[k100d]

To be honest, i've stopped posting in the Post Your Photos gallery, nobody comments on my photos and that is really depressing. The lens forum is like my favourite forum here as most of you have probably noticed and so i'm going to tie in any of my photo posts with lenses.

I attended Scotiabank BUSKERFEST 2008 - August 21st to 24th ::: In support of EPILEPSY Toronto today and managed to catch a few shows: Flam Chen, Space Cowboy, Dream State Circus, Rob Williams, Pogo Dudes. It was a great show and lots of events, very busy. There are also night shows, but I couldn't stay out that late.

Some lessons learned this time around

-Fast Primes are great for action
Stopping down these primes to 2.8, I was able to get ample shutter speed at ISO 400. Also great bokeh on the action shots. with the 77mm, at a relatively far distance, gives enough useful depth of field. When i had the FA31 on for wider shots, there's plenty of DOF at 2.8 for this style of photography which is the usual fear against using the fast lenses at large apertures.





-But event photos should be taken with zooms
standing in a dense crowd, if the subject moves back and forwards, prime doesn't really cut it. There were a lot of photos where i had to cut off important parts of the scene because i couldn't move and was stuck with a prime. unless i have another body ... hrmmmmm

there goes her foot


the dude's actually on a unicycle!


-pf not really a big issue with the FA77
the FA77 is supposed to have bad PF, but i haven't really noticed it too much, except if i go 100%

a bit on the white belt on the hat, can you see it?


-AF-C tracking is a bitch, results were surprisingly decent
although the constant adjustments were disconcerting, coming back home and checking the results, there were no significant problems with the FA77 tracking, however the FA31 seemed to focus inconsistently at times. good thing my K100D can adjust Focus



-when it's impossible to have the camera follow the action, MF
Pre-set by focusing on something in the same distance prior; of course this isn't perfect, but did get quite a few keeprs and some close photos. this was the great part about the FA Limiteds, great MF feel, especially the FA77. however the FA31 has a very short throw from 2m to Infinity that kind of made it tricky



-missed my FA43, should have brought it out. the FA31 was too wide for most of this stuff



Other Comments

-shooting action events
center weighted metering, AF-C Single Point or Auto Point OR MF, Av mode with fast shutter, continuous shooting



-went from the "Bright" to "Natural" tone curve... photos look a lot better, the colours not as P&S vibrant

-Brought a Nikon P&S as Backup for wide angle shots, totally garbage for this event
EVF is nowhere fast enough and Contrast Detect AF was slow. My brother had a Pana TZ4 and had the same problems. "Sports" Scene Mode can only help so far. It's OVF or nothin' baby.

-trust the meter / check the histogram
in the bright sunlight it's easy to look at the display and see dark figures and assume the photos were underexposed or the lighting was too harsh. totally not the case for most of my photos. there were some photos i thought were dark and put positive compensation but found it it wasn't actually required



-i want another body! and a grip
shooting too many portrait orientation hurt my wrist



-need to look more seriously into the DA* 50-135 if i attend more of these events ... would go well with a K20D and Grip

-see the rest of the photos at the bottom link

thanks

---

Last edited by k100d; 08-24-2008 at 10:45 AM.

[Stratario]

I'm no expert but these shots all look perfect to me. Nice days work. Nice colours, very sharp and perfect DOF for the situation. Great lenses in expert hands. I enjoyed watching them and felt like I was almost there.

[Steinback]

I dropped by buskerfest as well at 9 pm or so; I was just walking by and happened to spot it. I had my camera on me, but with a drained battery from shooting earlier in the day it didn't do me a whole lot of good. I saw an awful lot of Nikons and a couple of Canons in varying trim levels wandering around, plus the usual swarm of p&s and cameraphone users.

I agree that framing action with primes can be frustrating, however all of these shots worked out quite well even if they don't show everything that was going on in the scene.

[vizjerei]

Damn it! I was planning to go there today but plan changed.. was also thinking to go to the Taiwanfest at Harbourfront... Oh well... and I am totally understand about your feeling for the Post Your Photos gallery, topics up and go down to the list so fast there are not enough time for the topic to stay up for more ppl to check them out...

Anyways, Great action shots!! you should also check out the Taiwanfest at Harbourfront great food and ppl there

[roentarre]

You have captured the spirit of the events and I really love the contrast and colour from these shots. It is always to crop to reveal the subjects and you did an excellent job on these photos

[J.Scott]

I share your sentiments regarding the 'Post Your Pictures' section; it is discouraging to see 50+ views before even one comment is posted.

I think you did well with the choice of primes you chose to bring to this type of event. The lighting is very tricky with bright sky above and black pavement below and lots of shadows in between. Your critical observations will serve you well for something similar in the future. Maybe the 40mm Limited or the FA 50mm f1.4 would work well too. I recently purchased a vertical grip for my K10D and it makes vertical shooting so much more quicker and comfortable.

Thanks for sharing.

[Eaglerapids]

I totally agree with you about the Post your pictures forum, in fact it's been weeks since I've even looked in it, much less posted any photos or comments.

You've rekindled my desire for the FA 77ltd. Most comments about it's PF issues make it into some kind of monster but if you have to go to 100 or 200% like the 31ltd to see it, then I can live with that.

Great post and pictures k100d, thanks for sharing.

[cupic]

Thanks for sharing that as good as street photography as Ive seen



cheers

[johnsherwood]

Awesome shots! Must have been tough to decide what to watch through the viewfinder and what to JUST WATCH! Are those guys doing flips on a hopped up pogo stick?

Makes me feel bad I didn't get out to do the same ( I live in Mississauga and don't get downtown as often as I'd like )

All of us GTAers' should try to get together for one of the many Toronto area events to shoot. Perhaps the Chinese Lantern Festival..........might provide some interesting night shot photo opps!

I might also be able to distract you long enough to 'borrow' one of those lovely ltd's!!!

[augustmoon]

Nice shots in some tricky lighting!

The longer focal lengths seem to do a better job at isolating the subjects from their backgrounds, especially when the lighting can be so harshly different.

You've done a great job with the exposure as your images look really good in these shots. I've made the mistake of seeing a dark image on my LCD review in similar type of contrasty lighting and adjusting accordingly, only find out later that the meter and histogram were accurate to begin with, so good point about trusting the meter and histogram more than what it looks like on LCD.

The FA77 seems to do a nice job at whatever you throw at it. To me this seems like the easiest FA ltd to MF. I haven't tried MF with the FA31.

Yes, the 50-135 would've served you well at a event like this. Nice photos. I've never ever even looked at any of the post your photos threads. But glad I caught them here!

[pop4]

Nice shots, you've done well despite not being able to sneaker-zoom.

-shooting action events
center weighted metering, AF-C Single Point or Auto Point OR MF, Av mode with fast shutter, continuous shooting

I'm not sure how it would've worked out, but did you take any shots with a slightly slower shutter speed, in order to show a sense of movement and action?

-trust the meter / check the histogram
in the bright sunlight it's easy to look at the display and see dark figures and assume the photos were underexposed or the lighting was too harsh. totally not the case for most of my photos. there were some photos i thought were dark and put positive compensation but found it it wasn't actually required

I definitely agree on this.

-i want another body! and a grip

(...and new lenses)

ahahah, don't we all

[Gooshin]

good work man, loving the quality here.

[k100d]

I'm no expert but these shots all look perfect to me. Nice days work. Nice colours, very sharp and perfect DOF for the situation. Great lenses in expert hands. I enjoyed watching them and felt like I was almost there.

hahaha i like how you said "expert hands". i just set the camera to the what i thought would be the right settings and took a lot of photos. i'm only showing the best, but there were a tonne misses.

I dropped by buskerfest as well at 9 pm or so; I was just walking by and happened to spot it. I had my camera on me, but with a drained battery from shooting earlier in the day it didn't do me a whole lot of good. I saw an awful lot of Nikons and a couple of Canons in varying trim levels wandering around, plus the usual swarm of p&s and cameraphone users.

I agree that framing action with primes can be frustrating, however all of these shots worked out quite well even if they don't show everything that was going on in the scene.

it's too bad you couldn't stay. they had a night show at around 10 PM which should have been awesome (i missed it too). lesson, next time bring backup batteries and memory ... i saw a tonne of people with Nikon / Canon + Kit Lenses too. can't imagine taking photos as well with that kind of gear.

with the prime, you have to pick your spots instead of trying to machine gun every opportunity in sight. sometimes leads to higher quality photos.

Damn it! I was planning to go there today but plan changed.. was also thinking to go to the Taiwanfest at Harbourfront... Oh well... and I am totally understand about your feeling for the Post Your Photos gallery, topics up and go down to the list so fast there are not enough time for the topic to stay up for more ppl to check them out...

Anyways, Great action shots!! you should also check out the Taiwanfest at Harbourfront great food and ppl there

i was thinking about maybe dropping by Taiwanfest but not enough time, couldn't even stay for the whole night yesterday.

yeah the post your photos thing, i dunno... it's a bit of a downer when if my post gets pushed to the second page w/o even a comment and i have to self bump ....

You have captured the spirit of the events and I really love the contrast and colour from these shots. It is always to crop to reveal the subjects and you did an excellent job on these photos

thanks James. actually no cropping at all in any of the photos!
all the credit for colour and contrast goes to the FA Limiteds

I share your sentiments regarding the 'Post Your Pictures' section; it is discouraging to see 50+ views before even one comment is posted.

I think you did well with the choice of primes you chose to bring to this type of event. The lighting is very tricky with bright sky above and black pavement below and lots of shadows in between. Your critical observations will serve you well for something similar in the future. Maybe the 40mm Limited or the FA 50mm f1.4 would work well too. I recently purchased a vertical grip for my K10D and it makes vertical shooting so much more quicker and comfortable.

Thanks for sharing.

thanks J. Scott... the lighting was tricky, but i didn't do anything to adjust for it. the camera's meter handled it exceptionally well. Most of the time i was in Av mode between f3.5 earlier in the day and under 2.8 later in the day

i left my FA43 at home and it would have been handy for the Pogo Dude photos. too bad my K100D doesn't support a grip, hahaha stuff's got me thinkin'

[k100d]

I totally agree with you about the Post your pictures forum, in fact it's been weeks since I've even looked in it, much less posted any photos or comments.

You've rekindled my desire for the FA 77ltd. Most comments about it's PF issues make it into some kind of monster but if you have to go to 100 or 200% like the 31ltd to see it, then I can live with that.

Great post and pictures k100d, thanks for sharing.

the FA77 is such a great lens. never let me down in any way, except when i need to change to another lens. here's a photo of the hat 100%, there is some PF around the buckle, but not significant unless you look for it

Thanks for sharing that as good as street photography as Ive seen



cheers

thanks cupic

Awesome shots! Must have been tough to decide what to watch through the viewfinder and what to JUST WATCH! Are those guys doing flips on a hopped up pogo stick?

Makes me feel bad I didn't get out to do the same ( I live in Mississauga and don't get downtown as often as I'd like )

All of us GTAers' should try to get together for one of the many Toronto area events to shoot. Perhaps the Chinese Lantern Festival..........might provide some interesting night shot photo opps!

I might also be able to distract you long enough to 'borrow' one of those lovely ltd's!!!

i managed to have a really great time through the viewfinder. even though there's lots of action, there are a lot of long pauses to rest and prepare for the next sequences. yes those are pogo sticks!

Ian is trying to organize the third Toronto Gathering in this post https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/gatherings-events/34868-toronto-meet-up-iii.html

too bad you didn't go to our 2nd Gathering, I was trying to get everyone hooked on the FA31 and FA77 and I got a few people to bite

Nice shots in some tricky lighting!

The longer focal lengths seem to do a better job at isolating the subjects from their backgrounds, especially when the lighting can be so harshly different.

You've done a great job with the exposure as your images look really good in these shots. I've made the mistake of seeing a dark image on my LCD review in similar type of contrasty lighting and adjusting accordingly, only find out later that the meter and histogram were accurate to begin with, so good point about trusting the meter and histogram more than what it looks like on LCD.

The FA77 seems to do a nice job at whatever you throw at it. To me this seems like the easiest FA ltd to MF. I haven't tried MF with the FA31.

Yes, the 50-135 would've served you well at a event like this. Nice photos. I've never ever even looked at any of the post your photos threads. But glad I caught them here!

thanks Brian. as i mentioned a bit earlier, i did nothing with the exposure. the camera was dead on everytime, although at the Pogo Dudes, i switched to Center Weighting because of the shade. good thing i did not delete a lot of the photos due to exposure issues, when i got home the photos look great.

i agree with the FA77 MF. it has a bit of gear grinding resistance which is great. i thought i did pretty well with it. the FA31 was pretty tough but the much larger DOF hides any focusing issues.

i'm really thinking about the DA* 50-135 now :P

Nice shots, you've done well despite not being able to sneaker-zoom.


I'm not sure how it would've worked out, but did you take any shots with a slightly slower shutter speed, in order to show a sense of movement and action?


I definitely agree on this.

(...and new lenses)

ahahah, don't we all

hey pop4, i mostly metered using Av at large apertures to give me the required shutter speed. then on Tv i did experiment and set the shutter down to about 1/60. but the photos didn't turn out all that great. maybe i should try to practice that more

[k100d]

good work man, loving the quality here.

thanks Serge!

by the way, all the EXIFs are up for the photos if interested

... one more photo