In the last entry I suggested that the skill of the photographer is more important than the capabilities of the camera he or she uses. This is not in any way original; many photographers have said as much for years.

That being said, yesterday I came across a public display of martial arts (mainly kickboxing, or what appeared to be kickboxing to my eyes). I was carrying my two cameras. One is the Leica Digilux 2. If you read the last post, you will know that the Digilux 2 is a very nice little camera, but generally speaking it's not designed to be used for fast-moving sports. It's possible, but you have to have the right angle and enough light to get a decent shutter speed. The Digilux 2's top ISO is all of 400, and while it does have an F2 lens, 400 doesn't get you far when the light goes down. On top of that, the lens is a 28-90 which is excellent for general use, but if you're too far away from the action then you're going to get pretty small looking fighters unless you crop the picture heavily - and cropping a 5MP picture leaves you with relatively little to play with. Lastly, the autofocus on the Digilux 2 is slow and in no way good enough for anything but the slowest sports. You'd have to use manual and hope your focusing skills are up to it.

The other camera I had is the Nikon D7000 (I was using a D3 until recently, but it was just too big and heavy; plus the 7000 has a few new tricks which the D3 doesn't). The 7000 is a 16mp camera with more than decent performance in most areas. The lens on it was an older model of Nikon's 80-200mm F 2.8 (with the push-pull zoom). The D7000 may not match the D3 for low light / high ISO, but it can get reasonably close, and in this case "reasonably close" is more than good enough.

When I started shooting this kickboxing demo, the first thing I realised was that the ropes were going to be an issue. If you're shooting from outside the ring and can't get close enough (or wide enough), then you're going to be shooting through the ropes. My first thought was that if I use autofocus, from where I was standing I'd run the risk of getting a lot of shots with in-focus ropes and out-of-focus fighters, when I want the exact opposite. So initially I went manual. The viewfinder of the D7000 lent itself very well to manual focusing with the 80-200.

Some initial shots:

The focus isn't perfect by a long shot, but I did get the fighters rather than the ropes.

Same again: the focus is good enough, the timing is just right.

That's a push, not a punch!

There were a few throws too.

If you want to improve your timing, practice shooting in single shot mode and don't use burst. Nearly all the shots I took here were in single shot mode.

This picture gets the timing right, but the photo's a bit busy. There are a lot of things to distract the eye from the intended focus point, i.e. the fighters.

Whereas here, the focus isn't perfect by a long shot, but there's little to distract from the main point of the picture.

A little later, I went and stood somewhere else to get a different perspective. From this new point, I could actually see "over" the top of the ropes, which meant that I could use autofocus much more easily without worrying about getting the ropes in focus by mistake. At the same time, I wanted to try and shoot with the lens wide open at 2.8. This is not the easiest thing in the world to do, and you get plenty of mishits, but when you get one right the subject "pops out" from the background and creates a very nice effect. It won't be the sharpest shot in the world, but I'll take the tradeoff.

This was a particularly impressive fight; one tall, wiry guy and one short, solidly-built guy. They were really giving each other a battering.

Apart from the photographic opportunities, the nice thing about this event was how relaxed it was. There were plenty of tough people there but there was barely a hint of macho posturing. It all happened in the ring, and as you might well expect (this being Japan) it was done seriously but with respect and good humour. 

Incidentally, while I was shooting, a man approached me and asked if I'd take some shots at a boxing show he's putting on in July. Nothing definite yet, but he gave me his card and said he'd call me about it. Could be an interesting experience. Watch this space, as they say.

Thank you as ever for reading and looking, and feel free to add comments.