Roller Derby with the Undead Bettys

I've been on blog-hiatus for a couple of weeks, sort of recovering from a flurry of activity (most of it photo-related) that's taken up most of the last few months. But I'm back!One of the most fun outings was a roller derby bout featuring the Undead Bettys. This was my first roller derby and, not surprisingly, I loooooved it. And, it made me realize one of the things I love most about photography: it gives me license to get right up in the mix of whatever I can talk my way into. Improvisation really pays off!I didn't really know in advance what I'd be up against, so my gear imposed some major limitations. I'm still shooting with a Canon XTi, and I rented a zoom and a wide-angle lens both of which had a max 4.0 aperture. We were at a skating rink with florescent lights and a shiny white floor, so there was more light than I'd expected but still not really enough for really fast shutter speeds. The XTi is pretty crappy at high ISO speeds, but in the immortal words of some sports photographer I read about somewhere, a grainy sports photo is better than a blurry sports photo. Ok, fine, I shot at 1600 ISO most of the time--but even wide open at a 4.0 aperture, most of the time my shutter had to be slow enough that I couldn't really get crisp action photos on the curves. So, anyway--I just went with it and used it as an opportunity to practice my panning skills.