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Caption:
The Hulk:
Commentary:
Down a dark, dark dale in the Peak District, is a dark, dark bouldering venue known to the locals as CragX. CragX is spoken off in hushed tones only; the bouldering is hard core – real hard core – and access is, at best, ‘delicate’. You won’t find CragX in any guidebook, by the way, and only the cognoscenti climb there.
My ‘go light’ camera bag - which goes just about everywhere with me – includes (amongst other things) my D300 fitted with a 18-200 AFS VR f3.5-5.6G plus a SB800 strobe. This rig enables me to cover a multitude of subjects which I would otherwise miss. Photography, as life, involves compromise. My go-light outfit is a compromise but with it I make fewer compromises than I would have to make if I was using even the very best compact. I had finished bouldering early and grabbing my go-light rig, I started to grab a few shots of Ted as the evening drew to a close.
CragX is limestone and limestone lit by flash often looks pretty horrid. Experimenting, I shot Ted in the light from my head-torch, a Petzl Ultra. The beam on the Ultra is bright and narrow. Fall-off is rapid therefore, hence I metered in spot mode but dialled in a slight compensation. I pushed the ISO to 1250 - way higher than I’d normally use - in order to get a half decent shutter speed to freeze the action. A low camera angle accentuated the height of CragX whilst the CragX ladder provided a bit of back-ground interest.
Capture Notes:
Nikon D300, 18-200 AFS f3.5-5.6G, 1/5secs @ f5.6, ISO 1250, spot metering
Keywords:
Rock climbing, bouldering, CragX, Peak District, action photography,
