I was in Arizona visiting clients this week, and spent Thursday in Wickenburg. Normally my visit is in late April. At that time, Wickenburg is a a ghost town, but not this trip! The town was packed – cowboys everywhere.
I had no idea that the day would take me down to a rodeo, but there I was. I only had the Fuji X-Pro3 and two lenses with me – a 23mm f/2 and a Zeiss Touit 50mm macro lens. After trying a few shots with the 23mm, I realized it was way too wide to get any of the action. Wanting to get some tighter shots, I switched to the 50mm. Surprisingly, it worked well as an action lens. The focusing of the X-Pro3 was just fine. It worked as well or better than any Fuji I’ve ever owned, and the buffer was just fine for what I was shooting. Plus, it shoots continuous autofocus at 11 fps! That was more than adequate for this event.
The photos were shot midday in the harsh Arizona sun. I had to underexpose to retain the blue sky. I edited the photos and bumped up the saturation in Capture One (maybe a little too much on the cowboy faces). Also, never seeing this team roping before, I found it quite monotonous, and felt bad for the calves. In regards to it’s predictability, all of the riders and calves came out of the same gate, traveled the same path, and the calves were all roped around the same part of the ring with very little differentiation. It was fund to see and photograph once, but unless you’re really into roping calves, I can’t see photographing this for fun again. #Yeehaw!
