There was quite a bit of attention on my blog about sports photography settings for my D3 and D4 cameras and while I knew there was interest I was very honestly surprised by how much interest it generated.  That being said, I wrote that knowing about a few other sports related assignments I had coming up thinking it seemed like a good idea to refresh myself a bit.  At the time however,  I had no idea how closely related a future assignment would be to that drizzly football game that Friday evening.

(Marc Lebryk – USA TODAY Sports)

(Nikon D3, 800ISO, Nikon 28-70F2.8D@50mm, 1/1600th@F5)

I’ve mentioned a few times that before working at the Indianapolis Star I shot sports primarily at Purdue.  Basketball, volleyball, football, baseball and ect.  After leaving the Indianapolis Star  I decided to attempt to get back into that market a little, since very rarely at the Star did I get the opportunity to shoot things like that.  Anyway, last Sunday I was sent by USA Today Sports to Cincinnati to shoot the Bengals vs the Patriots and I’ll tell you what.  I haven’t stood out in rain that hard in a very, very long time.

(Marc Lebryk – USA TODAY Sports)

(Nikon D4, 4000ISO, Nikon 200-400F4VR@220mm, 1/1000th@F4)

The forecast was for rain and it was supposed to rain all day.  Honestly thank goodness it didn’t, but as the last three minutes of the game came around it decided to rain enough right then to make up for having not rained the rest of the time the game was being played.  I shared a laugh with a few friends this weekend who proceeded to ask; what exactly do you do when something like that happens?  The answer was simple.  Some photographers run for cover, others hold their ground hoping they and their gear survive the onslaught of weather.  I am the latter of those two thanks to the multitude of Aquatech gear that I own.  Usually when you buy rain gear it’s in the “just in case” scenario; which then will cause the gear to sit in a bag causing the owner to wonder why they bought it.  A few weeks ago (even before speaking with USA Today) I decided I needed to add some rain gear into my bag considering I was using primarily MY gear now and not the Indianapolis Star’s.  For me it was more of a decision to need it than to have it for just in case, and talk about a purchase that paid off.

(Marc Lebryk – USA TODAY Sports)

(Nikon D4, 4000ISO, Nikon 200-400F4VR@380mm, 1/1000th@F4)

The life of a freelancer has taken me several places thus far, and I’d have to say that the Bengals game is probably one of the more interesting ones.  Definitely the one the most wet.  I shot the game a week ago from today, and before I left for Denver last week my shoes had just barely dried out.  Things like that happen though, and staying out in the rain ended up being the right choice.  The Rainy pictures have been spotted all over the internet, places ranging from USA Today’s website, to the NFL.com’s photos of week 5.  Granted it’s number 69 out of 81,  but I’m still pretty stoked since I had never shot an NFL game before.  In fact, only thing close football wise I’d ever shot like that was when I’d shot college football.

(Marc Lebryk – USA TODAY Sports)

(Nikon D4, 1600ISO, Nikon 200-400F4VR with Nikon TC14 @420mm, 1/1600th@F5.6)

Despite feeling a bit like a fish out of water at first, (pun totally intended) I felt pleased after the game finished.   I had several frames that I was pleased with, and it seems as though USA Today Sports was pleased as well which is all I could ask for.  Hopefully I’ll get another shot at a NFL game because I feel as though I can do better, although I’ve seen lots of my photos of Tom Brady circulating the internet already.

(Marc Lebryk – USA TODAY Sports)

(Nikon D4, 1000ISO, Nikon 200-400F4VR@200mm, 1/1250th@F4)

Despite the epic amounts of rain, I can’t complain as I am honored and humbled to have been asked to head out there on this assignment since it is something I’d wanted to do for a long time.  I can only hope that I’ll have another opportunity to do something similar again at some point as I remembered how much I do enjoy shooting football.  That being said, I should mention that this was not my first USA Today Sports assignment as in fact I did shoot the Pacers vs the Bulls preseason game the night before.  Turns out the game was something of some importance, which unfortunately I didn’t know that until that afternoon.  That’s a story for another day though.  More Soon.

(Marc Lebryk – USA TODAY Sports)

(Nikon D4, 800ISO, Nikon 200-400F4VR@300mm, 1/1600th@F4)