Saturday - the sports finally started (for me) !

After four days of shooting this and that - the sports finally started today for me, first in the morning Angola vs Russia in Women's Handball, great to see a full house for the early morning game and the crowd really got into the game. And I think I might have gotten some nice pictures as well - which brings me to my new 'toy'.

This was the first time I put the Canon 1DX through its paces in a real situation - in the morning I'd visited the Canon desk in MPC to get few pointers from the guys over there.. and armed with these I headed to the Handball Arena. It is good... GOOD!! The camera really did work nicely, even if it was 'straight out of the box' - loved the colours and AF worked brilliantly, if this is the shape of things to come with this piece of kit.. I am one happy bunny!

Then I had a lovely across town bus ride on the 'Zil Lane' to Wembley Arena for Women's Badminton, 70 minute journey was a breeze while most of the way as the traffic stood still on the other lanes... few extra bits photographed at the Badminton.. first up it was Prince Charles and closely followed by the Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.. perhaps my observation skills have indeed improved as I managed to pick these two from the crowd without any help from fellow photographers.

Pictures taken and sent onwards to the clients - and back to the bus where I ended up chatting Nigel Farrow about various sport photo stuff.. Back to the Media centre at Stratford end, first bite to eat during the day and then off to some more handball for the evening.

First off was Team GB vs Montenegro in the handball - followed by two bit more experienced teams in Norway vs France, some very nice pictures from both and at the end of the day I can it had been a pleasure to have covered handball after such a long break. Perhaps I should look into covering some GB handball during the year as well..

Refreshing return to actually shooting action again, instead of still life images - whether there were any real 'keepers' in the lot.. we'll just have to wait and see ;-)

The lack of lockers at venues (or at least at the MPC) is slightly annoying, as yesterday I had to lug around the shopping bag for the new camera.. but life goes on and you live and learn as these tournament progress forward..  but a rewarding day ended with a smooth rail journey up to Epping and to the hotel (where the key-card refused to work and needed to get it re-coded at reception. Few emails replied - written and it was lights out.. another Olympic day successfully negotiated.