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On cricket, maths, tripods and nature - part 5 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

by Mike McNamee Published 01/12/2009

If you are a cricketer, much of the preceding paragraphs will almost be second nature. Timing, however, is a gift. If you don't believe this go and look at people playing tennis in the park. The most common fault when people fail to hit a tennis ball is not getting the racket back early enough so that the timing can never catch up - the racquet head is never delivered to the right spot in time, but it is rarely ahead of the position it should be in.

The same mind-set is true for timing a photograph, you have to prepare to squeeze the shutter and anticipate when impact will occur and time just slightly ahead of the moment. It is something that comes naturally to people with timing but is more difficult for people without timing. This is also why people who are high-class players of one sport are likely to excel at others, even when they may not reach quite the same dizzy heights as their primary sport.

We can think of Henman (tennis and golf ), Hendry (snooker and golf ), Hunt (motor racing and Wimbledon) along with a long list of first-class cricketing golfers. It is all about timing, not raw athleticism. Nobody would describe John Daly as 'athletic' but he sure can clout a golf ball!

One piece of good news is that, just as timing improves with practice at sport, so it does with photography. However, you do need to practise if you are not naturally gifted and you probably need to go to the warmup games to get your eye in if you are really serious. This moves us neatly to methods of improving your eye-to-hand co-ordination and how to increase your chances of nailing the shot.

The major problem staring down a telephoto lens is the restricted field of view. A fast bowler starts his run about 40 yards from the batsman. From a side-on view you are never going to be able to track the ball. It starts at zero mph, accelerates in the bowler's hand to about 20mph but then, as the arm comes over the top, the hand speed accelerates to around 80mph while the body almost stops; and you have to get your lens down the pitch at that speed - you will never do it!

A favourite trick is to open both your eyes and watch the incoming bowler with the eye that is away from the viewfinder while watching the batsman through the viewfinder. It is a bit schizophrenic but it can be done. All you are doing is using the free eye to tell you when to get ready to shoot, you then normally use the body language of the batsman to time the shutter release. The batsman from side on is only going to move slightly towards or away from the camera, usually just enough to clear his body out of the way to make the stroke.

Most of the movement is either onto the back foot or forward over the front foot. This means you can manually focus or use autofocus then focus lock before pressing the shutter. This has the advantage that the lens/camera does not 'see' the gap in front or behind the batsman and focus on the hedge 140 yards across the pitch.

• On cricket, maths, tripods and nature page 1
  
• On cricket, maths, tripods and nature page 2
  
• On cricket, maths, tripods and nature page 3
  
• On cricket, maths, tripods and nature page 4
  
• On cricket, maths, tripods and nature page 5
  
• On cricket, maths, tripods and nature page 6
  
• On cricket, maths, tripods and nature page 7
  
• On cricket, maths, tripods and nature page 8
  

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