Dave Benham

Nikon D700, 70-200 VR with 1.7 Teleconverter at 340mm, 1600th @ f/4.8, ISO 450

Nikon D700, 70-200 VR with 1.7 Teleconverter at 340mm, 1600th @ f/4.8, ISO 800

Summer’s arriving – which in the sleepy village of Sway in the New Forest means that the sound of willow on leather can again be heard on the village green. Well, the sound of willow wafting at leather anyway.

The second XI were at home to Beaulieu on Sunday, so off I went complete with D700, 70-200mm f/2.8 and teleconvertor, and a monopod to keep me stable. For the second time in as many weeks I was left feeling a little inadequate – filling the frame from the edge of the boundary was proving difficult. This time I was shooting in shutter priority mode, and varied between 1/500th and 1/1600th of a second.  I wanted to make sure the ball was a little blurred to give the impression of motion while the batsmen were frozen in their pose.

Sadly I had to go before Sway’s bowlers began their onslaught, but I’m pleased to say the end result was a well earned 154 run victory. The shots above show top scorers Rick How and Nilantha Atapattu on their way to 74 not out and 52 respectively.

Nikon D700, 70-200 VR with 1.7 Teleconverter at 290mm, 3200th @ f/5.6, ISO 500

Thanks to everyone for their kind comments about the Red Kite shots from a couple of weeks ago, as promised I thought I’d better post a bit more on the technique and equipment behind the scenes.

You might think that we used shutter priority to select a fast shutter speed, but I was worried that with contrasting low light in the background the camera would select too large an aperture, and the bulk of the bird may be thrown out of focus. So I used aperture priority, adjusting the aperture between f/5.6 and f/8, and using the ISO speed to get a quick enough shutter speed to make the Red Kites sharp. For much of the day I was able to use ISO 320 to get a shutter speed over 100oth of a second, but at times I went as high as ISO 800. Fortunately the D700 makes such choices academic.

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Last weekend the family trooped off to the coast – the cove to be more accurate, at Lulworth in Dorset. It’s an absolutely beautiful location and the weather was fantastic. We met up with a bunch of my wife Sam’s colleagues, many of which are keen photographers.

Gathering in the car park I looked at all the cameras around me and decided to rebel. There wasn’t a longer focal length than 24mm on display, so I swapped the 24-70 f/2.8 on my D700 for another good landscape lens – the AF-S 70-200 f/2.8.

What do you mean, I hear you ask? My logic was firstly that I didn’t want to come away with the same shots as everyone else. This meant a resolution that I wouldn’t take a shot of Durdle Door as well. Does that make me a bad man? Secondly I knew that there would lots of interesting areas of detail around the cove and buildings which would be fun to look for. The zoom lens should suit this down to a tee, as well as a few of my favourite people shots!

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D700, AF-S 70-200 at 175mm, 1/80th at f/4.5, ISO 200

As I haven’t been to the gym for a while it was high time I got out with the Nikon AF-S VR 70-200 f/2.8 zoom that I acquired recently. It’s brilliantly balanced on the D700 and feels great, but it isn’t half heavy. On the plus side, a couple of hours of wandering around with this lens makes the 24-70 f/2.8 seem as light as a feather! Mental note: leave the 50mm f/1.4 off for a bit…

First impressions – the AF is insanely fast. It tracks well in low light and is pretty quiet too, but you can hear the VR servos fire in from time to time. On that note, take a look at the shot of Harry above. That was taken at 175mm using a shutter speed of 1/80th of a second, handheld. All the rules say that image should be completely out of focus but it works for me thanks to the VR.

D700, AF-S 70-200 at 95mm, 1/80th at f/4.5, ISO 200

I found myself using the motor drive more than usual, switching the camera into high speed mode for the first time in a while. Perhaps this lens made me feel like a journo – during our half hour walk around the park I certainly got a few strange looks. Most of them must have been about the camera and lens, surely!  It was interesting playing with the compressed perspective you achieve with a longer lens, and the longer reach was great. Looking back at the shots I can’t see any of the vignetting or softness that some people report with the 70-200 on full frame.

D700, AF-S 70-200 at 80mm, 1/80th at f/8, ISO 3200

Thanks to the D700 I’m shooting so much more natural light stuff these days – this shot shows why. Even at ISO 3200 in really low light I was able to get a usable portrait, and although there is visable noise it’s no worse than my D200 was at ISO 800. I’m itching to play with off camera flash soon though, the new Pocketwizards for Nikon can’t come soon enough for me.