Thursday, June 17, 2010

Day 161: Super (Practice) Thursday

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 185mm, f/4, 1/640, ISO 200, Post EV +0.67)

It's a practice Thursday!  Caught the above pic of Ekklesia outfielder Albert Kong briefing the outfielders on their drills this week.  This wasn't just any regular Thursday though!  Spent part of the day with Mother Nature and Dave as we once again went for a photohike.  Much more to come, after the break!

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 160mm, f/2.8, 1/250, ISO 200)

The day before, I had made plans to head downtown and maybe spend a few hours with Andrei, Matt, and Justin.  That didn't quite work out, as various life issues came up that merited it's own respective individual attention.  As such, I pondered staying home but opted not to for the sake of at least getting out of the house (despite the fact that it'd only been about thirty-six hours since I last left it).  I certainly picked a crappy day (weather-wise) to leave the house.  As luck would have it, Dave and I would coincidentally cross paths in a camera store.  Again.  It wasn't the first time it's happened either.  With me having nothing to do, and with Dave having the day off, we decided to revisit parts of the Don Valley Ravines again.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~200mm, f/2.8, 1/200, ISO 640)

Unlike last time, I actually woke up and arrived on time.  In fact, I bumped into Dave right as he exited the subway too - kinda hard to not miss a guy lugging a huge tripod with him.  As we left the station, we ended up taking the same route we took last time.  The same turns, the same paths, the same streets, right up until we came up to where we started unloading the equipment last time.  Only this time, there was one exception.  

We went right. 

(Nikon D60, 18-55 VR @ 35mm, f/11, 1/4, ISO 100)

Going right pretty much just put us on the other side of the river, for better or for worse.  Dave's primary goal was to find a duck and shoot it three different ways (it's not what you think!): with two different lenses on my D90, and with his video camera.  As for me, I was just there for the hell of it.  It didn't take very long into the walk for us to stop walking and shooting.  As Dave was grabbing some footage, I snapped the second and third photos from the top.  When we finished, we headed down the river, skipping some of the stuff we had already seen (such as a graffiti stricken bridge) and headed towards a familiar bridge.  We stopped again to grab some shots, such as those above and below.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ ~160mm, f/2.8, 1/80, ISO 200)

If anything, I ran into more spider webs throughout the day than ducks.  Dave pointed out the one above after I walked through (presumably) some of it's webs.  I don't normally shoot this sort of stuff, since I have a heightened fear of anything that skitters across the floor or anything of that nature (no pun intended), but since Dave was shooting some footage, I figured I might as well make the best of the situation.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 100mm, f/3.5, 1/250, ISO 640)

We never did find any ducks, save for one which was chased off by a dog off it's leash as we setup our equipment.  Grrrr.  Still, it was a nice walk if nothing else.  I didn't come back with full cards or anything, but there were a few keepers that I really liked.  Above is a shot of Dave filming during our first stop.  

 (Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 185mm, f/4, 1/1000, ISO 200)

A couple hours later, I arrived at Warden Park - an hour early. To kill time, I decided to pop in my iPod and watch the clouds which were slowly giving way to sunlight dissipate, until the team started to arrive in sufficient numbers.

(Nikon D90, Sigma 70-200 II @ 70mm, f/2.8, 1/800, ISO 640)

For the most part, it was the same old, same old.  I imagine I'm going to end up saying that for the entire season, which could potentially be up to at least a half-dozen additional practices.  For the most part, I'm just there to experiment, and enjoy a less stressful shooting experience.  Towards the end of practice, the team held a quick running drill, to try and get folks to hit first base in the shortest time possible.  

(Nikon D90, 35mm DX, f/2.8, 1/15, ISO 500)

At the end of the day, as we left the restaurant that we ate at, someone noticed a pair of flip flops outside.  Weird things seem to keep popping up where we eat it seems.  

More to come.

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