It's time again for the time of the year in Red Lodge, Montana. Four days of rodeo events, three parades, and fireworks to wrap it up. Something new this year (not pictured), a carnival.

It started July 1 with the Xtreme Bulls. We were in the main grandstand, which has a head-on view of the chutes. There was a post in my way which blocked some of the chutes, but I still got a few shots. The first image below shows a bull with some hops getting several feet into the air with a cowboy on his back.

We passed on attending the parades and rodeos on the 2nd and 3rd and got to everything on the 4th. The parade lasted more than an hour and featured horses, old cars, firetrucks, Smokey, Elvis on a unicycle, and lots of patriotism.

It was raining as we began the trek from our parking spot into the rodeo, but it mostly cleared as the afternoon went on. Once again we saw some amazing hops from the critters, including the bronc shown below who eventually threw his cowboy and tried to stomp him for good measure. Fortunately, he missed. Mostly.

We were in the main grandstand again, and once again a post blocked our view of some of the chutes, and I couldn't get good shots of the roping events. Another issue with the old grandstand is it has wide rows and there was a constant stream of people apologizing for ruining our day by going back and forth to their seats. I think from now on we will get tickets in the newer south grandstand, which has backs on the benches and much narrower rows. But I've got to get on the web site as soon as the tickets come out early in the year. It has a better (but distant) view of the roping events, and is still OK for the bucking events. Or maybe I will apply for a press pass to get down below, which they blocked off to casual observers last year.

It was my first time shooting rodeo with the R5 Mark II, and I have to decide which automatic focus functions to use and which to disable. Sometimes it gets fixated on a spot and will not refocus on action entering the screen. It is an amazing camera with unmatched resolution, but not all of the features are always useful.

To wrap up the 4th, it was the fireworks. Since I hadn't used the R5 for this before, I also set up the 6D Mark II and used the built-in intervalometers to fire off a few hundred images. I'm mystified why some images were in focus and seemed fuzzy. I miss the 5D Mark III, which was a great fireworks camera but was not worth keeping just for that. Despite some issues, I got a few snapshots worth saving.

Xtreme Bulls

Parade

Bronc

Fireworks