Virginia

I finally got to shoot a day football game this year! Every game I’ve shot up until this one had been a night game or early evening game. This game between Texas State and ODU was being played at 3:30pm in Norfolk. And the sun was out!

Texas State rolled into Norfolk with a 4-2 record and were 10 point favorites against the 2-4 Monarchs. ODU jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first half and would hold on to win 24-14. ODU has now won 3 of its last 4 games even though the offense is still struggling.

The Hickory Hawks hosted their city rival Grassfield on Friday night. Great night for football as I had to put on the hat and thin gloves.

Hickory isn’t the best place to shoot football at night. The combination of outdated lighting and black jerseys make for some high ISOs in the images. Luckily, software has come a long way in the last ten years and the noise cleans up well.

Thanks to Hurricane Helene’s tracking, and the upcoming rains we were expecting on Friday, we had a football game on Thursday night. It was Military Appreciation night as the Hickory Hawks hosted their rival, the Great Bridge Wilcats.

The combination of high school stadium lighting, dark open spaces between the two sides of the stadium, and Hickory’s all black jerseys, make for a difficult night of shooting. It gets so dark out there. Even shooting wide open at f/2.8 on the 400mm lens, my ISOs were reaching my peak settings. Lets hope these schools can switch out to LED lights in the near future.

I got to shoot my second ODU football game in a row on Saturday. This time, I was prepared. I would be shooting my Nikon Z9 with the 400mm f/2.8G lens. And I would be using my Nikon Z8 with the amazing Nikon 135mm f/1.8 S Plena. This time it was against the Virginia Tech Hokies. Virginia Tech has had a rough time in Norfolk, losing each of the last two times they’ve played here. Virginia Tech has been notorious for getting their seasons off to slow starts under the current coaching regime, while ODU is struggling to find any semblance of an offense.

I made it out to Colon L. Hall stadium in Great Bridge for the Friday night high school football game between the Oscar Smith Tigers and the Great Bridge Wildcats. Great Bridge’s stadium had undergone renovations and it was finally complete. I have to say the stadium looks really good now. I want to say it was originally built in 1962. Made completely out of cinder blocks and concrete, it had suffered from neglect and black mold for years. They gutted and ripped out a lot of the back wall and replaced it with steel beams.

I had the opportunity to shoot Saturday night’s matchup between East Carolina University and Old Dominion University in Norfolk, and let’s just say it didn’t go as planned. I came ready with my Nikon Z9 paired with my Nikon 400mm f/2.8G ED AF lens, along with my brand-new Nikon Z8 paired with the Nikon 135mm f/1.8 S Plena lens for more close-up work. But, in all my excitement, I forgot the most critical piece of equipment—my Nikon FTZ II mount adapter. Without it, I couldn’t connect the 400mm lens to my Z9! So, I had to shoot the entire game with just the Z8 and 135mm lens.

I went down to Greenville, NC (or as the locals call it, G-Vegas) to shoot the football game between Norfolk State and East Carolina. Opening game of the year for the Pirates. The Spartans had lost a close one the week before against Florida A&M in the MEAC/SWAC Challenge in Atlanta.

It was a pretty warm day with highs close to 90°F at kickoff. I entered the gates around 4:45pm for the 6pm kickoff. I wanted to get some shots of the players warming up.

I shot my first high school football game of the season on August 29th. The game featured the home team Deep Creek Hornets of Chesapeake, Virginia and the visiting Currituck County Knights of Barco, North Carolina.

Having just received my “new” Nikon 400mm f/2.8G ED VR lens a day earlier, I was eager to try it out and since it was Labor Day Weekend coming up, most of the high school football games would be played on Thursday. Deep Creek High is not too far from my house, so I decided to go there and shoot. Did I mention I shoot for MaxPreps too? The gallery from this game is on both MaxPreps and my own site.

I drove down to the Virginia Beach oceanfront on Saturday morning to catch some of the surfing action taking place at the 62nd annual Coastal Edge East Coast Surfing Championships. I arrived around 7:30am and got a good parking spot. I decided to walk around with my Nikon F6 at first and capture some images on film. I’m still working on that roll, so stay tuned for a post about it.

As my film journey progresses, I absolutely love the simplicity of shooting with my Nikon FM2n and Yashica Electro 35 GSN. But I have been thinking about getting into medium format at some point. I’ve really had my eye on finding another Yashica. Especially the Mat 124G. But then I was watching Youtube and and I saw Kai’s video on using the Nikon F6.

Watching his video got me thinking. I have the Nikon FM2n. The perfect, most simplistic 35mm SLR made by Nikon. It doesn’t even need a battery to function. But what if I paired it up with the most advanced 35mm SLR Nikon ever made? That would be an awesome complement to the FM2n.