FlyingPete
1st of February 2005 (Tue), 02:01
...Parachute 05.
Well this is the fifth year I have been involved in photography at this yearly event; however this year I was leading the team!
My camera powered up on Thursday with image number 2905, I ceased fire on Monday afternoon at 6149 – that’s 3244 images to sort through! I have now reduced this to a couple of hundred.
Basically I did four 14 hour days in a row, and have spent all day to day sorting images. My hit rate for useable images was over 90%, so it was a matter if only keeping the very best, a lot of it was documentation, such as shooting a ‘Trash Fashion’ Parade (all outfits made out of garbage bags etc), and each entrant required a font and back shot.
I was a hot dry time, averaging in the mid thirties most days; however it was 38degC in our work area, next year we need air con!
My pedometer died on Sunday Afternoon, it had measured over 50km of walking at that point, it was well on target for 60 or even 70 by the end of Monday, boy am I sore!
My EF50/1.8 was the winner piece of gear on the weekend, giving me the best results in low light; the focal length was quite useable as well for the subjects, however my poor now broken in 20D has is full of dust, so any good sources of sensor cleaning kits would be greatly appreciated!
The looser piece of gear on the weekend was my X’S Drive, being hardly useable due to the time it took to download, it was quicker to return to base and download on the laptop.
Spent a lot of time talking to stage and production managers and organising bits and pieces, making sure I had a team member anywhere something interesting was going to go down, organised a few members of the team to get up on the stage between a couple of sets and get the MC to work up the crowd to get some good shots (one of those images is in my posting in the people gallery area – linked below), just as we were about to go up, news crew from TV3 turned up, we dragged their camera man out there as well, at the slightest suggestion to the crowd that they might be on TV, they went crazy!
A couple of more interesting things popped up, the first scary, the second actually I found quite difficult. We got a loan of a 25m cherry picker, so we towed it into the middle of the site, and went up for some shots, darn scary, that thing shakes, wobbles and seems to be off centre and had the appearance (especially from the top!) of something that would quite easily tip over! The second thing was I was asked to do a promo shot for a magazine cover of a very well known New Zealand TV personality; she is on at least one womans mag cover a month, knowing she worked with professional photographers often, I felt really out of my depth, I got the shot though!
Well that is about it, will be back next year, although I could really go a EF70-200/2.8L, as the 75-300IS is way too slow in both regards!
My wee girl grabbed my back stage pas, and knowing it was important put it straight on and proceeded to show the rest of the house hols one morning before I went to site, I took a shot of that, and now that is my avatar! It was time for a change; I took that frog on a bottle shot over ten years ago!
http://www.lowden.orcon.net.nz/Elizabeth01.jpg
Mini-Gallery here:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=56267
Well this is the fifth year I have been involved in photography at this yearly event; however this year I was leading the team!
My camera powered up on Thursday with image number 2905, I ceased fire on Monday afternoon at 6149 – that’s 3244 images to sort through! I have now reduced this to a couple of hundred.
Basically I did four 14 hour days in a row, and have spent all day to day sorting images. My hit rate for useable images was over 90%, so it was a matter if only keeping the very best, a lot of it was documentation, such as shooting a ‘Trash Fashion’ Parade (all outfits made out of garbage bags etc), and each entrant required a font and back shot.
I was a hot dry time, averaging in the mid thirties most days; however it was 38degC in our work area, next year we need air con!
My pedometer died on Sunday Afternoon, it had measured over 50km of walking at that point, it was well on target for 60 or even 70 by the end of Monday, boy am I sore!
My EF50/1.8 was the winner piece of gear on the weekend, giving me the best results in low light; the focal length was quite useable as well for the subjects, however my poor now broken in 20D has is full of dust, so any good sources of sensor cleaning kits would be greatly appreciated!
The looser piece of gear on the weekend was my X’S Drive, being hardly useable due to the time it took to download, it was quicker to return to base and download on the laptop.
Spent a lot of time talking to stage and production managers and organising bits and pieces, making sure I had a team member anywhere something interesting was going to go down, organised a few members of the team to get up on the stage between a couple of sets and get the MC to work up the crowd to get some good shots (one of those images is in my posting in the people gallery area – linked below), just as we were about to go up, news crew from TV3 turned up, we dragged their camera man out there as well, at the slightest suggestion to the crowd that they might be on TV, they went crazy!
A couple of more interesting things popped up, the first scary, the second actually I found quite difficult. We got a loan of a 25m cherry picker, so we towed it into the middle of the site, and went up for some shots, darn scary, that thing shakes, wobbles and seems to be off centre and had the appearance (especially from the top!) of something that would quite easily tip over! The second thing was I was asked to do a promo shot for a magazine cover of a very well known New Zealand TV personality; she is on at least one womans mag cover a month, knowing she worked with professional photographers often, I felt really out of my depth, I got the shot though!
Well that is about it, will be back next year, although I could really go a EF70-200/2.8L, as the 75-300IS is way too slow in both regards!
My wee girl grabbed my back stage pas, and knowing it was important put it straight on and proceeded to show the rest of the house hols one morning before I went to site, I took a shot of that, and now that is my avatar! It was time for a change; I took that frog on a bottle shot over ten years ago!
http://www.lowden.orcon.net.nz/Elizabeth01.jpg
Mini-Gallery here:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=56267