It was homecoming at Norfolk State this past Saturday as they hosted their MEAC rival Howard University. It was a 2pm kickoff so I showed up around 12pm and drove around campus looking for a parking spot. After realizing it was going to be hard to find, I changed my mind and drove over to Macarthur Mall to park there and then ride the Tide back to Norfolk State. There was a 10 minute walk from the train stop to the stadium and I was carrying my Nikon AF-S 400mm f/2.8 G lens, all 10 pounds of it, along with my Z9, Z8, and one other camera I’ll talk about in a future post.
It was a close game throughout although Norfolk State missed a couple of field goals which could have given it a 10 point lead at one point. In the end, Norfolk State held on for 21-20 win.
I had an equipment mishap in the second quarter, which kind of took me out of my rhythm for shooting. I had placed my Z9 and 400mm on the ground, with the lens facing down. It fell over and when I grabbed my monopod, it had the lens foot still attached, but the lens was still on the ground. The foot had come loose from the lens collar. After looking around, I found the three screws that were missing and noticed one of them was bent. At this point, I wasn’t going to be able to keep the lens connected to the monopod. So for the rest of the game, I used my knees to hold the lens. Good thing I work out, because that lens can get heavy.
A bigger issue I started thinking about was how am I going to carry this lens back? Without the foot being attached to the lens, I really didn’t have a way of holding it comfortably. And I had left my Peak Design strap at home, which I’ve used to carry the lens in the past. In the end, for the 10 minute walk back to the train stop, I pretty much carried the lens like a football.
I’m now trying to figure out how to fix this issue with the lens. One screw hole in the collar appears to be stripped. Another hole appears to have a broken screw in it which prevents a screw from going all the way in. The other two screw holes seem to be fine.
You can view my full gallery from this game here.