100-400mm did mean I had to push the ISO to the upper ends of the dial, with the new X-Trans III sensor produced excellent clean images, the 600mm equivalent focal length of the long end of the zoom meant that I could fill the frame at almost any point of the pitch.  And the ability to zoom out was a major bonus over a prime lens, so there are advantages and disadvantages.  

The 5 stop OIS on the 100-400mm also played a significant part because it meant I wasn't restricted in my movement by the lens on a monopod.  At 1/1000s it shouldn't have been a problem but you never know and the OIS kept everything sharp.  There was no lag when following the play either, the problem we experienced in Bahrain with the first prototype lens has been completely solved by Fujifilm.

Another advantage of the X-Pro2 was there was no perceivable EVF lag or blackout when shooting at 8fps.  This is a big improvement over the X-T1 and bodes well for the future of the X-Series.

Something else that the X-Pro2 has over the X-T1 and that is the size of the 24mp sensor.  With 6000 x 4000 pixels to play with it gave me the opportunity to crop the image to give a better composition and still have a larger image than what I would've got from a 16mp X-T1.  Bearing in mind that most images submitted for publication are 3500 pixels on the long edge, a 6000 pixel image gives a lot of options in post processing.

As well as capturing the action, I also wanted to capture the atmosphere and the crowds enjoying the game.

Here are some of the many shots that I captured during the match which saw Scotland beat France 29-18.

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