My first shoot of the day was women’s field hockey. I wasn’t excited to shoot it and it ended up being one of the worst events I’ve shot since coming to Beijing. It would have been better had I brought my 600mm but with only a 400mm (on a full frame camera) it just wasn’t a good situation.

Harsh light and cluttered backgrounds did nothing to help my cause. Below are the only two shots that weren’t horrific…even they aren’t anything to brag about.

Nikon D3, 400mm, 500iso, f4, 1/6400^th

On a penalty shot the USA scored and had a pretty solid jube in my direction. Don’t you just love the empty stands?

Nikon D3, 400mm, 500iso, f4, 1/8000th

After finishing up there it was an hour long bus ride to go shoot rowing finals. I will be honest, I was not very happy to be shooting rowing because I think slow moving boats with no good access. Boy was I wrong.

 

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 400iso, f8, 1/1600th

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 100iso, f8, 1/250^th

The course was about a mile long and most photogs were camped out by the finishline to get the rowers reacting after the race. I found out about a truck with a min grandstand on the back for photographers to sit in and it followed the rowers from start to finish on a road alongside the course. It was a good choice as it allowed me plenty of time to try different shots as they raced the long slow race.

I enjoyed the few minutes we would sit at the starting line waiting for the race to begin as you could find some interesting patterns and lines (like the lead image for this blog) Before each race the riders would throw out any water bottles, towels or trash which would be added weight in the boat which slows them down.

Nikon D3, 400mm with 1.4 convertor, 200iso, f4.5, 1/1000^th

Also prior to the races swimmers would swim around and under the boat to remove any weeds or debris on the oars or around the starting line.

Nikon D3, 400mm with 1.4 convertor, 500iso, f11, 1/800^th

After shooting a few races from the chase vehicle I got off and shot from the starting line for a few races to see if there was anything interesting to shoot from there.

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 200iso, f8, 1/200^th

I also walked 100 yards to this bridge and shot down as racers would glide beneath on their way from the practice course to the race course.

Nikon D3, 24-70mm, 250iso, f5, 1/2500^th

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 400iso, f8, 1/250^th

Then it was back onto the chase vehicle to shoot a few more races before heading out.

Nikon D3, 400mm with 1.4 convertor, 400iso, f11, 1/800^th

At certain points on the course there was colorful reflections coming off the grandstands across track.

Nikon D3, 400mm with 1.4 convertor, 500iso, f11, 1/800^th

After each race as soon as they crossed the finish line most competitors would just lay down and coast to a stop.

Nikon D3, 400mm with 1.4 convertor, 500iso, f11, 1/800^th

My final race before I headed out had amazing light that made the 2 hours of roundtrip bus ride very well worth it.

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 400iso, f8, 1/2000^th

Then after an hour or so hanging out at the media center I caught a bus to the nearby National Stadium (Birds Nest) to shoot the mother of all track and field races, the men’s 100m final.

I got there nearly 3 hours before the race and even that early it was difficult to find an open shooting location due to the sheer number of photographers there.  It was unlike anything I have ever seen in my life with media.

While waiting for those couple hours I resorted to watching tv shows on my ipod. What a great little invention.

Then came the actual race….finally! As you saw above the amount of photographers was borderline out of control so instead of shooting the same normal stop action shot of the race I attempted to be a little different. During smaller qualifying races while waiting I tried various slow shutter speeds to find a speed that gave me blur yet had a decent chance of getting something usable. I ended up settling on 1/60^th of a second. Out of the 20 shots I took at that slow speed only 2 had anyone sharp. Luckily the 2 sharp pics were actually of the race winner (dumb luck).

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 200iso, f5.6, 1/60^th

The winner had such a dominating performance that he actually was show boating the last 20 feet or so and STILL set a world record. Insane!

Nikon D3, 400mm, 1600iso, f2.8, 1/800^th

He was a photographers dream as he had about a 15 jube around the entire stadium. I have seen a lot of things but this was the first time I saw a man who was proud to finish in under ten seconds!

-Mark J. Rebilas is a freelance sports photographer based in Arizona. His work is seen regularly in Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, USA Today and many others around the country. Visit www.markjrebilas.com to learn more about his work.

More posts you might like:

• Busiest day in Beijing (so far)
• Great Wall and un-great gymnastics
• More volleyball, more gymnastics
• Golden gymnastics, girls stronger than me, fantastic volleyball venue
• Stellar jube, shockingly bad sportsmanship, and the worst pizza in the world!
• Olympics come to an end
• Happy girls, sad girls, angry photographers and my big stick
• Monster home run and the $73 socks
• Flying bikes, flying horses and water polo
• Exceeding expectations and riding the Olympic wave