Saturday, February 27, 2010

CN Power VS the Vixens


Land Shark (#1/3) of CN Power breaks through the pack.

Final Score:
CN Power 199
Vixens 49

The downsview hanger. By day a photographer's dream, by night a photographer's nightmare. This is where the ToRD roller derby bouts take place. It's a warehouse/hanger turned derby venue. While the lights that exist are good enough to see what's happening they are no where near the ideal brightness for broadcast quality photos.

I've photographed at this venue before to know any photos taken after the sun goes down would look like mud without a fast lens or some additional light or both.

Tonight I showed up with two studio flashes. Unfortunately not enough cable for power. This limited my light source on one side of the room. D'oh! Well any light is better than no light.


The CN Power and the Rideau Valley Vixens

One of the challenges of using flashes is that you have to wait between photos for the flash to recharge and some flashes will melt with continuous use. I've seen a few SB-800s melted in order to get a shot. It's not pretty but at least the photographer got the photo in the end.

There are ways to get around waiting for a flash to juice up. Of course like almost any photography solution it's not cheap. You can buy a multimax 32 for up to four flashes (A, B, C, D) and have the multimax on your camera cycle through them. You wouldn't have to wait for a refresh until getting past the forth flash and by that time the first flash might be ready to go anyway. Four flashes at $1000 each and five multimax 32s at $300 each (total $5500) and that's just for one corner of the track and not including stands, yeah it can add up. But just think of the photos you can take.

This is where I subtlety advertise the donate button on the right.

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