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Soma Nomaoi – Mock Battles with Real Danger

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As explained in the previous Soma Nomaoi blog, banners float down from the sky and riders who catch them win prizes. Obviously catching them inflight is the preferred method, which is why the men have canes with which to grab the banners. However, if the banner makes it to the floor, the brave will spring from their steed and, surrounded by galloping horses, make a grab for the banner. Dozens of horses, ridden by men gazing skywards, all hurtling towards the same place. Ambulances are on standby. On two occasions horses were knocked to the ground, each time the rider’s leg was pinned beneath the horse’s flank. Eventually the horses got back to their feet, but in both cases the rider was taken off to hospital to get checked out. Along with  Suwa’s Onbashira Festival, Soma Nomaoi is a spectacular festival that celebrates bravery and the samurai spirit.

Soma Nomaoi, Shinki-Sodatsusen

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If the kacchu-keiba (horse race) is analogous to the race into battle, then the shinki-sodatsusen is the battle itself. Here the riders test the skill, bravery and luck. The battle is made up of several skirmishes.  Each skirmish begins with a couple of fireworks blasted up into the sky. Each fireworks carry a banner which, after the explosion at altitude, come wafting back to earth. Any samurai who catches a banner, receives fame, glory and probably a few bit of yen. On a technical note these images were shot with the 645Z and the smc FA 645 300mm F4 ED (IF) which is equivalent of a 240mm on a FF35mm camera. I used a monopod to give some extra stability and it gave excellent results. The speed of the autofocus was slow, but it the overall sharpness was great.

Soma Nomaoi – Kacchu-keiba

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Carrying the flags of their houses, the riders race around the circuit. It’s always an interesting challenge trying to convey motion in a still image. I used a slow shutter speed and panned the camera with the subject. Get it right and you should get a blurry background while the subject remains relatively sharp. One rider was a young girl who galloped around the course with the men. I didn’t manage to get her name, but it was an impressive feat of horsemanship, irrespective of age or gender. The winners collected a piece of paper from the trackside umpires and then galloped up a zig-zag path through the crowd to top of the embankment where they collect their prizes.

Soma Nomaoi – Yoinorikeiba

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It’s a long hot trek from the three outer shrines to the Hibarigahara-Saijochi, but some made the ride in style, and in the shade. Once at the track, the riders and horses had a rest before mounting up for the afternoon’s races. The horses are fast, but the equipment is pretty rudimentary. There are no modern helmets for head protection, so you have got to be a great rider or know how to tuck and roll.

Pentax 645Z and the Double Big Mac

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The new Pentax 645Z sensor is 51.4 megapixels. Great for image quality and an amazing amount of detail, but this can lead to a few issues. A 64GB memory card can hold only 566 images.   (Compared to 712 images on the 40MP 645D  or 1198 on the Pentax K3) Larger files mean that it’s slower to download the data from the SD card, and slower to import into Lightroom, and slower to create 1:1 previews, and slower to edit in Photoshop. With the 645D, I’d got used to setting things running on my old Mac Pro 1.1 and then taking the dog for the walk or making a cup of tea. Recently, however,  when shooting more frames, and at higher resolutions the speed of my workflow was no longer efficient. I wanted a Mac with 32GB RAM, and a PCIe SSD with about 500GB of memory. The easy option would be to look at the new Mac Pros, but a model with the specs I wanted would be around 5,000 dollars. Instead, for around half …