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Thursday, October 20, 2011

A double header at San Jose Skate

Silicon Valley KillaBytes vs Central California Area Derby 

and

Silicon Valley Dot.Kamikazes vs Orange County Roller Girls Blockwork Orange.

First, before the photo highlights... a little preamble:

I shoot with a digital rangefinder.  Unlike a digital SLR, a rangefinder doesn't have a mirror box between the lens and the sensor.  The lens on a rangefinder sits closer to the sensor than the lens of an SLR. Which means the light focused onto the rangefinder's sensor strikes the sensor at more of an oblique angle than with an SLR.  Apparently, digital sensors are more sensitive to light striking them at a perpendicular angles and so with a rangefinder, the sensor's designers (Kodak in this case) have to coat the sensor with little microlenses to focus the light back to perpendicular to the sensor.  I believe this means that the high-ISO performance of a rangefinder... just won't be quite as good as the high-ISO performance of an SLR.

So what does that mumbo-jumbo really mean?  

My highest ISO my camera goes to is 2500. Not 3200, not 6400... 2500 (and it's a bit noisy at 2500 too).

San Jose Skate is a dimly lit skating rink a little south of San Jose off highway 85.  How dim is dim?  Without using a flash, and setting the shutter speed to 1/125th of a second (perhaps the slowest shutter speed that will freeze derby action... most of the time), and maxing out the ISO at 2500, you need to set the aperture to f1.2 or maybe f1.4 to get a nice bright properly exposed photograph.

svrg_bytes_vs_centralcali_L2045547

Shooting without flash at f1.2 or f1.4 (with a manual focus lens) means the depth of field is very shallow, and the focus is a little soft too.

Bionic BabyDoll

consulting the clipboard

svrg_dots_vs_orangecounty_L2045806

It's been a little over a year since the last time I shot at San Jose Skate. Last February, another photographer asked me about the light at San Jose Skate... I got so depressed thinking about the dim fluorescent lighting that I didn't go to the bout.  But I managed to make it to last Saturday's double header.

Now the ceiling is a neutral color and is quite low, so using on-camera flash and bouncing it off the ceiling works pretty well... next time I got to dial down the flash just a little bit (about 1/2 stop) to prevent losing detail in the blown highlights.

The full flickr sets are here (Silicon Valley KillaBytes vs Central California Area Derby and Silicon Valley Dot.Kamikazes vs Orange County Roller Girls ), and here are some highlights.

 an example of the ethical treatment of a pivot line

Coach Pia

svrg_bytes_vs_centralcali_L7005233

svrg_bytes_vs_centralcali_L7005170

svrg_bytes_vs_centralcali_L7005183

svrg_bytes_vs_centralcali_L2045586

T is for Tennessee

I say SV, you say RG!

svrg_dots_vs_orangecounty_L2045718

svrg_dots_vs_orangecounty_L2045637

smiley smiley


svrg_dots_vs_orangecounty_L7005288

svrg_dots_vs_orangecounty_L2045782

svrg_dots_vs_orangecounty_L2045715

svrg_dots_vs_orangecounty_L7005320

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

MBDD Beasts of Eden vs SVRG Hard Drivers

A quick photo summary of a bout from two weeks ago (full flickr set here: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/nocklebeast/sets/72157627681884603/).

Monterey Bay Derby Dames (red/black) vs Silicon Valley (white/green).

mbdd_vs_svrg_L7004919

mbdd_vs_svrg_L7005039

mbdd_vs_svrg_L7004878

mbdd_vs_svrg_L2045299

481 clowns

It's disco night at Water City

mbdd_vs_svrg_L7004897


Coach Panda

ab-scab

mbdd_vs_svrg_L7004912


mbdd_vs_svrg_L7005035

mbdd_vs_svrg_L2045380

mbdd_vs_svrg_L7004933

mbdd_vs_svrg_L7004893

Monday, October 3, 2011

Photos of the 2011 WFTDA Western Regional Tournament

Lady Liberty with pink derby mustache

This is a list of links to photos of the 2011 WFTDA Western Regional Tournament. 

Joe Rollerfans's photos!
www..flickr.com/photos/rollerfan/collections/72157627966845801/

Sharkey's photos:
www..flickr.com/photos/masonite-burn/collections/72157627771170218/

Axle Adam's photos!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/type2b/collections/72157627813382086/


Rick Marr's photos:


Sacred vs Angel

Sacred vs Rocky
Levar Hurtin's photos:

 Donalee's photos:

for-starters

Bay - Jet

Sacred - Denver


Sacred-Jet


Dave Wood's photos:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/dave-wood-photography/2011-wftda-west-region-playoffs/287252367952320

John Rudoff's photos"


wheels of justice vs BADG


John Nyman's photos:

Tuscon vs Jet

tuscon vs denver

Papa Razzo's photos:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150378944120250.402288.643360249

 
Tim Gonzalez's photos:

oly-rocky


Denver-sacred

Oly-rose


Rocky-rat


Bad-jet

Angel-sacred


Rocky-sacred


Oly-jet

Rose-bad