nocklebeast: Monterrey Bay Derby Dames: Team Metal vs Team Pop

Friday, August 17, 2012

Monterrey Bay Derby Dames: Team Metal vs Team Pop

I headed down to Monterrey for Team Metal

vs Team Pop!

This was my first time using a remote controlled flash.

I set up one remote flash just short of the straight-away at turn two, aimed toward the pivot line. The hockey glass is just behind the ref lane on the track (actually directly above the raffled off comfy couch seats). I stuck a green "gel" to try to match the ambient lighting to the flash. I also had another flash on the camera I could adjust on the fly as well.

With my intuition built from using on-camera flash with manual settings, I mis-underestimated the flash setting. Or is it mis-overestimated the flash power? I used the flash at 1/4 power, which is just about the maximum flash power that can be used but still have reasonably fast flash refresh rates (2 frames per second for 3 or maybe 4 frames).

I could easily cut the power by half or more. This was too much flash (at least with using an ISO of 1250 and aperture of f.28-ish. Team Pop's pink uniforms tended to be over-exposed and less color saturated.

Still I generally liked how the off-camera light had an interesting shape to it.

And creating interesting shadows

referees signal how many minor penalties each jammer has.

It worked out fairly well shooting from center track at turn one and two

although it was a bit of an interesting challenge shooting into the light at turn two. One stratergery I developed was to just manually stop down the aperture ring as I pivoted from turn one to turn two

Now, when shooting with a digital rangefinder with manual focus lenses, I don't often get action sequences. One way to get sequences is if the skaters skate really really slowly as in this dual between Astronaughty and Polly Fester in last year's Golden Bowl.

In the case of slow skating I can manually adjust the focus to keep up with the slowing skating skaters.

But on this case on the inside I managed to get three shots in focus because the distance from me and the skaters doesn't change much as I pivot... and I got lucky and wasn't photo-bombed by a jam ref during this sequence of Smalls of Fury chasing Eve L Twin.