Tonight, we ventured into Seattle, down to the Mariners baseball field (T-Mobile Park), to visit the Enchanted Christmas extravaganza.
It’s an expensive event – for the five of us, with parking, plus skate rentals for the kids, it cost us $175! Even with the high cost, it was extremely crowded – elbow to elbow in many places throughout the event. It was visually impressive though, and their ice skating rink was a spectacle to behold, as well as the highlight of the event. Bottles of water cost $4 a piece and hot chocolates were $5.50. The food choices were slim, greasy, and expensive. We opted for sneaking in snacks (because outside food and drink wasn’t allowed) and going out to eat afterwards.
Also, they don’t allow �professional� photography equipment. Their website actually specifies no lens longer than three inches (stupid). Also, they absolutely ban Go-Pros. For the life of me, I’m not sure the issue with the tiny Go-Pro cameras. They would have made neat skating videos and shown an interesting perspective of the maze. Per their website, I emailed to get �special permission� to bring my Nikon D850 and Tamron 35mm f/1.4 lens. I don’t see the big deal with bringing a higher end camera to the event though. For the life of me, I’m not sure what their issue was.
Would I go again? Doubtful. Even though the kids had a great time, for the price of that event, we could take them ice skating locally a bunch of times, get a zoo membership, and go see Zoo-Lights instead. It was different and enjoyable, but in my view, a one time event.
Now on to the photos! This was really the first time I shot with the D850 in very low light conditions. I also had a chance to really push the Tamron 35mm f/1.4 lens in terms of it’s focusing ability and rendering at f/1.4. I know they say DSLRs are dead, but this combo was a pleasure to use. The continuous focus is dead on, fast and accurate, the camera is nice and responsive, feels great in the hand, and gives terrific results. Mirrorless has some great advantages like seeing the settings in realtime, but when you just want to shoot, the D850 is still a champ!
All photos were processed using Lightroom with RNI All Films Pro 5 Presets. Lightroom auto applied distortion correction, and I left it on as the lens does distort a fair amount. I’m quite pleased with the bokeh too. Since the lightbulbs and shapes weren’t round, I’m not sure if you can count these as bokeh balls in the photos, but I think it’s quite nice nonetheless. Certainly a keeper of a lens.
