Random Boot Shot. Texans love their boots, but no, we don't wear em in the pool.
When I woke up this morning there was a consistent but light rain falling, nicely blended in with gusty breezes that wiggled trees and shook more water off the leaves. Groggy and sleepy I walked down our long hall to the dining room to check the weather on my phone. I couldn't find my phone so I grabbed one of the MacBook Pros (which seem to be reproducing all over the house) and looked there instead. It was 42 degrees outside and the prediction was for rain and gusty wind through the day. I pulled on a warm sweatshirt, grabbed a medicinal cup of instant coffee, with lots of milk, pulled a towel from the clothes dryer and headed out the door.
The car windows were slathered with rain on the outside and started fogging up inside the minute I got in and closed the door.
I got to the athletic club in plenty of time, changed in the locker room, and stoically began the cold 100 yard walk to the pool. Goggles, swim cap, hand paddles and pull buoy filling my hands the same way groceries do when I run in to the store just to "grab a few things" and resist taking one of the little baskets to put all the stuff in.
Our pool is outside but we heat it with gusto. It was too hot today. The coach told us that it was 83 degrees. A good, competition pool should be around 78 but we've got members in other programs that don't move fast enough to stay warm in the cooler water, so we adjust...
Jimmy was our coach and he loves to author swim practices that are filled with repeating patterns at different distances.
Warm-up started with a 600 yard swim that was set up to be 150 yards freestyle swimming + 50 yards of any other stroke. Then a 400 yard swim that was set up to be four 75 yard freestyle swims interspersed with 25 yards of kicking. Then five 150 yard freestyle swims on a tight interval followed by a 100 yard sculling drill, followed by 4 x 25 sprints. Then back to five 100 yard freestyles followed by the same 100 sculling drill, followed by 4 x 25 yards sprints with no breathing on the way down the lane and two breaths coming back. The pattern repeated and repeated. We ended up knocking out about 3400 yards and we were coasting in to the end when one of our swimmers suggested that we put on fins and do a set of five shooters.
Shooters are 25 yards underwater, pop up at the wall, then swim back. Doesn't sound difficult but at the end of a longish workout I find it a bit challenging to swim five lengths of the pool underwater as part of ten lengths total; all on a 60 second interval. You might too.
The hardest part of the workout is getting from the nice, warm pool, out into the 42 degree wind gusts and making it to the locker rooms without freezing. Ah, thank goodness for hot showers.
In other news, I pressed my Sigma fp into service shooting a portrait in the studio today. It worked well but it's too quiet. My subject didn't know when I was hitting the shutter and when I wasn't. No aural cues. We'll all get used to it. At least the files looked great.
On the Sigma fp front: my Samsung T5, 1 terabyte SSD arrives today so I can start shooting some raw 10 bit video tests first thing tomorrow. I have a suspicion that the drive will fill up quickly. I just checked and the files are about 2,000 mbps... Ouch.
4 comments:
If we're using continuous lights and we have a very quiet/silent camera, how will that effect the photographer/subject dynamic/relationship? A flash or a ker-FLAP from a SLR shutter is kinda like a director yelling "cut". Everybody can relax for a second then move into the next pose or focused bit of attention.
If only we know when the photo has been taken, will that place the subject at greater unease, not knowing what's happening? Or will it enable us to rattle off 3 or 12 frames as an expression develops in front of us, without the intrusion of noise causing a subject to become self conscious, losing the moment?
Hmmm. Suddenly this mirrorless/small camera thing may have added another feature to my reasons for ditching the SLR finally. AF points all across the frame were desirable, but not enough reason to switch.
And yeah, I feel your pain with the cold. 10 degrees and walking to the car to go to the gym is always a motivational challenge. Can't wait until the bike can go back out on the road in a couple months.
It will fill up very quickly: I have the same drive and it is blisteringly fast, approaching its theoretical read/write limits, which is unusual.
Edit right off the T5 drive. Works well with the large DNG's.
Nice workout. It''s good to have a coach and a team to swim with. It was 0* this morning when Bella and I went for out morning walk but walking from the locker room to the pool in cold weather seems like it could be worse. School is out here this week so the schedule for lap swimming is limited in time and the number of lanes so it you are circling you could be in with people not swimming at comparable speeds. So long walks on low traffic streets with little ice (I hope.)
And, although I am not in the market for one I am really interested in how the fp is working out for you. Since I am happy with the Panny G85, what might interest me would be a GX body of some sort (85, 9, 8) that might make a more pocketable companion.
Have fun with the camera and your meet preparation.
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