I never carry my big camera with telephoto lenses to the Furman games with me. I don’t really have a good reason to do so, and I’d have to find a place to store the gear when I’m sitting in the stand. However, I do always have my Nikon binoculars, and I always carry my tiny Nikon S1 digital camera with me. Turns out the lens of the S1 lines up with the eyepiece of my Nikon Travelites perfectly. Despite a bit of camera shake that had to be overcome, I got some interesting shots at the Furman-Wofford game…
I found that if I zoomed to the extent of the optical zoom of the camera, I could eliminate the circular masking of the binocular eyepiece. Below is Tom Day, a friend who has a sideline pass to take photos, and one of the cheerleaders.
Even with bright sunshine and the camera’s ISO set as high as it would go, I couldn’t seem to get a decent action shot of the players without blur. In fact, I don’t think any of these shots would have turned out if the lighting conditions hadn’t been perfect. The higher ISO and close zoom really created some digital noise in these images when viewed in their larger format.
Although conditions have to be almost perfect, and it’s often hard to get the camera lens lined up with the binocular eyepiece, it’s still a quick easy way to get telephoto shots.