I really came to appreciate the zoom lens on the 5700 a couple weekends ago when I spent the afternoon trying to capture all the color and bustling activity of a carnival. The flexibility it afforded composing in a crowd was invaluable. I made extensive use of exposure compensation, as many shots included a bright summer sky, peppered with white fluffy clouds. I was fortunate that it was a sunny day, as much about a carnival is in motion, so a fast shutter speed was imperative for many shots. Since the lighting conditions were changing throughout my shoot, I relied mainly on aperture priority. Here are a few shots from my “Ticket To Ride” group. Comments and critique, as always, are sincerely welcomed.

The Ferris wheel was a classic backlight situation. As you can see, I used one Ferris wheel chair, second from the bottom, to block the rays of the sun. I used a -2/3 EV for this one. Post processing included applying a contrast mask to adjust exposure.

http://www.pbase.com/image/31449580.jpg

I couldn’t resist this trio. I positioned myself parallel with and directly under the wheel so that I could capture riders as they rotated down in front of me from above. I simply framed the outside edges of the wheel, and then peeked up from my viewfinder to see if an occupied chair would be descending, and prepared for the shot.

http://www.pbase.com/image/31305603.jpg

I wouldn’t get on this ride, called the Skyrider, if you paid me. Well, maybe for a D100 I might consider it. ;-) When the two sets of rider chambers rise into the air and become parallel with one another, the ride operator allows them to hang suspended for a moment or two, then slowly, slowly, they begin to fall in opposite directions. But before they do, the operator reverses their direction until they meet and pause at the top again. Then all of a sudden they plummet in opposite directions toward the earth. As you might imagine, I took quite a few of this ride in an attempt to get both rider compartments in a desirable position.

http://www.pbase.com/image/31305610.jpg

The bumper cars posed another challenging backlight setting. There's nothing like a dark room that’s open on all four sides to bright daylight. :-/ I used matrix metering and a negative EV for this one. The cars and kids wound up fairly underexposed, but I was able to prevent the total blowout of the areas outside the arena. I rescued the shadows in post processing using a contrast mask, along with Richard Lynch’s shadow/highlight mask tool in PSE2. The compromise on this one was to lose some contrast in an effort to reveal shadow detail. BTW, the bumper cars had people lined up for a wild ride all day – immensely popular with both kids and adults.

http://www.pbase.com/image/31444229.jpg

Many of you will remember this mini coaster from my earlier post about applying motion blur. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1007&message=9537777. This is the version that attempts to replicate the effect of panning. I wish I had gotten a few more background components in the frame, as it would have enhanced the panning effect greatly.

http://www.pbase.com/image/31431228.jpg

This is one happy kid. I wanted to see if I could stop action on one kid and get the expression of glee that they all were wearing. I knew it had turned out pretty nicely, so I approached the dad and showed it to him in the viewfinder. I offered to send him the image, but he declined. I suppose he thought I would ask for money. I regret that I can't share this one with his family.

http://www.pbase.com/image/31431172.jpg

If you’re interested to see how your Coolpix captures color, a carnival is a great place to test its limits. And what would a carnival be without a Merry-Go-Round?

http://www.pbase.com/image/31305472.jpg

This ride is called the Yo-Yo. If I wasn't so averse to vertigo, I might have given it a try. But I liked my perspective from the ground. Unlike the shot of this ride posted a couple days ago, the people are illuminated from the front this time. But it’s really still a backlight situation because the bright sky is so dominant. I used exposure compensation and matrix metering for this one. While I would have preferred to use manual AF area focus to meter, it was tough to isolate a moving target. In hindsight, I realize I could have used full manual exposure and simply metered off a subject or two prior to them becoming airborne. Mostly, I just fired off a bunch of shots and hoped for the best on this one. Pay close attention to the details in this shot, as there will be a little post-processing quiz on it tomorrow. ;-)

http://www.pbase.com/image/31433094.jpg

I’ve never seen so many happy faces in one place at a time. It was truly a great place to exercise my photography skills and get more comfortable taking pics in crowds. Lessons learned? I learned the following through trial and error -- mostly error. :-/ Always check your ISO before a new photo shoot. Experiment shooting your subject from different angles to get the best lighting effect. Play around with camera settings to optimize exposure for “micro-environments.” Check to make sure all your spare CF cards are truly empty before leaving home. ;-)

http://www.pbase.com/image/31431216.jpg

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Dawn
FCAS Member #89

~With camera in hand, I see what I might otherwise overlook~

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