UK-based sports photographer Guy Swarbrick recently got the opportunity to shoot the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. Just before the games he took a delivery of Nikon's latest full-frame DSLR the D810, and in this article he shares his experiences of using the camera.

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I’m unusual – but by no means unique – among sports photographers in shooting Raw plus (small, basic) JPEG. My workflow at events involves using the JPEGs to deliver timely content for online customers, then switching to the Raw files for print work. When the D800 came out I was tempted by the idea of using it as a high-resolution second body alongside my D4, to supplement my old D300. In the end though, I decided that the workflow for 36MP files was likely to be simply too slow and the amount of landscape work I did simply wouldn’t justify the expense.

By the time the D810 was announced, the D4S was my main camera, my D300 was broken and I was again considering a higher-resolution backup body. The two things that clinched the deal in favor of the D810 were the addition of the excellent Group Area AF mode from the D4S and my accreditation to the Commonwealth Games, with the prospect of some great backdrops at the mountain bike and road events.

The D810 arrived just over a week before the start of the Games, while I was covering some elite road races in Yorkshire. This gave me an opportunity to get used to the D810 and another recent addition to my camera bag, the 80-400 VRII. Quickly I was impressed by the flexibility that the D810 gave me, and at just how well it performed as an out-and-out sports camera. 

My first low-light experiment with the D810 – at Reading Track League the day before I drove to Glasgow – was really a 'no light' experiment – with the floodlights aimed over the velodrome and on to the running track. So, as a pre-cursor to what I intended to do at the mountain bike race at the Commies, I tried out my four-head Speedlight stand, which worked a treat. Sadly, I would get to the Games to discover that because of broadcast TV restrictions, flash was banned at all venues.

This shot was taken on the final day of practice at the velodrome in Glasgow. We got a chance to practice podium portraits with some visitors from the Commonwealth. This shot of Prince Charles was taken in 'Small' Raw mode.

Workflow was my main concern with the D810 and working with 36MP, Raw images is of course slow. In practice, though, while I did use DX crop mode a couple of times to 'pre-crop' images I knew I would have to tighten up in post, my JPEG now / Raw later workflow meant that file size was rarely an issue.

Even in Small Raw mode (9MP) and at relatively high (ISO 1600) ISO, the detail in images from the D810 is more than sufficient for most of the applications for which these images are likely to be used.

When shooting sport I shoot in either shutter priority or full manual mode, and almost always with ISO sensitivity set to 'Auto'. With the D810, I almost always use Group Area AF mode. 

I took the new Nikkor 80-400mm along to the velodrome as an experiment. I had my trusty 70-200mm in my bag and was pretty sure I would be switching to that after a few quick shots with the 80-400mm. In the end, the shorter lens didn’t come out of the bag until the mountain bike races, almost a week later.

This indoor shot demonstrates the AF performance in Group AF mode. It may look a fairly straight forward image but it’s actually shot from a very restricted photo position on the entry to the first bend and between the solid wooden fence and a steel rail. The gap is about 30cm, but you have to shoot down at an angle through it and there is a curved 'upright' joining the rail to the fence just to the rear of the rider in the shot.

Getting the shot here involved picking up the focus on the rider's head to the left of the upright – virtually head on – and panning 'through' the upright and following the rider as they transition on to the bend the D810 had no trouble locking and holding focus even in the relatively low light of the velodrome.

I took this shot at 1/400sec (ISO 800, F4.8) to allow for some blur on the wheels but give a good chance of a sharp image.

Podiums and medal ceremonies were what I expected to use the D810 for and it didn’t disappoint. The new 'highlight priority' spot metering – designed for theatrical work – did the trick here, too.

The lighting in the velodrome is aimed at the track surface, not the track centre, so the medal ceremonies tend to be a bit gloomy, making VR almost essential. This shot was taken at the long end of the 80-400mm at ISO 2800, 1/200sec at F5.3. In experiments shooting static subjects, I've found that the 80-400 is capable of producing sharp images at 400mm with shutter speeds as low as 1/10 sec.

For 60kph head on shots, like this one of New Zealand sprinter Stephanie Mackenzie, you really need to be at 1/500 sec or faster. In fact, to be absolutely sure, this one is at 1/800 sec – which at f5.6 required me to bump the ISO sensitivity up to 12,800. While there is some noise clearly visible at 100%, the text on the jersey is clearly legible and with 5678 pixels horizontally in this crop, you’d barely notice it on a double page spread – let alone the 1024 pixel web gallery it was shot for. 

The light in the velodrome is rather patchy and tends to pool. This DX crop image was shot at ISO 9000, at 1/640sec and F5.6. 

Another use for cropping of 'standard' images to provide a different product for the client. This might look a like a studio closeup but it's actually a picture of New Zealand's Shane Archbold on the podium, at 400mm. Here I was working at ISO 14,400, hand-held at 1/640 sec. This  2109 x 3169 pixel (6.6MP) crop is a great example of the flexibility the D810's resolution gives you.

The Commonwealth Games mountain bike venue had spectacular views over the city of Glasgow, but was challenging in terms of the amount of unattractive course furniture that intruded into almost every shot. Again, the huge resolution of the D810 allowed me to crop out the worst of it without losing important background features – like the rain shower over the city centre in this image.

The most interesting parts of the mountain bike course were also pretty gloomy – although not as dark as the velodrome. I used my 70-200mm here was used here because of its slight weight and size advantage over the 80-400mm. Shooting at 1/800 sec wide open at ISO 800 still left a little blur on the spokes but captured the texture of the dust thrown up from the wheels.

That dust coated every inch of my equipment, but didn't cause any obvious harm to the D810 – not even a speck on the sensor.

Road Time Trials are difficult to shoot at the best of times – with the fastest riders off last and a relatively short time to get to the finish, so those of us shooting the event alone were really limited to one of three shots – wide at the start ramp (a great shot but with limited places which meant that photographers were rotated in and out), long towards the start ramp and long at the finish.

The start ramp was in the centre of the Arch at the edge of Glasgow Green, which made a decent enough background – although the locals’ description of it as Glasgow's Arc de Triomphe was stretching things a little. This shot is a crop of the starting gate taken from my original capture with the 80-400mm at 110mm, 1/800 sec and F5.6.

What you want from a sports camera is the ability to capture the action – no matter where on the field of play it is or the form that it takes. In the game of hockey, the ball moves fast and freezing the spray from the water-soaked artificial turf in this shot required a high shutter speed of 1/2500 sec.

As with any field sport, it’s almost impossible for one photographer to cover both ends of the hockey pitch – and certainly not with only one camera. For the England vs New Zealand Women’s Hockey Semi-Final I again used the D810 and 80-400mm and positioned myself at the end that New Zealand was attacking.

The combination of the 80-400mm's telephoto reach and the D810's pixel count meant that I didn't have to miss the action at either end of the field.

Decisive moments are what sport is all about and this England goal in the penalty shoot-out – while not the final goal, was the most dramatic and illustrated the team's determination. Again, this is a tight crop with the D810 providing plenty of detail, but I also supplied looser crops of the same capture in case a picture editor might want to run the image across a spread with some text over the green of the field.

Heavy rain shows in the evening sessions at Hampden Park provided huge variation in lighting. This shot of Kwemoi of Kenya stumbling after having his heels clipped in the Men’s 1500m was an 'accident' – I had the D810 set up to capture the action at the pole vault at the opposite end of the stadium. Exposure settings of 1/1600 sec at F8, ISO 2000 wouldn't be my natural choice for this kind of shot but the high shutter speed does freeze the action nicely.

Another example of a fairly extreme crop – this time forced on me because as I mentioned in the previous slide, the pole vault competition was happening at the other end of the stadium. At 2199 pixels high, this image isn't as useful as it would have been had I gotten closer (or been able to shoot with a longer lens) but it could certainly run at full height on a single magazine page with a column of text alongside.

Cropping from the D810 isn’t just about achieving usable shots despite not being able to get in to the perfect position – it’s also about flexibility. Do you need a double page spread of the entire field in the 4x100m relay? Or just the podium positions? Or just Usain Bolt? No problem.

Here's the original full-resolution 36MP capture, from which the above crop is taken.

The isolated Bolt pic is ‘only’ 1662 pixels tall – good for about 14cm at 300dpi – but for many sports and news publications, that’s plenty.

And yes, the D810 is water resistant. On a day when planes were diverted from Glasgow airport and only 12 of the 139 starters finished the race, the camera (and the non-wholly-internal-zooming 80-400) performed flawlessly.