FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR x Madeleine Penfold
Sports photographer Madeleine Penfold puts the new FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR through its paces at Dulwich Hamlet Football Club
UK-based photographer and director Madeleine Penfold uses impactful and energetic visual media to tell her stories. It has been her mission to empower and raise the profile of inclusion in sports, her specialism, by framing participants with authenticity. Equipped with the new FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR, Madeleine joined Dulwich Hamlet Football Club’s women’s team for their first pre-season training session of the summer.
“It felt really nice to be back at a club like Dulwich,” she says. “They’re really community-minded, they’ve got an amazing ground and they have really dedicated people working for them.”
On the Sidelines
While dedicated to sport stories, much of Madeleine’s work takes place in the reportage, documentary and lifestyle scene. To sit on the sidelines with a long telephoto lens marked a significant departure from her usual methods.
“It’s so different,” she says. “I started off as a photographer shooting with a 35mm fixed lens, my go-to focal length. That means I’m very close to my subject and my story, and I’m almost always engaging with it.
“I can have a dialogue with the subject – I’ll put my camera down and chat to them. It’s that kind of dynamic that allows me to get images that feel very candid, natural and in the moment.”
At the other end of the scale, the XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR, boasting a full-frame equivalent focal length of 609mm, is much better suited to the fast-paced, long-distance setting of traditional sports photography.
“This couldn’t be more different to my usual work,” Madeleine remarks. “There’s a lot of distance between you and what’s happening. I would have to physically shout if I wanted to direct them, but given the dynamic of what this story was, I didn’t want to interfere with it. The girls were doing the bleep test – who wants to pause and take a portrait when you’re doing that?”
Dulwich Hamlet FC
Madeleine has worked with the south-east London team Dulwich Hamlet FC several times before. Their camaraderie and commitment to women’s sport are traits that keep her coming back for more.
“I’ve worked with Dulwich several times before, having experienced the commitment of the players and the team around them. It’s inspiring to see. This season marks the arrival of many new faces on the team – it’s an exciting new season for the club. The session fell on the same day that England played in the World Cup semi-final, so everybody ran to watch the match together after training.”
The women’s squad currently competes in the fourth tier of the FA Women’s National League. After a short summer break, the squad was reconvening for the first time in preparation for the upcoming season.
“I have such respect for these players because it’s not like this is their full-time job,” Madeleine explains. “The likelihood is that these women have all been at work or studying beforehand. They’ve come to this session at 7:00 PM, probably knackered already, but everyone gets involved.
“You could see that transition. Some of them seemed tired as they arrived, but as soon as they started moving together and supporting each other, you could see their energy rising together, and that was beautiful to watch.”
Power and Strength
Observing from the sidelines, Madeleine was looking to take photos that captured the emotions and connection that the players shared. “I wanted to uncover the relationship between players,” she says. “I also wanted to capture their grit and determination.”
She also aimed to redress an imbalance in the way male and female athletes are depicted in the media. Studies have shown that women in sport are more likely to be shown in a passive pose, while men are likely to be doing something active.
“There’s a higher percentage of professional female athletes are who are photographed in more of a lifestyle or fashion way, whereas male athletes are often portrayed in positions of extreme power – they’re in game mode, and they look really strong,” Madeleine explains.
“With that in mind, I wanted to capture the reality of this training session. I wanted to see sweat and muscles – someone out of breath on the floor with mud all over their knees. I asked myself how I could capture the power and strength that these players have as well as the relationships they have with one another.”
“I also wanted to play with the light and shadows. It was a really hot day, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. With this lens, I was able to focus in on things. A long lens is ideal; it frames something so it almost looks like a billboard, just because of the perspective.”
FUJINON XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR
Pairing the XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR with the rapid FUJIFILM X-H2S, Madeleine set to work photographing the training session. While she has more experience using zoom lenses at this distance, Madeleine found the limitation of a fixed focal length to be creatively freeing.
“With it being a prime lens, you have one big option taken away from you,” she says. “That can be quite nice, because it means you can focus on other things – where do I need to be? What am I capturing? You’re working with what you have, and you get to finesse and focus on the thing that’s playing out in the viewfinder.”
The nimbleness of this camera and lens combination ended up being perfect for the session. And at only 1,245g, the XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR is a surprisingly portable option.
“I was working handheld, and it was an absolute breeze because the lens is so light,” continues Madeleine. “Whenever I’ve used such long lenses in the past, I’ve had to put them on a tripod because of the weight, but I could just throw this over my shoulder with the camera strap. There was never a moment where I felt it was taking too much energy or was too hard to work with. It was just super light.”
An optical image stabilisation (OIS) system offering up to 5.5 stops of compensation also helped Madeleine to keep things steady, combining with the X-H2S’s powerful in-body image stabilisation (IBIS) to massively improve handheld stability.
“It was really smooth,” she says. “When you’re zoomed in to that level, you might expect some sort of shake on the lens, but I didn’t have any of that. There’s Eye Detection AF on the camera as well, which made it easy to track people. When players were weaving in and out of things or running forwards and backwards, you can choose which subject you want to track.”
Sports Photography with Fujifilm
With an ever-growing lens line-up that is increasingly able to cater for sports photographers, Fujifilm’s X Series has become a hot prospect for anyone looking to capture critical moments at distance.
“For me, Fujifilm has such amazing colour science,” says Madeleine. “If it has the ability – which it does – to be used for fast-moving subjects, like in sport or wildlife, then it’s got everything for me. The camera and lens have the capability to do all the things I need in a fast-moving environment – I’m dying to use it again.”
From the diverse lineup of X Series lenses, would the XF400mmF4.5 R LM OIS WR make it into Madeleine’s bag for future projects? “Absolutely,” she answers. “It’s not going to weigh me down. I think that’s the biggest thing, because I move around a lot with the work I’m doing.”
“Having a lightweight kit is important. As this lens is so compact and portable, there’s no reason I wouldn’t take it with me.
“It’s great for wildlife, landscape and sport photographers. But I think commercial photographers would also love this. It’s such a long lens, it compresses and frames things beautifully. If you need to photograph a scene and have it look cinematic, this lens is perfect for that.”
“It’s the only fixed 400mm lens in the X Series. When you don’t have a zooming component, you’re shooting through fewer pieces of glass, so the image is even clearer and sharper. Overall, it just looks so much nicer.”
