Following up on some earlier posts, here are samples of the K-01 at work at a couple of non-profit events. Click here to read some of my observations.
Platinum Minds
Forgot to bring my flash gels to balance ambient and flash light, and I wasn’t shooting RAW because it’s only 1FPS on the K-01, so I spent a fair amount of time in Lightroom tweaking colors. As I’ve mentioned, AF is the biggest bugbear. Ultimately, the shots came out ok – it just took extra effort to get there.
The Citizens Campaign
Brought the flash gels with me this time so the light is much better balanced. AF was still an issue though. Face detect was much too slow – tests at home suggest the Panasonic GH2’s face detect is faster – and the K-01 was not triggering the Metz flash’s AF assist beam, which may have helped considerably.
Last year I had taken the K-x to this event and struggled. The K-01 was a similar struggle. I did have the K-5 in the bag, but I’ve gotten inconsistent exposure with P-TTL. Plus, I wanted to really stretch the K-01. As with the Platinum Minds event, I got the shots. It just took more work to get there.
Later in the evening, I abandoned the Metz flash and the DA*16-50mm F2.8 zoom and rolled with the DA21mm F3.2 Limited on the K-01 and the DA70mm F2.4 Limited on the K-5. I turned the ISO up to ISO3200 on both cameras and relied upon stage lighting. Results were good.
To all of you photographers that put food on the table with events…a tip of the hat to you! It’s a fast-paced, stressful specialty. Helps to have the proper gear of course…