I have been asked a few times to take photos for the Juneau RollerGirls. It is always fun to go down to Centennial Hall and watch people battle it out on the flat track. After learning to play hockey in my late 20's, I have a lot of respect for people that pick up a sport late in life. I am even more impressed that they are confident enough to compete in front of a massive audience.
I was particularly excited to go last night as it gave me an opportunity to give my new camera body (Canon 7d mkii) some real world testing. The lighting in Centennial hall is challenging. Really it is more atrocious than challenging. On top of poor lightly, these subjects are skating pretty quickly. The only saving grace was that I recently picked up a 70-200 f/2.8. Having f/2.8 instead of my old f/4 allows me to shoot at slightly lower ISO. I think I started shooting somewhere around ISO1600, but needed to push it to ISO6000 to stop movement. I'd rather have a grainy shot in focus than a shot completely blurred. In photography you often have to make some compromises. None of these photos are bound for ESPN magazine or SportsIllustrated, so grainy >> blurry.
Everything was shot in AV mode with f/2.8. I haven't upgraded lightroom, so I could't shoot in RAW, so these were L Jpegs. I think that is why I had such difficulties getting a white balance that wasn't crazy. I also think in the future if I continue to take photos for them I will buy one of these women a grey helmet so I can just set my WB off that. Or maybe stick some grey sheets of paper in every corner of the rink. I also shot my 5d with a 24-70mm @f/2.8 with the same ISO to see how they compared. From the Jpeg files other than the obvious focal length difference I couldn't really see a major quality different. The 5d images didn't take as much noise reduction and the antiflicker setting in the 7d did some pretty crazy stuff (I think I might turn it off in the future), but over all I think the two cameras will play very well together.
Overall I am pretty stoked on this new camera body. I was terrified for awhile that I would be one of the many folks that recieved a defective unit. Some people are having issues in AlServo, while others are having problems in OneShot. My keeper rate was pretty low in AlServo, but I chalk that up to really bad lighting conditions. I won't know if I need to send the body in to Canon for AF adjustments until I do some more testing in better light.
I was particularly excited to go last night as it gave me an opportunity to give my new camera body (Canon 7d mkii) some real world testing. The lighting in Centennial hall is challenging. Really it is more atrocious than challenging. On top of poor lightly, these subjects are skating pretty quickly. The only saving grace was that I recently picked up a 70-200 f/2.8. Having f/2.8 instead of my old f/4 allows me to shoot at slightly lower ISO. I think I started shooting somewhere around ISO1600, but needed to push it to ISO6000 to stop movement. I'd rather have a grainy shot in focus than a shot completely blurred. In photography you often have to make some compromises. None of these photos are bound for ESPN magazine or SportsIllustrated, so grainy >> blurry.
Everything was shot in AV mode with f/2.8. I haven't upgraded lightroom, so I could't shoot in RAW, so these were L Jpegs. I think that is why I had such difficulties getting a white balance that wasn't crazy. I also think in the future if I continue to take photos for them I will buy one of these women a grey helmet so I can just set my WB off that. Or maybe stick some grey sheets of paper in every corner of the rink. I also shot my 5d with a 24-70mm @f/2.8 with the same ISO to see how they compared. From the Jpeg files other than the obvious focal length difference I couldn't really see a major quality different. The 5d images didn't take as much noise reduction and the antiflicker setting in the 7d did some pretty crazy stuff (I think I might turn it off in the future), but over all I think the two cameras will play very well together.
Overall I am pretty stoked on this new camera body. I was terrified for awhile that I would be one of the many folks that recieved a defective unit. Some people are having issues in AlServo, while others are having problems in OneShot. My keeper rate was pretty low in AlServo, but I chalk that up to really bad lighting conditions. I won't know if I need to send the body in to Canon for AF adjustments until I do some more testing in better light.