Salinas Rodeo
2012.07.20
Day Seventy Two. Made it up to Salinas for the annual Rodeo (that's Ro-day-o for those of you not from the area) and what a day, evening, and night it was. When we arrived, it was mid-afternoon, so there was a tonne of sunlight still around, making photographs easy. As the day progressed, the sun set behind the bleachers we were sitting in, casting unfriendly shadows all over the place. This soot turned out to be the definition of those high contrast situations I used to struggle with so much. It's evident in the middle of the set where colours outside the subject are blown out from correcting the lack of colour in the shadows (where the subject was). It was also a super high ISO day. Most images are over ISO 1000 with many of them being maxed at 6400. Looking back at them, I probably should have let it go all the way to High-2 (25600) since (as I found out) when doing sports shooting, shutter speed is more important than ISO. I can also see why people pay 6 to 10 thousand dollars for super fast telephoto lenses. 300mm at f/5.6 neither got me close enough, nor let enough light in to make the images really snap. Given that I'm not really a sports shooter (and have precisely zero intention of ever becoming one), I don't see myself picking up one of those lenses any time soon. High contrast and high ISO madness aside, the day was really fun. Even though they wouldn't let me hang out in the press corral, I really enjoyed shooting the raging bulls and bucking broncos from the stands :)
