Swiss Judo Open 2011, Geneva

Hi

Last week-end, I was involved as official photographer at the Swiss Judo Open which was taking place in Geneva.

I took both Nikon D3s (with AFS 24-70 and AFS 70-200) and Pentax K-5 (with DA15, FA*85, DA*50-135). Pretty soon I learned what it means to be one of the official photographer. As accredited photographer you do have press access to the event and can do pretty much all you want. As official photographer however, you do have the same press access, but you do get instructions from the organizer on what you have to do.

In short, I was assigned to one of the four tatamis and asked not to miss the good action shots of each fight. During the first minutes, at each action, the organizer came to me and asked if I got it. After a few minutes, he saw that I was up for the task and let me take the photos without checking. Needless to say that I unfortunately was not able to get the time to experiment with the K-5 on action shots.

Here are a few of the rare shots I took with the K-5:

K-5, DA15, 1/30s f/8.0 iso320

K-5, DA15, 1/40s f/9.0 iso800

For the action shots, I used the D3s, a superb camera for indoor sports in low light with an outstanding AF and fast fps rate. At the end of the day, the weight of the D3s really became a problem. The action shots are under [url]http://www.pbase.com/tcom/swissjudoopen2011[/ur]. Some of these photos will be published in the french "Judo Magazine".