Harwich Park Run Photos 31.12.2022 (The First Ever Star Wars Park Run???)
Hi everyone. It was lovely to see you all on this windy, drizzly Saturday morning. A special shoutout to the Star Wars gang who definitely perked everyone up for the day! Well done for taking part in another Park Run through Dovercourt park and along the esplanade into a 40mph wind... It’s always lovely to hear your feedback on the photos and I really enjoy speaking with you all before and after the run.
The below gallery shows the low-res jpeg images from the event, which are good enough quality to use online and can be downloaded by right clicking (or long-pressing, on mobile) on the image and hitting “save image”; you may need to “open page in browser” on mobile first, if you are viewing this from Facebook.
I welcome you to share these images with your friends, on social media, or wherever you feel like. They’re completely free to use and I would love it if you could share them on Instagram or facebook and tag me in your posts (I just ask that they should not be edited, cannot used for commercial purposes, or have their watermark removed). Once you have had a chance to look through the gallery below, I would really appreciate it if you could have a scroll through the rest of my portfolio.
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This is the nerdy section for people interested in camera settings and other photography things, so read on if you like taking pictures! As usual for Park Run photos, I used my trusty Canon R6 with the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II USM lens, with an adapter for the EOS R system (which lets you use any EF or EF-S lens with the R series of cameras).
I tested a new position for the start of the run this week, because it was forecast to rain and I didn’t have a rain cover with me for the camera. Although the R6 is and 70-200mm lens are water resistant, I just didn’t want to risk ruining my gear, so I tried something new. I started under the Dovercourt Park bandstand to get some pictures of you all starting from behind, then turned around to the wooded area for a bit of shelter. These photos came out really nice because the trees are diffusing a lot of the harsh squinty light which gave you all a nice general light balance.
These were all taken at f/2.8 at around 1/1000s, with an ISO of 1600. I know a lot of people will freak out about higher ISO and start questioning noise but, honestly, I would prefer to have a little noise and a correctly exposed photo, than a horribly dark photo and no noise. If the photo is dark, you will need to increase the exposure in post to correct the lighting at some point, which will introduce noise anyway. The R6 also handles high ISO really well so you can push to around 5000 before it starts to become distracting, but even then it’s not horrible.
On your return trip along the esplanade, the settings changed to f/2.8, 1/1600s, and ISO 1250 for individual shots, and f/4-4.5, 1/1600s, and ISO 2500 (gasp) for groups. Again ISO 2500 might seem high, but I prefer to maintain my higher shutter speed and have a really sharp image that is a little grainer, than have a cleaner but blurry photo. This is just preference, but honestly I probably could have reduced that shutter to around 1/1000 and dropped the ISO a touch but I’m happy with the results as they are; I just like to be on the safe side with my shutter speed.
I shot on high burst which is approximately 8 frames per second. with the fully mechanical shutter (it can go to 20fps on an electronic shutter but electronic shutters can also introduce image distortion and weird artifacts). Up until today I’ve used the default 1st curtain shutter mode but I wanted to try full mechanical to see if it made a difference; It just feels clunkier to me , so I will revert back to the 1st curtain option instead. I took around 500 photos of you this morning, which is slightly less than previous weeks, and I think this is due to the position at the start and you coming past me only once (rather than twice in my previous position). It could also be down to shooting on 8fps, rather than the full 12 but it’s nice to not have as many images to cull through!
It was nice to have a mix of the kids Park Run in with the adults today which makes for some cute family shots. I love the contrasting pictures where some of you are strike a pose, and some don’t even notice the camera; just do whatever is comfortable for you and hopefully we get some great results! My shooting style is very candid so even if you pose, I will try to get the most natural-loooking pics.
Thanks again for checking out my photography page. I hope you all enjoy seeing the photos from these events and please make sure to say hello if you see me around Harwich and Dovercourt taking pics.
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