[beholder3]

The weather was fine so I tried a new sort of subjects: Hockey on first national hockey league

So here are some results of my first 60 min shooting this stuff. I tried to capture some of the dynamics.

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


#6


The whole series is here:
Hockey | Flickr

[Tas]

A spectacular sport to capture, and an excellent series of images here. Well done mate.

Tas

[lesmore49]

One of my sil's used to pay field hockey at a very competitive level. Can be a very tough sport. Excellent pictures of top athletes.

[Unregistered User 8]

People have said that Pentax was " no good for sports or action." They should see these images. Very well taken.

[robgski]

Very good shots!

[ffking]

the fact that these - and the others on Flickr - are well timed as well as sharp suggests a pretty good strike rate for the AF as well as good timing by the photographer - might soon have to stop telling myself don't need that lens, too ;( - good work!

[Paul the Sunman]

Very nice! I notice you were shooting everything at f/5.6 1/000 s, until the sun went in and then you swapped to 1/640 s. These turned out to be very good choices.

[clickclick]

Excellent! I've been surprised how well I've done hand holding my K1 with the 150-450, but it is heavy fast. Were you using a monopod/tripod or hand holding?

[monochrome]

I am quite convinced Pentax AF.C can be competitive given attention to camera settings, lenses used and a modicum of technique. I didn't look at settings for every image, but I'm impressed @ ISO 320 you still get f/5.6 and 1/800. Other than Z axis (where I think Pentax has some issues to deal with) the AF whiners are just that.

[travelswsage]

Wow, great shots! I hope it's ok to ask - which AF settings did you use -- AF.C? number of AF points?

[DDoram]

Nice captures.

[Angel Perez]

Beautiful pictures are exactly that. It's what you do with under limitations that create great art.

Well done beholder3!

[Miguel]

These are nicely captured. I prefer the shots that are taken from a more level perspective. The emotion and intensity comes through.

M

[beholder3]

the fact that these - and the others on Flickr - are well timed as well as sharp suggests a pretty good strike rate for the AF as well as good timing by the photographer - might soon have to stop telling myself don't need that lens, too ;( - good work!

I think, if you shoot outdoor sports (and especially with a K-1) the DFA 150-450 is a must have. It's near perfect wide open (at least my copy) and has a AF drive that can keep up with almost anything you throw at it.

Very nice! I notice you were shooting everything at f/5.6 1/000 s, until the sun went in and then you swapped to 1/640 s. These turned out to be very good choices.

Yup. F5.6 is wide open at the long end, which I usually tried using.

Excellent! I've been surprised how well I've done hand holding my K1 with the 150-450, but it is heavy fast. Were you using a monopod/tripod or hand holding?

I couldn't handhold the lens for 60+ minutes in a row, so I used a monopod (14,99 EUR Braun 1001; no ballhead at all). This way it works well - for me.

Wow, great shots! I hope it's ok to ask - which AF settings did you use -- AF.C? number of AF points?

Basically the settings I described in the horseracing article. SEL 9 (topmost F2.8 point) with hold "Medium" or "low", Priorities Auto/Auto.

These are nicely captured. I prefer the shots that are taken from a more level perspective. The emotion and intensity comes through.

I began shooting level standing at the fence but after 20 minutes an older person from the audience asked me to "get out of the way" and so I moved backward and up the seating rows. The professional shooter were all on a balcony even higher (but I do not know if they had a choice)

Edit:
And I forgot to turn off SR, so that was on for all images.
All are JPGs ooC (main reason was I had no idea what to expect of this subject and wanted the nearly unlimited buffer depth JPGs provide) just cropped and saturation/clarity added back in (in camera I reduce that strongly for JPGs).

[biz-engineer]

While I know that Pentax K3 and K1 are capable, I don't like that kind of threads because they don't talk about how many shots were out of focus and deleted. It's the same non-objective proposition as the complete opposite thrown by people who don't know how to use the camera or trolls coming over here bashing Pentax and promoting other brands.