Who said a wide focal length cannot be used for action photography? I thought since the previous image was taken with a 300mm; I would go to the opposite end. Here I used a 14-24 f2.8 lens at 14mm. I wanted to tell a story, where the whole event and all the officials (don’t forget the guy with the rake) were all showing their interest in the event. As I could not easily follow an athlete at high speed with a very wide-angle lens, I prefocused on the soil and hoped I had a fast enough shutter speed. As the day was grey and overcast, I had to use iso 800 to get enough depth of focus as well as a higher shutter speed. I used my slowest camera as I wanted as much detail as possible…. to give myself room to crop later… which I never did.
Nikon D3X,
Nikon 14-24mm f2.8,
ISO 800,
1250th sec,
14mm focal length.
center weighted metering @ +.3 stop as background was very bright and subject was not yet in the image… (I should have used manual and preset according to the subject exposure)

P.S. It should be noted that there are two long jump stations, and they use them according to the direction of the sun… the athlete always jumps with sun behind them… making photography more challenging…