Night photography at the Fair.

Santa’s Enchanted Forest is a seasonal fair that operates every year between Thanksgiving and the first week of January. I had only been there the first year they opened and was not terribly impressed with it. But I could see the improvements from the highway as the years passed.
Last Friday we decided to give it a try, and had our good friend Lianett Fernandez pose as our model. We took along a portable LED light, DIC, where you can regulate the brightness and temperature of the light. We are probably getting a second one. In this case, it was used hand held by us, since the place was packed with people and felt it was not safe to have the light and tripod on the way. In fact, I think we used the tripod only a couple of times, for fear of someone tripping over it.
Tripod is a SIRUI small little thing that folds under 12”, carbon fiber and Al will be writing a review on it.

So most of the pictures you are going to see here were hand held, al high ISOs, which was the idea, putting the NEX-7 ability to handle those once more.
While waiting for our friend, we went for pics of the rides and people riding as well as some of the performers.

The pictures have been edited in LR, with some presets, others with Nik Color Efex Recipes and a couple adding selective blurs in CS6.

We didn’t do too many candids because it’s kind of touchy photographing children, and the light didn’t help to take quick ones, but there are always some irresistible moments.

Needless to say, the little gem came out shinning in this adventure and can only wait for the arrival of the sister camera RX-1, but that will be another entry.
Capturing action is no news for me, but it is new in this context, and especially when there is hardly any ambient light.

Contrary to what I do with DSLRs, I kept myself in Aperture value and use the very convenient live histogram to judge the needed compensation. If I wanted to blur something, lower the ISO and close the aperture. Otherwise, go for the gusto and use f/1.8. Lots of fun, experimenting unchartered territory. The joy is in the ride, not in the destination!

More to come soon, enjoy!