I didn’t bring much in way of photo gear with me to Phoenix. I didn’t really plan to shoot much of anything, but I did grab a small Canon T2i that I normally use to shoot video, as well as a fisheye, and threw it in my bag just in case. I put it to use yesterday and shot a couple photos of John Parker at a school demo he was doing. Today I tagged along to check out an indoor skatepark down the road from his house that happens to have a vert ramp. Normally shooting a dark, indoor skatepark requires some sort of external lighting to make anything happen, and this spot was no different. Modern DSLR cameras keep pushing the limits of high ISO, so the old film speed limitations are pretty much extinct in low available light. What would have been insane grain and loss of detail with a fast film stock years back, is now pretty darn acceptable if you don’t mind a little bit of noise. Basically, the goal just becomes getting a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action, and keep the photo acceptably sharp. The T2i goes up to ISO 12800. Many years back I pushed a roll of TMAX 3200 BW film to 12800, and it was a mess. But this actually worked out pretty well. I’m impressed. I made the most of it and experimented a little bit. The photo above and the photo after the jump are shot at ISO 12800 at 1/320th of a second at f 2.8, with available light. Normally I like to stay at least above 1/500th of a second, but it still wasn’t letting in enough light, so I made due at a slower shutter speed. No noise reduction or anything fancy, just a bit of sharpening in post. There’s a couple more shots after the jump. I wouldn’t want to shoot like this all the time, but better high ISO opens up some possibilities in a pinch.