nocklebeast

Saturday, March 16, 2013

The Santa Cruz Kaiser Permanente Arena as a venue for basketball

There's a certain kind of sports fan in Santa Cruz, upon hearing of the possibility that the Golden State Warriors developmental league team might move from Northern WhereEverStan to Santa Cruz, who knows what the arena is really for.

Earlier this year I set out to go to some basketball games to do a little research. To research the amount and quality of the light. I brought my fancy digital camera to a couple of games and then I brought my old Minolta XG-M with a ridiculous lens attached to it for a couple of games.

the santa cruz kaiser permenente arena as a venue for.... basketball?

The auto white balance on my digital camera doesn't seem to handle the greenish florescent lighting real well, but it isn't too hard to correct in post. I anticipate there will be a bit more blue in the ambient lighting soon.

the color isn't a total "slam dunk"; at Kaiser Permanente, but at least there are no sodium lamps

Mav'Riks, the world's most enthusiastic turtle, spies on Reno's chalk talk during a team timeout.

There's a curious rainbow lens flare in some of these ridiculous photos I was hoping was due to the filter, but it doesn't seem to go away when I take the filter off. Perhaps if I'm closer to the action, I won't get the lens flare from the bright line of lights on each side of the court.

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Mav'Riks picks me up whenever I'm feeling down.

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Friday, March 15, 2013

A day in the sun. Shooting derby with cross-processed color slide film.

The other reason why, after shooting derby for five years, I was looking forward to shooting my first outdoor bout last month, was the opportunity for shooting cross processed slide film without the need for flash.

What's cross processed slide film? Slide film produces a color positive negative. You look at the film illuminated from behind and you see a "normal' image. Color print film produces a color negative film, which then becomes color positive when a color print is made. Each type of color film is processed with it's own chemicals. Cross processing refers to developing film with the "wrong chemicals." In this case E-6 color slide film is developed in C-41chemicals to produce a color negative that results in prints with odd color shifts. And they are a bit more grainy and have higher contrast too.

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The full flickr set (of the frames I selected from a single roll of film) is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nocklebeast/sets/72157633002285885/

This roll of film was shot with a Zeiss Ikon (with a Leica 90mm Summarit lens). It's a 35mm film rangefinder. Several years ago, I read a review comparing the Leica M7 with the Zeiss Ikon. While the reviewer thought the Leica might be a little bit better overall, the viewfinder is a little larger and brighter than Leica's. So when Zeiss announced they were discontinuing the chrome-topped (chrome is sexy!) Zeiss Ikon, I bought one of the last cameras off Adorama.com. Zeiss has since announced they are discontinuing the all-black Zeiss Ikon as well. The finder on the Zeiss is sooo yummy. It's a bigger and brighter than the finder on my M8.