A favor for a friend: Photographing Allie Wilson in the Women's 800m

Five days ago I made a special trip to the Stad de France to capture images of a runner named Allie Wilson. She went to Monmouth University (the same college as my friend) and I was asked if I could grab some images of her for the university and for her. Since the timing worked out in the morning, I was able to be there just in time for her event.

This is the beginning of the race where they do the athlete introductions. This is what it looks like behind the scenes.  Oh...for the first time ever, I used the pre-registering of her face to tell the Canon R1 that she was my main subject. Before the race started, I took a photo of her and then told the camera that she is my priority. This way the camera knew to default the focus on her. Very cool!

She started really strong, taking the lead from the get go.

I was happy that she was in the front, since it was easier to get good photos of her, versus being in the middle of the pack. 

Knowing that I would be pretty far from the runners, I used the Canon RF 2x tele-adaptor to double the focal length of my Canon RF 100-300mm lens. Now it acted as a 200-600mm lens at f/5.6. This allowed me to capture images all the way across the track from my photo position. 

As they came down the final stretch, I could see that the French woman was gaining ground.

I was hoping that she would have a little more gas in the tank...

...but it was not to be.

She ended up coming in third place in her heat, which was not enough to qualify her for the final race.

After the race, most of the runners went down to the track in exhaustion. I was bummed for Allie, but happy to have some nice images for her and the school.

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