The Dinghy Show at Alexandra Palace

The show took place over the weekend 6/7 March but as I was shooting for Dinghy Sailing mag I didn't post anything until the mag had come out. It's the May issue, now out, the one with the Scorpion on the front cover (one I took at Looe in 2005).

I used two cameras for the show shoot. The Canon 40D with the Sigma 10-20 lens and Speedlight 550 EX flash, and the Pentax K-7 with the 50/1.7 for available light shots. One of these made the contents page of the May issue - those huge stained glass roundel windows at Alexandra Palace are a camera magnet!

I went up to the organ loft to get a general view of the show, which needed the 10-20 lens so used the Canon for that. The aim was to get a shot with blurry moving people which I partly succeeded in doing (1 sec at f/32 was the slowest I could get).

RS Event at Chew Valley Lake

This weekend (13 March) I went to the RS 6,7 and 800 Winter Championships and Musto Skiff open at Chew Valley Lake SC. Great weather - sunny, not too cold and a bit of breeze. I was shooting with two bodies - the Pentax K-7/50-200 combination and the Canon 40D. I used a variety of lenses on the Canon: 400 f5.6L, 70-200 F4L with 1.4x extender and Sigma 10-20.

The results can be seen on the Fotoboat website. They are a reasonable representation of the event but nothing really exciting as the breeze didn't get much over 9 knots.

I tried a bit of video and have posted a clip below. As a spectacle wearer I find using the back screen as a viewfinder quite difficult, as I don't have the necessary depth of focus in my eyes to see the subject directly and the screen at the same time. A monopod might be useful to prevent too much up and down movement. As with anything, it will take some getting used to but I think mixing stills and video work is going to be difficult.

Another Kayak Outing

After weeks without being on the water it was good to get out on the Exe Estuary today on the kayak. I took the K-7 with me, with its 50-200 DA WR lens, and was rewarded by the sight of three RS Vision dinghies, sailed by students on an Exe Sailing Club instructors course, accompanied by the club safety RIB.

I have reverted to the out-of-the-box settings for the control wheels, and had no problems. A selection from the shoot can be seen here.

The Shower Test

I have just come across this - and wonder if I have got the bottle to try it for myself (with salt water, of course...)

Another Piece of Legacy Equipment

I have found the lens I used to use most of the time with my K-1000. It's a Sigma 35-135 f3.5/4.5 I bought in the early 80s, so it's nearly 30 years old. It's an 'A' lens, so it works on the K-7 in manual focus mode. Zoom/focus is by the same "one touch" ring; push-pull zoom and twist focus. This has a very smooth, well-damped action. At 135mm it has a macro mode, too. Many holiday snaps have been taken with this lens over the years, and as they were seldom blown up beyond 6x4 I never really saw what the lens was capable of.

The answer is - it's rather soft and images definitely lack contrast. A lens hood (I have mislaid that) might help a bit with the contrast. Overall verdict: still a useful, versatile lens but image quality not up to what I now find acceptable. I am still amazed that such an old lens can be attached to a modern camera body and be fully functional. Try doing that with a 30 year old item of computer equipment! It says a lot for Pentax's original design for the K-mount.

Starcross Steamer 24 Jan 10

The Starcross Steamer is an annual pursuit race held on the River Exe, organised by Starcross YC. I was shooting from a RIB with 2 cameras - the Pentax K-7/50-200 DA f4-5.6 and a Canon 40D/400mm f5.6L. Most shots were of approaching boats - hit them with the Canon/400mm first then with the Pentax as they get closer and sweep past. So lots of swapping cameras. It was very cold so I was wearing sailing gloves - thin neoprene with rubberised grip.

The biggest problem with the Pentax was constant, inadvertent operation of the rear dial, putting the EV compensation all over the place. Sometimes it was from the camera brushing my clothing, more often from the end of my gloved thumb. A batch of shots where EV was +2 stops was totally lost, some were not quite so extreme and retrievable (with some loss of quality). I am going to look at the manual again and see if there's a custom setting which isn't so vulnerable to mis-setting.

Not all bad news, though. I got some respectable shots with the Pentax - they can be seen on the Fotoboat website. Look for the 'C' or 'P' in the filename to tell which camera was used.

Where the Pentax scored physically over the Canon combination was its much lighter weight, though not really a fair comparison against a camera with a 400mm lens! My jury is still out over the effectiveness of the in-camera image stabilisation. I reckon if I can get acceptable shots hand-holding the Canon/400 combination in a moving boat, then using the much lighter (and shorter f/l) Pentax under the same lighting conditions isn't exactly going to test the Pentax's IS. I will have to work out a more objective test and report back.

A gig at last!

It's been unusually quiet so far this winter on the Fotoboating front. I didn't get my usual trip to Queen Mary SC as (a) the weather threatened to make the trip from Devon somewhat difficult and (b) David Gates lives much nearer! David took some great pics which can be seen on the Fotoboat site.

Tomorrow I am going to the Starcross Steamer pursuit race at Starcross YC on the Exe. I will be using the K-7 alongside my Canon gear, so look out for some results and comment soon.