HI has a vast expanse of photographic opportunities many are quite challenging for photographers. Last month my photo was taken under very easy conditions, an easy take just aim and shoot. This months photo was a real challenge for me but one that was worth a try. A local primary school fair with a train ride for children vibrating, swirling, dipping up and down in partial darkness. Settings on my camera were extremely limited Pentax K20D, F180/1 (probably too slow), F6.3 (OK), ISO 6400 (max on this camera with a lot of noise on initial RAW photo, this I knew). Lens Sigma 18-125mm F4.5 at best (too slow for this photography, ideal at least F2.8). Unable to use view finder or Live view as subjects moving too fast for me to press shutter speed at right time. Manual focus, auto tracking focus would be too slow to even find the subjects. Focus on a part of the machinery which does not move, the rails, pre focus on that spot and just press the trigger when your eye catches the subject in the pre focused sweet spot, place your camera at your chin level this is the way to catch subjects. This is old school photography, which I did 50 years ago on my second hand Praktica camera, everything manual.
All sounds rather boring but the result I think was reasonably good. Only did small crop as all kids have great expressions, who could you leave out?
These two photos were given the full treatment for sharpening and noise removal in Topaz and without this program a photo like this would not even be possible with run of the mill equipment.
4 comments posted
Leslie Larson
Great colors, expressions, and treatment of a tricky situation. The dark forest with the popping greens is good. The blurry blue in foreground could be cropped out as much as possible without cutting into the happy children. They would even show even better I think. Posted: 09/04/2026 21:26:17
Leslie Larson
Great colors, expressions, and treatment of a tricky situation. The dark forest with the popping greens is good. The blurry blue in foreground could be cropped out as much as possible without cutting into the happy children. They would even show even better I think. Posted: 09/04/2026 21:26:20
Tom Brott
Good photo showing the excited expressions of the children having fun on their ride. I was taken under difficult situations and your processing helped. My one thought would have been to push the shutter button a half second earlier to capture the head of the turtle or serpent at the rides front. Posted: 09/10/2026 11:34:11
Jen Fawkes
Hi Ron, I certainly agree about the challenges that situations like this present to us. However I do think you did well given the challenges. I love all the expressions, from joy to fear and they all seem to be holding on tightly. I do agree that the SS was probably a bit slow, but given you were probably at the max of your ISO there is nothing you could do, (perhaps a sharpen in post). I can't choose between the two, I agree with Leslie that it might be worth cropping some of the blue at the front but the wider angle gives the image more context than the close up. Posted: 09/12/2026 00:25:53
