I spent the better part of a day photographing fall color in the mountains near Denver earlier this week. I started at Guanella Pass, did a short hike on top of Kenosha Pass, and finished by driving over Boreas Pass near Breckenridge. The colors were about 40% turned. Today, the color should be at peak in these areas. I can’t wait to get out and look for fall color around Aspen and Crested Butte next weekend.
I photograph a number of high school athletic events. Those held in dimly lit football stadiums or gyms require an added light source unless noise isn’t a big issue. Even with today’s magnificent low light sensors, noise still becomes an issue by ISO 5000. With my 400 f4 lens, I would need an ISO of 10000 to take an adequate photo freezing the action at 1/640 sec. Hence, the need for a flash. Sports photography with flash poses domes problems, however. One problem becomes how to freeze the action. This is more than a function of shutter speed. The flash sync of a Canon 5D MKIII is 1/200 sec. This is much too slow to freeze action by itself. However, the flash duration is much shorter than the shutter. It typically is somewhere around 1/1000 of a second. So, the flash should freeze action, right? Not necessarily. The more power the flash is outputting (which is a lot to cover a dark high school football field), the longer the duration of the flash. I have found a somewhat happy medium is to set the flash to manual with a setting of 1/2 power, ISO around 800 to 1250, and of course, my aperture at f4. This works when the action is close but when the action is farther away, the flash can’t produce enough light at 1/2 power to evenly illuminator the scene.
If I raise the power output, the scene becomes blurry. I had been using a Canon 600 EX RT with a SRT R3 transmitter.
I switched to a Quatum T5DR to see if that would allow for better illumination. The higher power flash definitely gave me more working range but blur is still somewhat of an issue. The evenness and depth of illumination is improved, but some blur is still present. The photo on the left has some ghosting which isn’t a major distraction but is still visible. The next step may be to find a camera with a faster flash sync and see if that improves the situation.
I photographed the Erie Festival of Champions Softball tournament over Labor Day weekend. This tournament features some of the premier high school girls softball teams from Colorado and Oklahoma. After covering the state finals last year, I knew which teams to look for and what players to cover this year as the season kicks off. The quality of play seemingly gets better every year.
I just spent three days in northern Colorado hiking and taking photos. The wildflowers were good only in a couple of spots–Shrine Pass and Dumont Lake on Rabbit Ears Pass. But the scenery was great all around. After hiking to the summit of Shrine Pass, I spent a night at Steamboat Lake. I saw a beautiful rainbow and the winds calmed for a perfect reflection in the morning. Finally, I hiked to American Lakes near Cameron Pass. It was a great hike. The small lakes are located in a lush green valley near the western edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. The hike only took about 2.5 hours to go the 4.5 miles. A hike that everyone should do at some point.
The chicks have hatched in many nests around town. I spent a couple of hours watching the night herons and egrets at City Park a few days ago. I was surprised at the fact that the birds are stick bring back sticks to the nest to keep building them.
The rain held off to get both games of the final round in today of the 4A baseball Championship. Green Mountain rolled over Niwot to take the title. Enjoy the photographs of the 4A finals!
The emotion of state high school baseball was on display today as teams tried to advance to tomorrow’s finals. Green Mountain hit a two-run single on a 3-2 pitch with 2 out to eek out a 7-6 win over Durango. Longmont won easily in the other semifinal.
High school baseball is back in action along the Front Range, a sure sign spring has arrived. Unlike last year where games were canceled left and right, the weather has mostly cooperated this year. Here a few images from games this weekend.
I had the pleasure of shooting the reception of CILAD (Latin American Dermatologists) in Denver. The crowd was of doctors was very expressive. I enjoyed shooting the reception as each new attendee was greeted warmly by their colleagues. It’s always so much more fun to to do event photography when the crowd is engaged like this.
I photographed the Colorado High School 5A Great 8 boys basketball tournament this past weekend. It was fun to see some good high school basketball and shoot four games. I will be at the 3A final this weekend in Colorado Springs.
