Bow sports is getting more and more popular with young and old people. It trains concentration, reaction speed, focus, body tension, balance, targeting and overall fitness with a focus on the arms and chest muscles. Our model Violaine and Christian a showing a close to perfect shooting position.
In sports photography it´s a challenge for photographer and gear to capture the right moment and those moments in focus. I remember how proud I have been 1996 when I got my Nikon F5. A camera that is able to shoot in burst 10 (film) images / sec and every single photo has been focused separately. A world record. Today state of the art cameras like the Fujifilm X-H2s are able to capture 40 images / sec with autofocus. Impressive!
Still I remember when I started my “life” as photographer. As a passionate basket ball player I also took pictures of that sport. I did this with manual cameras like my Canon A1 which had nothing more than an exposure automatic which I did not use too much. I used the black and white Ilford HP5 film with 400 ASA or pushed it to 800 ASA in the negative processing, set the shutter speed to 1/1000s and the aperture around f2.8 if the light was allowing todo so. With these settings and manual focus I took several outstanding images in the movement or following the movement. Unluckily the images as a proof got lost during one of my moves.
My Fujifilm X-PRO3 can produce 11, in words eleven, pictures/s with the mechanical shutter and with a crop factor of 1.25 and electronic shutter 30 pictures/s. With a fast SD UHSII card a burst of 145 pictures in APSC size and JEPG file format can be taken, at the 1.25 crop and 30 pictures/s 60 JPEG pictures can be saved before the buffer is full.
For the pictures below, I used the 11 pictures/s speed with no crop and mechanical shutter my Fujifilm X-PRO3 is offering. I have chosen a shutter speed of 1/8000s, an aperture of f2-4 and ISO 6400-12800. The focal length of 55mm APSC (82.5mm FF) of the 7Artisans 55mm f1.4 MKII, is condensing the space so the sports person is moved to the right focus and the background is slightly un sharp. I am once again impressed by the low noise of the Fujifilm x-Trans Sensor at higher ISO. Best in class!
With the high frame rate it was possible to capture the arrow in the flight and adds a momentum of tension to the sports pictures. I am very happy with the results.
The combination of the high end Fujifilm X-PRO3 and the very well optical as well mechanical build 7Artisans 55mm f1.4 MKII is resulting to these great pictures. The lens on the X-PRO3 is well balanced and the focus ring is operating smooth but well damped with not too much travel path. To me a perfect combination for many shooting situations in sports, street and portrait.
I am looking forward to your POV judging the pictures.
