It has been a busy spring, nonetheless I have been photographing as often as I can. Having time afterwards to write, without distractions or mentally churning through past or upcoming tasks, is another story entirely. I typically like to write articles with a sort of theme or lesson (along with the occasional gear-review-flavored morsel), but, as time continues to be limited, I have decided to try out a shorter format which is more focused on sharing some of the images I’ve captured lately. This is the first of these shorter articles. Let me know what you think, and what you’d like to see from my virtual pen!
I visited a friend recently who is part of an adult roller hockey team – what they call bronze league. Since I was over for the day, I accompanied him to his match and took the opportunity to photograph what I could. This wasn’t the easiest, since the plexiglass boards between the rink and the spectator area were decades old, covered almost every square inch in scuffs and scratches. There was an upstairs viewing area, but it was screened with netting for safety. I decided the best option was to photograph through the plexiglass, hunting for the least damaged areas and keeping the front element of my lens as close as possible to the glass to reduce focus and diffuse the scratches as much as I could.
I had my Pentax K-1 Mark II and K-3 Mark III Monochrome with me, along with two lenses: the Pentax-F 35-70mm f3.5-4.5, and the Pentax-FA 80-320mm f4.5-5.6. Trying both lenses on both cameras (giving me a focal range all the way from 35mm to 480mm between the two formats, full-frame and APS-C), I determined that the 35-70mm on the Monochrome with its APS-C sensor fit the space the best. It helped that the Monochrome has the better high-ISO performance, due to the extra sensitivity of the sensor without a Bayer color filter.
I shot on manual mode, with ISO set to 6400, and the shutter speed most of the time at 1/800. If I’d been in possession of a faster lens, I could have set a wider aperture and blurred out the damage marks on the plexiglass even more, but I did not. I think between the high contrast (enhanced by my chosen editing for this set), high-ISO grain and the inconsistent blur from the glass, the results are quite gritty but not unpleasant. I hope you enjoyed them as well! Sports photography is not a normal genre for me, but I take what’s placed before me. If it’s fast-paced and dynamic, so much the better.
The Sprocket Docket 