lion-or-lamaYour heart beats a little faster and a wave of butterflies hit your stomach every time you look your ticket. The ticket, like a golden invite, says that in a few short weeks, on a very particular day, you are going to find yourself sitting in one of the glorious stadiums, about to experience an event that perhaps millions of people around the world, even though they would have given their left arm to be where you are sitting, did not have the opportunity to experience. You know, without a doubt, that you have to do everything in your power to make the absolute most of this day, of this once in a life time event..
Some planning regarding your camera and viewing equipment is required. It’s a no-brainer really, I mean, would you go camping without a tent!?

I didn’t think so. The Lazy Lama didn’t take the time to prepare and he ends up ruining the experience for himself. Be the Lion; vigilant and primed!
_______________________________________________________________________________

Being The Ultimate Spectator – Get Yourself a Pair of Binos

Lets take a look at the R4,4billion construction, the absolutely beautiful, Cape Town Stadium.
With seating enough to hold 68 000 viewers the Stadium is an incredible 290 meters long and 265 meters wide. This means that at any given seating position, you could be around 150 meters from the action. How big is your favourite soccer player from 150 meters? He’ll be at least a few centimetres tall…the ball will be a marble bouncing around the green…perhaps not what you expected when you bought your ticket? Of course the feeling of sitting in that stadium; watching the players, the adrenalin pumping, the crowd a musical chorus of treble and bass cannot be replaced or reproduced any way other than sitting where you are sitting in that stadium. Now keep in mind that Cape Town’s Stadium is not the biggest! Johannesburg has a stadium big enough to house 104,000 people! …So how do you overcome this visual set back?
It’s really simple. You invest in a good pair of binoculars!

binocularBINOCULARS
 
Binoculars act to enhance your own vision, so you still have the complete feel of watching the action through your own eyes.
Being the Lion in this master plan means that you prepare ahead of time, find a pair of binoculars that best suite your needs and while the Lama squints down at the field without any viewing assistance, you are experiencing the full action with relaxed eyes zoomed into each carefully mastered step of footwork following the path of that infamous soccer ball!

What to keep in mind when choosing your binoculars:

Weight.
Although this is a tough topic to be specific about as the weight of the binoculars you choose depends entirely on your own strength. A good guideline to follow is to choose binoculars that weigh under 700grams. For extended periods of viewing your arms could become very uncomfortable holding up a set of binoculars that weigh more than that.

Magnification.
This would be the most important factor impacting your choice of binoculars. For sport watching, the lower the magnification of your binocular the better your viewing experience will be. The reason for this is that the higher magnification is the smaller your field of view will be – in English – the more zoomed into the action you are, the less you will see and of course the harder it will be to follow the high speed movement. If you are zoomed in too much the players would be virtually impossible to track as they would be in and out of your field of view in a matter of seconds. The binoculars would priorities and single out subjects instead of looking at the scene as a whole where all the action should be visible. A good feature to look out for is ‘inverse porro prism’ design. This design offers a greater field of view than roof prism and regular porro prism designs.

The main feature that you need to look out for is the actual magnification. Another very important reason to opt for a lower magnification is to reduce the evidence of ‘shake’. If you are viewing through a high magnification system – the 1mm shake will be magnified along with the view and the more magnified the view is the more magnified that little shake will be, resulting in a scene that is almost impossible to see clearly. (it works the same in photography. A 300mm tele-photo lens is impossible to use without a tripod as it magnifies the shake) Taking a tripod to support your binoculars seems like an unlikely option – so opt for magnifications of 7X, 8X or 9X for good sports viewing.Image Stabilisation helps to counter the shake of your hand and keeps your view smooth and stable even without a tripod.
Focus Free takes away the need to manually adjust the focus while you are trying to concentrate on the game.

clip_image002Exit Pupil.
To give a really straight forward explanation of how this effects your viewing it is easy to compare the binoculars exit pupil to that of your own eye. Your pupil shrinks to let in less light when the environment to very bright and expands to allow more light in when the lighting is dim. The Exit Pupil of the binoculars will, in the same way, allow more or less light in to illuminate your scene.
If you were going to watch all of the soccer matches in really bright sunlight, then it wouldn’t be necessary for you to look for an Exit Pupil of bigger than 2mm as your own pupil wouldn’t be bigger than that at the time of viewing, however, with most of the matches carrying over into night games and the stadium lights being your only source of illumination, your own pupils are going to be wider than that to allow more light in. A mature adult pupil will reach an average maximum dilation of 5mm under the dimmest conditions.
This means that when choosing your binoculars, an Exit Pupil of 3 or 4mm would work well  in a stadium environment.
Features that are a specific benefit to sports viewing: Image Stabilisation and Focus-Free use.
 

Capturing The Ultimate Memories - Advanced Digital Cameras

We have already discussed the convenience of taking an Advanced Digital Camera with you to the stadium in our article discussing the Rules of the Stadium. If you don’t own a camera and are planning to purchase one that will deliver excellent results during your once-in-a-lifetime FIFA Adventure but still fit a budget that doesn’t reach the DSLR camera ranges then take a look at our review of the Canon SX20 IS which is an Advanced Digital Camera.
Advanced Digital Cameras are a great option for taking you a good few steps above Point and Shoot cameras and giving you a lot of the control over your images that a DSLR would offer.

What are important features to look out for when buying a camera for sports photography?

 Zoom
Zoom is definitely the most important factor to consider. When taking photos of sports it is highly unlikely that you will be standing right on the field in the middle of the action, so it is necessary for your camera to be able to zoom right into the action from where you are seated up in the stadium seating. We’d recommend  a zoom with a 35mm equivalent to 500mm or over.

 Speed
The speed at which your camera is able to take the photo, store the photo and move onto the next photo is really important too. Sports games are high action subjects and your camera needs to be able to keep up with what is happening without missing a great photo opportunity because it was too busy ’saving’ or starting up.

Burst Rate
Or continuous shooting. You camera should be able to handle continuous shooting for a decent amount of shots at a decent speed to ensure that you don’t miss any photos during an action sequence of your team scoring a goal or making a great pass.

Auto-Focus
The speed at which your camera can auto-focus will also effect your ability to take a photo in time to not miss the action. If your camera is going to sit there thinking about where or how to focus on a subject - the subject is going to be long gone by the time you are ready.

You will notice that if we summarised the important features to look out for - Zoom and Speed are pretty much the basics.
An ultrasonic motor drive in your camera will indicate a strong ability to keep up with the action.  Some cameras have dual motor systems; an ultrasonic motor and a voice-coil motor system allow the zoom and focus functions to run smoothly, accurately, super fast and silently so that you can quickly move from snapping your friend in the stadium next to you to a zoomed in shot of your soccer team scoring a goal.