Crazy Carnival Rides

I went with a friend this past Saturday to the Orange County Fair, in Costa Mesa, CA. This was like my first time to a fair since I was a kid. So in essence, this was my first time photographing subjects, such as carnival rides at a fair.

One of the key ideas with these rides, when photographing them, is to bring them to life in still photography. That is easier said than done.

One of my favorite and most intriguing rides at this fair was one called "DiskO." This ride had a couple of different motions occurring simultaneously. Not only did it go back-n-forth, higher and higher, and at faster rates, it also rotated while doing this. Therefore, I wanted to capture this ride at it's peak time of all this action. That meant to capture it at the highest point on the track. But, it also meant to capture the rotating motion of this ride.

Anyways, my friend wanted to know how I was able to capture the "DiskO" sign almost perfectly in focus, while it seems that the rest of the ride platform is blurred, due to the motion.

So how was I able to do this? First, I didn't have a tripod with me and I also didn't have neutral density filter. That meant, I had to adjust the camera aperture way down to f20, to maintain 1/10sec on the shutter speed (I took a few test shots to figure out what a good shutter speed would be). I was at ISO 50 on my camera. I used an advertising sign to lean up against and to provide better stability. I set the camera to AI Servo focusing mode, on my Canon EOS-1D Mark III body.

Ok. I know some of you probably understand that. But, how did the sign more or less stay in relative focus? Well, when shooting action, there are always those peak moments in action, where there are slight pauses that occur when there is about to be a change in direction. Here, the ride has reached it's peak height and is about to come back down the track. The focus point was tracking on the sign. Now the luck is having the sign facing you so you can read it, when this happens. Now, I did take many shots of this ride. It wasn't like I nailed this shot in a minute or two.

For composition, I used another ride in the background, called the Mega Drop, which is a free-fall ride, to add interest and fill in the frame much better. My goal was pretty tricky. Trying to time these 2 rides up to where I had the riders at or near the top of the Mega Drop, while capturing the DiskO ride as such. In my opinion, the riders at the top of the Mega Drop are important. Again, to add more life to the shot. It also kind of sums up the craziness of carnival rides. Here, you have riders being dropped, turned, pushed, and pulled in all sorts of directions. Quite the craze!

For post processing, my tower wasn't tact sharp. Therefore, I decided to give these rides, which are very colorful, some old school film look, with some of my own frames and crud to overlay onto them. For me, the various colors at a carnival lends themselves perfectly for alternative post-processing options.Gives them that vintage film look of distortions, color shifts, and aging. Hope you like the final product.