If IRC the guy was taking about shooting skaters.
They hardly follow many predictable patterns. I was envisioning
photographing at very close range -. not at a distance, using AF and Wide
Angle Zooms. Shooting the skaters as they jump and turn in the air,
"running" and jumping over different obstacles etc. This requires three
things IMO: Speed, speed and speed! Features that were never very
impressively supported by Pentax.
Regards
Jens Bladt
http://www.jensbladt.dk
-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: David [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sendt: 25. februar 2006 09:37
Til: [email protected]
Emne: Re: *IST-D / DS & High speed action!
I mostly shoot action (cycling, Cyclocross in particular), here's my
humble thoughts.
1) If you know the sport well enough you prefocus to where you expect
action then you track your subject. This doesn't seem to be a Pentax
only thing, I've watched plenty of professional photographers from
Seattle area newspapers out there with Canons and Nikons with 70-200mm
f/2.8 glass doing the exact same thing that I do with my lowly Pentax
ist D with my slow lenses. They find a spot, prefocus, track, take a
burst of shots and review (I'll get to that part later).
And get this, I saw some guy who works for the Seattle Times manually
pre-focusing his Nikon D2X...BLASPHEMY!
Anyway, I had more misfocused shots with my D100 than I've ever had with
the D. Enough said.
2) Higher FPS would be nice...but it's not a requirement for good action
shots. I never really noticed the .5 FPS hit that I took by switching
to the D from the D100
On the subject of knowing where things will occur:
Cyclists/cars/runners/etc follow courses and
football/soccer/basketball/hockey/etc players follow something around
the playing field don't they? Try following that...unless you want to be
taking photos of the goalie scratching his behind.
3) Find me one action photographer that wastes his space with raw
files. They require lots of extra time to process. Most action
photographers I know shoot action with jpg.
I agree, write time is slow, I hope they made it better in the new D.
4)....
5) Noise processing is a pretty easy thing to automate, I bet most
photographers do it no matter what camera they use.
6) I don't have a single AF lens with a faster f stop than 3.2. Guess I
can't shoot action anymore :-(
7) Damn, I wonder if there was ever a time when Nikon and Canon users
had to use less than 10 mega pixels...oh wait
One of the more prolific cycling photographers (www.grahamwatson.com)
uses a D2X and a D2H, I wonder how ever he survives with 4.1
megapixels? I use the medium setting on the D all the time for extra
space and faster write speed seeing how the biggest size I offer to my
customers is a 8x10.
8) I agree it is annoying to not be able to review images after they've
been shot at a respectable speed. I shoot with a big card and review
shots between laps which seems to work well for what I do. But still I
still think it's an improvement over my SP 500 although not as good as
the D100
9) Here's the technique that was taught to me by a professional (w/Canon
equipment):
Find a spot
Find the right angle
Take a shot before the action arrives to check histogram etc...
Correct and lock exposure
Wait for action
Problem solved
10) Yeah, I was annoyed by that too, I liked it on the D100 but I don't
think I've missed it enough to not suggest the camera.
I don't shoot professionally (although I tell the IRS I'm a business,
which means I claim to be somewhat professional). I got it because I
was dissatisfied with my D100 (metering sucked, battery life sucked,
controls sucked, AF was horrible, etc) and I wanted to be able to use my
Pentax lenses. I think knowledge of the sport and how to photograph it
is far more important than the camera. Today, the D acts like it is, 3
year old technology. It's time for a replacement, but I won't get rid
of the D anytime soon. It's just too nice of a camera to sell.
I'll agree the D is not the best camera for action, but it's features
don't preclude it from being good at it.
David
Jens Bladt wrote:
Ten reasons for recommending the *ist D for action photography:
1: AF is slow, compared to the competition. Focusing in low light will
require 2-4 secs (according to dpreview tests).
You may use MF, and save time experimenting with AF. Enjoy using old,
lovely, smooth MF lenses.
2: Frames pr. second is just 2.5 (competition features 4-8.3 FPS). You may
use single shot mode. Make sure to plan each shot carefully and try not to
think too much about the athletes moving in a surprising way - you know
the
sports and can foresee everything that will occur.
3: Write speed is 8 secs for 1 RAW file (36-37 secs for a 5 shot RAW
burst,
14 secs for a JPEG burst). This gives you plenty of time for talking to
you
colleagues and for drinking coffee or smoking cigarettes.
5: Relatively high noise at ISO 1600-3200. This will give you many
entertaing hours, using Neat Image and other nice computer applications in
the comfort of you home.
6: Availability of new, fast (F:1.4-2.8) lenses is very limited. Use every
Monday, checking ebay for discontinued FA F.2.8 lenses. This is really
entertaining - much more enjoyable than the actal photographing.
7: Only 6MP leaves very little "space" for after-cropping. Enjoy the art
of
cropping the images while shooting.
8: Reviewing pix is relatively slow - and must await the rather long
writing
times. It's more fun taking chances. It's more exiting to check the images
at home, later on.
9: No immediate histogram available. Enjoy your ability to judge the
exposure in advance, using the +/- settings.
10:No flashing overexposure warning available for fast checking exposure.
(Same comment as above).
More advantages:
The Pentax *ist D is a very nice, well built, high qaulity DSLR camera.
Perfect for traveling (small size) and photographing when ever time is NOT
an issue - for landscapes and studio portraits. This makes is a good
choise
for me. That's what I do.
For sports photography I don't believe this camera is the first choise of
many photographers. I would like to talk to some of the (noumorous) sports
photographers, who are successfully using a Pentax *ist D and will
actually
prefere this to the rather fast working cameras from the otherwise
prefered
cameras by pro's - Nikons and Canons. Until I do, I can recommend this
camera for action photography to anyone who enjoy the exitement of
constantly testing you own skills as well as the exitment concerning the
art
of selling the the images to newspapers and magazines. With a Pentax *ist
D
at the stadium, there's never really a dull moment.
Regards
Jens Bladt
http://www.jensbladt.dk
-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: graywolf [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sendt: 25. februar 2006 00:30
Til: [email protected]
Emne: Re: *IST-D / DS & High speed action!
Har! Actually that focalplane shutter took a 10th of a second to move
the 5 inchs. That is where the idea of those carton cars leaning
forwards to indicate speed came from, those old photos.
graywolf
http://www.graywolfphoto.com
http://webpages.charter.net/graywolf
"Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof"
-----------------------------------
John Francis wrote:
Sure was. And 1/30 of a second froze the action much better.
Mind you, you also had to lug that heavy camera equipment
around - uphill both ways, of course.
Tell that to the kids of today, and they won't believe you.
On Fri, Feb 24, 2006 at 03:44:54PM -0500, graywolf wrote:
I always wonder how those oldtime racing shots were taken with a Graflex
5x7 SLR back around 1910 or so. Maybe 100mph was slower back in those
days?
graywolf
http://www.graywolfphoto.com
http://webpages.charter.net/graywolf
"Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof"
-----------------------------------
John Francis wrote:
On Fri, Feb 24, 2006 at 08:18:24PM +0100, Jens Bladt wrote:
A 5 FPS camera from Pentax (Autumn 2006) is a little late, isn't it?
I am speaking from experience, you know. I have shot almost 30.000
frames
with a *ist D. I believe I know very well, what I'm talking about.
I don't really do action shots.
Well, make up your mind.
If experience matters, then I think my thousands of action shots,
taken with the *ist-D, suggest that perhaps *I* know what I'm
talking about when I say that the D is adequate for all but the
most demanding situations. Not ideal, by any means, but adequate.
And some of the limitations were fixed, some time ago, in the DS;
I've yet to encounter a situation where a D with the write speed
and buffer size of the DS, (plus, on a few occasions, the 4fps
frame rate of the PZ-1p), would have prevented me getting just
the shot I was trying for.
As, by your admission, you don't do action photography, then your
experience isn't really relevant, no matter how many frames you
have shot.
As others have pointed out, it's the photographer, far more than
the equipment, that determines how good a shot you can bring home.
I've even managed to get first-class results from a simple Canon
Powershot G1 (an 8x10, from a 3.3MP camera, of a Porsche 911 at
racing speeds) - when I mix it in with my best DSLR and scanned
shots nobody has yet been able to pick it out as the P&S sample.
If you expect the camera to do everything for you, then of course
you're going to be disappointed. It's best to pre-focus at about
the right distance, so that even if you're using focus tracking
the camera is starting from roughly the right setting. That's
where the *ist-D and siblings are much better than the MZ-S - the
AF logic predicts which way to correct far more often, so you lose
less shots while the AF hunts to the end-stop and back again.
It's also best to select the AF point, rather than letting the
camera choose (this becomes more important at long focal lengths).
This isn't rocket science. In fact if you look carefully at how
most of those full-time professionals with a truckload of Canon
gear work, you'll find that they use their equipment in just
that way - letting their experience guide the camera's automation.
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