Strike!

The featured image is one exposure taken from one burst and there are two videos below of that burst – the first one is real time and the second one is a 20-second slow-motion video to show the ball and pin action.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Golden Lanes Bowling Alley and Restaurant in Petersburg, West Virginia and the Thorne family, its owners who allowed these photographs to be taken. I especially want to thank Troy, our son-in-law who can consistently bowl strikes which makes it easier for me to capture action photographs.

https://youtu.be/WDpNvyrvm50
https://youtu.be/WDpNvyrvm50

Additional Images

These four photographs were taken of three different bowling strikes. Additional details are on the Technical Information section below.

Technical Information

On my first attempt, I took flash photos with my Canon EOS 77D which can take six exposures per second with its focal plane shutter. At a low power setting, the flash will fire faster than six times per second. I did get one good photo of the bowling ball hitting the pins for a strike on that occasion, which is Strike! (#1), the last image in the gallery above.

More recently I did this again with my new Canon EOS R7 mirrorless camera, which will take bursts of 30 frames per second with its electronic shutter. This burst mode also has a pre-shooting option, which captures ½ second of the burst before the shutter is fully depressed, compensating for the photographer’s reaction time in an action situation. I took these images with the available light over the pins in the bowling alley – I misread the camera settings and these images are about 4 f-stops underexposed. I did not expect to recover as much detail as there is in these photographs. The first three images in the gallery above were from two of these bursts.

Strike! (#3)

  • Date: 4/20/2025
  • Time: 3:37 PM
  • Camera: Canon EOS R7
  • Lens: Canon EF-S17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
  • Settings:
    • Lens: 35 mm, f/8
    • ISO: 6400
    • Shutter: 1/1600 sec
  • Uncropped image is 6960 x 4640 px
  • This image was extracted from a different burst of 49 images.

Strike! (#4)

  • Date: 4/20/2025
  • Time: 3:37 PM
  • Camera: Canon EOS R7
  • Lens: Canon EF-S17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
  • Settings:
    • Lens: 28 mm, f/8
    • ISO: 6400
    • Shutter: 1/1600 sec
  • Cropped image is 6276 x 4184 px
  • This image was four images later in the same burst of 49 images as Strike! (#3).

Strike! (#2)

  • Date: 4/20/2025
  • Time: 3:30 PM
  • Camera: Canon EOS R7
  • Lens: Canon EF-S17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
  • Settings:
    • Lens: 28 mm, f/8
    • ISO: 6400
    • Shutter: 1/1600 sec
  • Cropped image is 6276 x 4184 px
  • This image was extracted from a burst of 49 images.

Strike! (#1)

  • Date: 3/31/2024
  • Time: 3:24 PM
  • Camera: Canon EOS 77D
  • Lens: Sigma 24-105mm f/4 DG OS HSM
  • Settings:
    • Lens: 38 mm, f/4
    • ISO: 400
    • Shutter: 1/200 sec
  • Cropped image is 5153 x 3423 px
  • This is a flash photograph and there is some visible motion of the pins from the length of the exposure.

Additional Information

Facebook: Golden Lanes Bowling Alley and Restaurant

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