Last Sunday (the 8th) saw the annual Nagoya Marathon - advertised officially as the "Nagoya Women's Marathon", but which also features half-and-quarter marathons for either gender. It is also a good excuse for me to go out and shoot for an entire day. This year was no different.

While I could have shot it with the Merrill (theoretically), doing so would preclude getting anything remotely resembling an in-focus shot on a moving athlete. Plus, due to the fact that I'm not shooting film at the moment, I felt I could justify a new purchase to get those shots which the Merrill would struggle with. After looking at several options, I went with a Nikon D600 and a lens I know very well, the 70-300 VR 4.5 - 5.6. The 600 was going for a price which would be inconceivable for a full frame camera a few years ago (heck, it was less than the used D3 bodies), so it was far less expensive than I was expecting. I'd heard about the dust / oil issues, but I figured that as it's not a "new" DSLR, any such issues would have been ironed out. And thus far I've had no problems with it.

Anyway, enough talk and more pictures.

The media were out in force...

...as were the police (just to keep things running smoothly, as is often their function in Japan)

The leading runners appear...

The woman in front here eventually claimed second place, and the woman behind her with the bloodied knee took third.

One more of the second place runner...

Other athletes...

Couple from the Sigma (prefocus and wait, rather than try and track the movement, of course)

Support from the volunteers...

The light was pretty bad around this time - very harsh, deep shadows and high contrast - but using the Nikon's adaptive d-lighting plus a bit of work in Photoshop afterwards yields a presentable enough file...

Taking a bit of time to photograph the carnival of humanity which makes up the supporters and well-wishers...

Extrovert...

Finally, a shot from a bridge, which is technically rather naughty (due to the sheer number of people out and about, we are "encouraged" to keep moving...but if you're quick enough with your camera you can get away with it):

I don't think I covered as much ground as the runners, but I got a lot of walking done...

Thanks for looking!