A day in the rain

This weekend saw Non-League Day, designed to take advantage of the international break in the Premiership and Championship and encourage people to visit their local non League club. Prescot Cables were drawn in the FA Cup at home to Warrington Town.

The game kicked off a full 5 minutes early, with me and about 15 others still queueing outside the ground. I did not notice if anyone still outside was new, but if they were, it will not have made a good impression. We encourage people to come, charge them to get in, and start without those who have come on time - the queue was moving quickly, everyone behind me when I got in was in the ground by 3pm. People who are unaware of this occupational hazard with some referees will think worse of the club, although it is completely outside the club's control. I hope it is mentioned in their assessment of the referee, whose performance otherwise gave no cause for complaint.

I had forgotten the hood for my lens - the main reason for the hood is to keep unwelcome light away from the lens, but it is as useful for unwanted water. However, the end of my 70-300mm lens is 72mm in diameter, so a few raindrops do not really affect the picture, which would not be the case with a lens on a compact camera. A 1/500s shutter speed will also catch the rain falling - all very well for the photo, but less pleasant for playing in.

This was the sort of weather where the sports mode on the Nikon D5000 shows its quality. On my previous SLR, a D50, I would have been constantly adjusting ISO settings, and moving from sports mode to shutter priority. The camera looked after itself, keeping the shutter speed mostly at 1/500s, and adjusted the ISO setting between 800 and 1600. It will not take the setting above 1600 though, but we will look at that on a darker day.

Finer rain makes shots look misty, like this one of Cables Kevin Townson competing with Warrington's no 4. I have cropped, but nothing else.

However, we can get rid of most of the mist. I use Photoshop Elements 8, where I use the Levels menu - just move the left and right input sliders to the edges of mound of data in the histogram.

After lightening the shadows, here is the finished photo.

As for the game, the less said the better, after dominating play for most of the game, Prescot never really tested Warrington's rather reluctant stand in goalkeeper, and Warrington scored from both of their chances.

The rest of the photos from the game can be seen here.