Saturday, we spent a balmy, humid evening watching the annual Christmas boat parade on the Kemah channel which empties into Galvaston Bay. I took a number of shots; none were technically spectacular and most were technically dismal - the moving boats combined with the slow shutter speeds necessary defeated me. For this exercise, I used my DS2, because I prefer its high ISO performance over that of my K10D. Here are the three most presentable pictures I was able to get - all taken with my DA 70 at ISO 1600:

f/2.4 @ 1/15s



f/2.4 @ 1/30 s (Elvis impersonator)



f/2.4 @ 1/45 s (post parade docking exercise - well lit boat and well lit crew)



The evening also marked my 3-year-old granddaughter's first night aboard our boat - something she thoroughly enjoyed (we were exhausted, however). Here are two shots of her below decks waiting for dinner and the parade. Both were at ISO 800 with DA 70, f/5.6 @ 1/30s.





I hope all of you are enjoying a happy holiday season,

Jer

[vievetrick]

Okay, this is the second boat parade thread I have found. WOW theses are great. I have got to visit a warm climate to see one of these. On to you grand daughter shost. Those are some big brown eyes. That is a great shot that I know as a dad would make me melt everytime I saw it. I get that same look from my daughter and pretty much would give her a new car and a house if she asked. Great job and thanks for sharing

[cardinal43]

Sailor:

Great pics of your granddaughter -- especially the first one with the huge brown eyes! Just a couple of quick questions about the shot if you don't mind. You said it was below deck, so I am assuming there wasn't a lot of light. Did you use a flash? If so, was it "bounced " light? My 15 month old grandson is coming to visit the middle of January, and I would love to be able to get pics like these. I have the K100D + the 18-55 kit lens, but no external flash. I'm thinking about one, but not sure just yet. Thanks for any info.

[distorted_vision]

hmm, pretty nice shots mate.. nice work.. i find the boat shots completely odd. (but thats a gud thing with me)

[NaClH2O]

Nice shots Jer, low light and movement make for massively difficult circumstances, especially when the flash can't reach. Really good job. I may just take the old DS out for a spin next time I go to the train show. BTW those shots of your grand daughter are great. However with a model like that, a pinhole, a light proof box and some 110 film would make a good photo.

NaCl(nice work, all our boats are mostly sitting on blocks now :cries: )H2O

[Sailor]

Thanks for the responses, everyone. I have a beautiful A*85/1.4 which is pretty sharp wide open and would have given me an extra stop or so to allow increasing the shutter speed - it would have been much better for this little shoot and the very reason I've kept this lens all these years. The sad thing is . . . it never entered my mind; I just grabbed my DS2 kit with the three DA Limited primes and headed out the door, jumped in the car and drove to the marina. Maybe next year.

[Sailor]

Sailor:

Great pics of your granddaughter -- especially the first one with the huge brown eyes! Just a couple of quick questions about the shot if you don't mind. You said it was below deck, so I am assuming there wasn't a lot of light. Did you use a flash? If so, was it "bounced " light? My 15 month old grandson is coming to visit the middle of January, and I would love to be able to get pics like these. I have the K100D + the 18-55 kit lens, but no external flash. I'm thinking about one, but not sure just yet. Thanks for any info.

Tom, this shot was taken with ambient light - most of which entered through the open main hatch. Still, it was pretty dim below and thus the camera chose a relative high ISO (800) for my f-stop/shutter combination. The DA 70/2.4 generally seems to do a pretty good job with this sort of shot - even in my clumsy hands.

I use flash only when absolutely necessary, since my results with an AF-360FGZ are pretty uneven. When I do use flash, I always use bounce (except for fill-in); one drawback of my flash is that the bounce feature can only be used in "landscape" orientation. Were I to do it over again, I'd probably get the larger Pentax flash (which has more juice and a lot more bounce flexibility).

Jer

[cardinal43]

Sailor:

Thanks for the reply. I'm always amazed at the shots I see and then find out that no flash was used. Hmmmm....so much to learn.

BTW, what part of coastal Texas? My grandmother and aunt (mom's mom & sister), lived in Corpus Christi, and I used to visit every summer until my mid-teens. Went back 3 or 4 times when I worked for the government.