Shooting Your First Rodeo

From the Best of Jamie Zartman

Shortly after I purchased my Panasonic Lumix GH4, a friend called and asked if I wanted to go to a rodeo that evening. I was anxious to see what the GH4 could do shooting in continuous mode and immediately agreed, grabbed my cameras and went. I decided to bring along my Olympus EM-10 Mark I camera as a second camera, not wanting to switch lenses in what I anticipated would be a dusty environment, which it certainly was.

I put my Lumix GX Vario PZ 45-175mm f/4-5.6 lens on the GH4 along with a U3 rated SD card and used my Lumix G Vario 100-300mm f/4-5.6 II POWER O.I.S. Lens on an Olympus EM-10 Mark I. The dappled light of the setting sun made shooting a real challenge, along with a young fan, who was holding a purple balloon and was determined to interfere with almost every shot I wanted to make. The photos of the cowboy with the rope and the young rodeo princess were taken with Olympus 100-300 combination and the two action photos were with the GH4 and the 45-175 lens.

Shooting continuous frames with the Lumix GH4 was even better than I had hoped for, especially since neither lens is particularly fast. All of the photos were between f/5.3 and f/5.6 and around 250mm on the 100-300 and between 129mm and 175mm on the 45-175. The photos were all handheld and taken from the bleachers.