Varsity January 2008

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Every year, Canterbury’s two universities, the University of Kent and Christ Church University compete against each other in a series of sportive events. In terms of photography, the event is challenging in a number of ways. First of all, it’s impossible to cover all of Varsity alone, as almost all of the over 30 games happen during a single afternoon at different venues. I decided to stick to the events happening in the University of Kent’s sports halls: Dodgeball, Netball, Basketball, Badminton, and Trampolining. Fencing, which I was looking forward to, was cancelled. The next problem is linked to the venue: the main hall is terribly lit, much darker than most sport halls. Which means that I had to push my new Canon EOS 40D all the way up to ISO 3200 at an aperture of 2.8 to get a decent exposure at around 1/400th of a second. I think the new sensor did a pretty good job handling the noise. And then there is the daunting task of covering sport events for seven successive hours. Again, the 40D surprised me, it seemed the battery could have provided power for the camera and the lens’s autofocus all day long. I did charge it once in between though to avoid unpleasant surprises.