Patriots Training Camp

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NFL Football Season 2012 is starting! The first regular season game is tomorrow (Cowboy vs Giants). It couldn’t come soon enough for the folks here at RainyDayMagazine. Besides the Olympics, football is the only sporting event we pay attention to. Yes, we watch the World Series if the Red Sox are playing, we may watch some tennis or basketball, maybe even golf, but not with the interest we have for football.

At the beginning of August, we—along with a few thousand other Patriot fans—stopped by Gillette Stadium to check out the Patriots during training camp. It was a pretty sweltering day, but the heat clearly had no effect on the enthusiasm of New England fans for their team, as the stands were full. Many folks turned out just to see their team go through drills, plays, and other practice routines. Some were hoping for the chance to snag an autograph from their favorite player. A few took it as an opportunity to get a glimse of some of the new prospects in action.

Besides having an opportunity to see the Patriots up close, we went because we wanted to see how our new Nikkor 18-30mm zoom would do at an event like this. We had taken the lens on a FirstUse outing in July and it had worked out extremely well. However, we wanted to see how it would do when the action was a bit faster. Would it focus quickly enough to catch the moment? How heavy would the lens feel after a few hours sitting in the stands?

Once again, the Nikkor 18-300mm lens exceeded our expectations. We were able to get usable shots on our first time out. Having the bigger zoom enabled us to get in tightand to get shots we thought we’d never be able to get unless we were on the field!

Along with the Nikkor 18-300mm zoom, we also brought along a Lensbaby 3G. Some think of the Lensbaby only for stills and landscapes, but the Lensbaby is actually a pretty cool lens to have for shooting sports. The selective focus can really convey a sense of speed and draw the eye to the center of the action. Of course, as manual focus is required, it is more challenging to use. We do like the results we got and will definitely bring it along to future games. In fact, we are considering dedicating a Nikon body for the Lensbaby so it would be more of a “grab-n-go” decision for all of our RainyDayPhotography outings.

We had a great time watching the Patriots at training camp. You can be sure we’ll be watching when the they play their season opener against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday.