The waters recede

For Prescot Cables' Boxing Day game away at Burscough, Merseyrail were running trains for the first time, so we were looking forward to going. The weather had other ideas, with severe flooding in a number of areas. We were on the edge of the rain, with games such as the Runcorn derby going ahead without a problem. Indeed, I would have gone to watch on a bank holiday with transport.

For Bank Holiday Monday, our game at home to Lancaster City was on. Richie, our leader in beer and pub choices, suggested a pre match drink at the Cricketers' Arms in St Helens. Pubs with sporting names seem to go more with cricketers than footballers, possibly because half the participants in the former have time to discuss what the establishment should be called. A couple of people decided not to attend, being unsure of the location, and concerned about being left wandering around St Helens for all eternity. They need not have worried, as it is a hundred yards from a stop for the 10A. Our visit coincided with one of their quarterly beer festivals.

At the game, I had new equipment. I reported at the previous game that my kit had got wet: it got worse when my D5000 gave up the ghost. I had my eye on the D5300 for some time, and planned to upgrade in the new year. I am not an early adopter: unless I really need what the newest technology can offer, I am happy to be a model behind, with a stable iteration. The release of the D5500 last year brought the D5300 into that category, and knocked a bit off the price. I brought my plans forward, although if there is a week of the year I would prefer not to replace electronic equipment ...

James McCulloch

I started using the sports mode, which works as I am used to, giving preference to shutter speed, but not allowing you to set a minimum, and going up to ISO 3200 on the automatic setting. Once this started giving slower speeds than I wanted, I switched to shutter priority, which behaves differently from the previous model, going straight to the most sensitive ISO setting (25600) to maintain the smallest aperture.

Joe Herbert

This was not what I was looking for, so I explored more, and found I can set the ISO manually in the sports mode, so, combined with much easier menus, I could work my way up as the light fell.

Shane Glean at ISO 4000

Jonah O'Reilly at ISO 12800

Amongst this testing, there was a game going on, with Cables having put in a lacklustre performance in the first half to go in a goal down.

A much improved second half did not initially yield results, with a further goal from the visitors, but we swiftly answered back, with one from Joe Nicholson ...

Joe Nicholson (at ISO 16000)

... and a debut goal from Darryl Patton, not wasting a moment after coming on from the bench.

Darryl Patton (at ISO 25600)

Throughout the half, I was getting good results from the lighting with better speeds than I was used to. The sensor, as well as giving me 22MP rather than 10 (and a 25MB file, but that is another story), was importing a lot less noise at the more sensitive settings.

For the last 10 minutes or so, the sports mode was taking me below 1/200s, so I went to the shutter priority, where I was still getting well lit images.

Marcus Burgess - 1/250s, f/6.3, ISO 25600 - and at the opposite end of the pitch from me

Unfortunately the performance could not quite match the durability of my exposures, with the visitors snatching all three points with almost the last kick. 

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

Final score: Prescot Cables 2 (Joe Nicholson, Patton) Lancaster City 3.