Second time at Derby

Decided to go and watch my second derby game last weekend... was late and missed the first game altogether.... But was able to make it there before the second game between Killer queens and Thames Fatales. The game was nothing less of a spectacle... the home team (Fatales) came from a 38 point deficit and won in style at the end.

From a photography point of view, this game presents a lot of challenges. First its the indoor lighting which without fast glass, so hard to cope with (unless you want to considerably raise the ISO value). Second of all, its a fast game and a lot happens all over the track. This time, I stuck to my 24-105mm lens for the whole shoot, just to get used to it. Understandably, a lot had to be cropped... but this allows me to do a panoramic crop which I like.

I found myself first following the jammers (players with the star on the helmet).  But later remembered the advice I got last time from Mark and started to follow the game closely to predict where a tackle or a block will be made. The objective was to capture some emotions, actions and drama.

Here are some of the results... More will be posted on a FB album shortly.

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced or published without a written consent from the author. 

Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/91953384@N02/ 

 
Thank you.
Akila. 

Second time around shooting fireworks

For the second time, went out to shoot fireworks in London.... This time with my family. The early arrival gave a good spot to shoot from and more than the fireworks, what got me more interested was kids playing with fire sparkles.  By this time, the sun had completely set and some kids walked up to the water front and started to have fun. I already had my camera on a tripod  and simply aimed at them and took few shots.

As for the fireworks, the set up and everything else was the same as the last time. Please find that information in the article I wrote last time - http://akilamikephotography.blogspot.ca/2013/05/what-things-to-tackle-when.html

But, I did end up making one mistake... I simply had the wrong lens on the camera for the job. The 24-105 on a crop sensor body was not wide enough capture everything in the scene. So, had to change lenses in the dark halfway through... but missed the best parts by doing so. A lesson learned nonetheless.

Here are some of the results - 

Would love to hear your thoughts on this...or your similar experiences.

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced without a written consent from the author. 

Thanks
Akila.

Shooting birds... using a camera of course

Something I haven't done in few years was to shoot some pictures of birds... With very little macro life around after the brutal winter we had, I was wondering about my options of shooting wild life. That's when my colleague Duane asked whether I would like to join and go out to shoot some wildlife... 

So took off with my Canon 70-300mm telephoto lens to take some shots of birds late afternoon when the sun is around the golden hour (or 2 hours in this case). With natural lighting nailed down, the rest was up to patience, camera settings and the ability to predict where they ll show up and where they ll go. In this article, I will present some of the results and talk a bit about what went right/wrong + the objective of the setup.

Will start off with some shots of Geese... (not a bird I am fond of)... But the backlit goslings made the shot more dramatic with their colorful fur.

Here s a shot of two of them at the river banks... The synchronized motion of them is whats interesting in the shot. However, the focus seems a little off in this one (noticed after the fact).

They also makes it dramatic when they bathe or play with water...

Now the two shots below are of birds when they were standing relatively still...  What makes them work for me in the light green (matching) colors introduced by the new leaves in the first one and the framing of the head using the two branches in the second one.

The one below was also of a busy little bird..  But was a situation where I had to rely on manual focus since the back-lighting of the bird kept on throwing off the camera's auto-focus (making the lens hunt for focus). But I wanted to capture this guy at any cost due to its lovely colored feathers which were glowing in the sun.

Here s how I took this one... The bird was flying from one branch to the other constantly.. So I wanted to catch it during this short flight. The movement was so fast that there was no possibility of catching this without some premeditation. So once it settled on a branch, I manually focused and waited for it to move to snap away. This one is not perfectly in focus... However, if I had more time to spend trying this, the technique was bound to return results.

Here s a case where luck comes into play.  This bird came gliding in with light only hitting a small cross section... Though I was able to track it nicely.. it was dark against the background... Then it suddenly made this u turn and for a split second, its whole body was glowing in the sun.... Here the result.

Not an expert on wildlife work though.. so would love to hear your thoughts about this topic. Comment below or send an e-mail to continue this discussion.

Please consider that all copyrights are reserved for all material on this blog and cannot be reproduced or published without a written consent from the author. 

Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/91953384@N02/ 

 
Thank you.
Akila.