When reinforcements arrived

I thought that I've lost not only a battle, but the whole war, a conflict with myself, that nearly made me fail. Luckily some reinforcements have just arrived!

First of all, I've acquired a brand new tank! It's not Abrams nor T-34, it even doesn't have a cannon, but on the college work battlefield it will cause havoc. Take cover! Hopefully none of the film rolls will get wounded.

Thanks to my mate, some mercenaries have also arrived. He lent me a manual M42 mount Sigma 80-200 f/3.5 zoom lens. Straight away it's been equipped with an adapter to fit my Nikon, unfortunately this method wouldn't allow to focus in infinity. However, I was still tempted to get the new mercenary howitzer into action.

Well, sport again, this time football, U14's to be precise. The best way to test a new lens is to make it sweat, while others are sweating on the pitch. So, I went to a Dublin and District Schoolboys League game, that was held at Mill Lane Pitch, the home "stadium" for Palmerstown Rangers FC, a schoolboys club that my cousin plays for.

Haven't got any plan for the shoot really, maybe because my head was so empty after a very difficult week, so I just walked around the pitch and took few random pictures, trying to depict those boys effort towards the win.

Well, haven't noticed much effort though. Sorry to say that guys. I've seen my cousin, on the photograph above, trying really hard, sweating and panting. Look at the picture above again, while the game is on, the rest seems to be interested in something else, definitely not the game itself. My insights are probably biased a lot, but coach, have a look at that.

I'm a bit harsh on the boys performance evaluation today, sorry about that, it's a building critique I hope. Actually I can't be so subjective. Others also tried, but if only would have invested a few more drops of sweat into the game, the result wouldn't be 2:2. 

Can't blame Rangers goalie too, their opponents, Confey FC spent some amount of time in front of the net keeping him busy. First, I went in behind of the Confey's post, but after spending about 10 minutes in there, waiting for Rangers to try to shoot a goal, I surrendered my idea and got back to the side of the pitch.

Knew this is going to happen. As I got back to the side line Rangers assaulted opponents net. Typical. The game ended 2:2, leaving it without a winner.

It wasn't an easy assignment. First of all, long lens equals heavy load not only on the hand, but especially on the camera's body mount, what means I had to hold the lens instead of the Nikon what made focusing slightly more difficult. Secondly, it's a zoom lens, controlling both focus and zoom, holding the lens, all in a very fast pacing setting, a football game, was a bit challenging, but not impossible.

Check out the full gallery here!