Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Skateboard Ramps



For the last year or so I have noted that each Fall, a nearby city storage area becomes cluttered with interesting curved shapes. I guessed that these were temporary skateboard ramps set up in various communities for the kids, but the stacked shapes fascinated me. An attempt to photograph over the chain link fence after wading through waist deep snow last Winter was a complete bust, but today after work I stopped by and got permission to go in and photograph.

Initially the sun was very strong and I had difficulty coming up with suitable and manageable compositions. I switched over the camera to exposure bracketing (Panasonic GH2), and continued to shoot.

I love the ability to quickly set controls on this camera - from single to multiple exposure, from spot reading to average, changing ISO and so on.

I strongly dislike that my right hand almost constantly triggers the menu function while I'm trying to shoot. I may actually have to put something on the back to protect the button more.

I'm not in love with the EVF - in sunlight it really is the pits with glasses on - I understand that those lucky enough not to need glasses are fine with it - and of course in lower light it's wonderful - but I wouldn't choose a similar evf again. I constantly had to use one of my hands to shade the viewfinder and my glasses so I could see the viewfinder at all.

I haven't blended any of the multiple exposures yet - this was simply a pick of the litter so to speak - the exposure which produced recoverable highlights and adequate shadows.

2 comments:

TJ said...

Glasses are really a big hassle. When I was in Ireland in 2009, I couldn't concentrate in my viewfinder or fit it to my eye, so I took it off. Lacking pockets in my shirt, I had to rest it on my thigh while I was kneeling down trying to take a shot. Ta da. I rose up and totally forgot about it and stepped on it.
LOL for one full year I was wearing these glasses (didn't break but bent) but my shape was completely wrong. Everyone was asking "TJ, why are you like going to headbutt someone?"; it was just my glasses bent like "7" making my head like going forward.

andreaguarise said...

The only two cameras that I've been enjoying photographing with, due to my glasses, have been an Leica M8 and a Medium Format film camera with waist-level viewfinder. All the other cameras have always been a sort of a pain...