Pillow Fight

2009 was the first year for Amsterdam to participate in the annual pillow fight day. This year was the 5th time for the royal palace to witness the event on the Dam Square, and despite of the unusually cold winter dragging on through Easter and even to April, the Sunday of the happening was relatively warm and sunny, making the photographers job easy and relaxing. When you shoot a kinetic event like this, you have to watch your gear to keep it clean from dust and aggression, keep an eye on the crowd and play with the focus all the time, to be able to capture the occasion. I've used several lenses, changing them repeatedly to be able to show the nature of the event but being honest, it took some 250 shots to produce a 20 shot serial to show. It's not only that people are running around and moving unexpectedly. Since you are close to the action, shadows and sunlight are changing rapidly, making it impossible to apply decent metering and focus. These times I usually use a higher ISO and lower aperture to have better focus, also negative exposition compensation to make sure the Sun does not fool me.

 

Camera	Nikon D90
Aperture	f/5.3
Exposure Bias	-0.67 eV
Focal Length	95mm (142mm)
Lens	Nikkor 18-200 mm f/3.5-5.6
ISO	800
Shutter Speed	1/2500
Post Processing	ACDSee Pro 6 (B/W)