Sounds like a truly marathon session!
It's good to hear about Pentax gear being used successfully in demanding
situations like this - it flies in the face the 'distinction' between the
pro brands and non-pro brands. Maybe you can sell your story to the Pentax
advertising department - got any photos of yourself with an ice pack on your
shutter-button finger? :-)
- MCC
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Mark Cassino Photography
Kalamazoo, MI
www.markcassino.com
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Waterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2005 10:23 AM
Subject: 13 Days with Pentax
Just re-subscribed after a 13 Day photo shoot of Dance.
The Dance was an Eisteddfod of dance with a mix of Ballet,
tap, jazz, cultural, contemporary and others.
My job was to capture each act digitally for sale during
the Eisteddfod.
Equipment
2 x *istD
1 x 70-200mm 2.8 Tamaron AF
1 x 50mm 1.4 Pentax AF
Store full of rechargable batteries
6 x 512 CF Cards
1 X iBook
1 x Server with 250 gig external drive
2 x terminals for public veiwing.
On setting up our computer network we discovered the wireless connection
would not work in the theatre, so we had to get some cat5 cable and run
this from the laptop to the server, about 80 meters. The set up was that
I would take the photo's in the theatre and download the CF cards down to
the server in the foyer. This worked well. This was the day before the
Day 1.
Day 1. We were not given any time to test the lighting and so the first
photo
was yellow as the auto WB could not cope with the tungsten lights. A quick
switch
to tungsten manually fixed this and the photos looked good. At 2.8 I was
able to
shoot at 1/350 but after a word with the lighting techs we were able to
shoot
1600 ISO, 2.8, 1/750. This was great and we were off and running.
Day 2.
CF card crashed but we were able to regain all the data exept 4 files that
were
corrupt. Later, it happened again and I formatted all the cards and made
sure
fully charged batteries were used for each session, 3 per day, and that
the
CF cards were formatted for each session. There were no more CF card
problems
after this.
Day 3. The *istD locked up. I turned it on, off, shook it, yelled at it
but no
response. I removed the batteries and put them back in and away it went
again
with no problem until about an hour later when it happened again. Same
remedy
to fix it. This was not good, so I switched to the back-up body and it
lasted
well for the rest of the days till the end. The network worked like a
charm and
the customers could order thier prints after viewing them on the terminals
in
foyer.
The *istD that failed is now in the hands of C.R.Kennedy for repair. The
other
body is still functioning normally. In all over 45,000 photos during the
13 days.
The days were 12-15 hours long and it is good to be back home with the
family.
I am sorry I cannot provide samples as it is part of the contract not to
put
any of the images on the net, some of the childrens sessions are very
young and
in very small costumes.
In all, a successful and profitable trip. Does this make the *istD a 'Pro'
level
camera?
Kind regards
Kevin
--
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
