Wight Air 2007 - Extreme Sports

[John Harper]

Hi There

This week on the Isle of Wight they are holding the annual "Wight Air" extreme sports festival.
Now while not being on a par with the X games it is nontheless a big event. So leaving my usual subjects of birds in flight airshows and fireworks aside i thought i would have a go at being a Sports photographer for the day.

The 1st 2 shots are from the Jetski demonstration team who really threw them around the sea. Both were shot with 1DMK IIN with a 500mm F4L IS on a monopod. ISO 200 shutter speed of 1/2000th at around F5.0

The 2nd 2 shots are of the mountain board riders performing some tricks on the specially built plywood ramps. These were shot with 1DMK IIN with a 70-200 F2.8L IS ISO 200 shutter speed of around 1/1250th and aperture of F4

Comments and critiques welcome.

John

[Marian Howell]

#1 is an AMAZING shot!!!

[Barry Johnston]

Well Captured John !!

You could not have timed it better.... I too have the Mk IIN which really is an awesome piece of equipment. I am still coming to grips with it though, but early results are pleasing.

Thanks for sharing!!

Regards,
Barry.

[Asher Kelman]

John,

You've excelled and as Barry and Marion remark, it's great timing and awesome action!

Now where is the market for these? Can you use this as stock or do the promoters or competitors buy?

Asher

[Barry Johnston]

Good Point Asher,

As far as I am concerned these images are very saleable.... you could try going directly to Buff Headwear, head office is in Spain. <www.buff.es or www.buff.com.au> and have a look at some of the other logos.... I don't know if you have a website John, but it is worth advertising them. I am a firm believer of 'nothing ventured nothing gained...'

Regards,
Barry.

[John Harper]

Asher- Marian - Barry

Thanks for the words of encouragement on these shots and i was generally very pleased with the results of the day.

Regarding selling shots, well i don't have a specific website set up, but maybe its something I need to look at, because as Barry rightly says "nothing ventured nothing gained". Should anyone have advice on that front i would be only too pleased to hear.

I will contact the organisers of the event and see if they are interested in any shots, and also the Jetski team..... who knows something may come from it... even if its only a thanks but no thanks.

But it was quite eye opening, I was just stood on the beach taking pictures and several people approached me asking if i was the Photographer who they had booked to take shots of the "Thundercat" powerboats. So people do seem to assume.. Large long lens... Pro photographer.. which is obviously not always the case.

I post below 4 more shots of the Jetski team.

All taken as previously mentioned with a 1DMK IIN with a 500mm F4L IS on a monopod. ISO 200 shutter speed of 1/2000th at around F5.0

The 1st one is immediately after the 1st shot of my first post!!... You just know its gonna hurt!.... But as the 2nd shot shows he did survive!!

Hope you like them

John

[Barry Johnston]

John, I am quite sure the organisers of the event would love to see all of your images....

Good Luck !!

Best Regards,
Barry

[Paul Bestwick]

great shots. I would like to get into some action photography it certainly looks challenging to get the timing spot on.
#1 here is my favourite.. as for the rest well they are fab too !!!!

[John Harper]

Originally Posted by Paul Bestwick

great shots. I would like to get into some action photography it certainly looks challenging to get the timing spot on.
#1 here is my favourite.. as for the rest well they are fab too !!!!

Hi Paul

Thanks for taking a look, and glad that you like the shots.

It was the 1st time i had tried to shoot this sort of thing, but i have had plenty of practice following fast moving objects in the viewfinder, be they birds in flight or planes at airshows, so that has helped a lot. with a 1 series body and an L telephoto the AF is also about as fast as it gets, so again that helps.

I was set to AI Servo centre point only with focus on the * button set with CF4-3. I let the camera take care of the metering most of the time as the light was changing quite quickly but i did dial in about 2/3rds of a stop overexposure to get some details in the shadows. Tried to keep the shutter speed at or above 1/2000th to freeze the action, and the drive to high speed (8.5FPS).

I then would just follow one of the riders around in the viewfinder, trying to keep him centered and watch for him starting to make a move or crouch down etc and try to anticipate the next flip or roll. Then just touch the shutter button and shoot of maybe a 4 frame burst or so.

Considering all the spray around the AF coped pretty well, i got more in focus shots that i expected to, but as is usual not all shots in the 4 or so frame bursts were "tack sharp" but shooting wide open on a 500 you have pretty limited depth of field anyway so to keep the face sharp is a challenge anyway.

The mountain boarders were easier to shoot as i was using the 70-200 which gave me a bit more depth of field and i was seldom shooting longer than 135mm. Kept shutter speed above 1/1200 if i could and again fired off a burst of 2 or 3 when they were at the apex of their take off jump.

In my opinion its the speed of the autofocus on a 1 series body that makes these sort of shots a bit easier to capture compared to say my old 20D body. Once you have used one for a while there is a vast difference when you go back to the 20D with regards to autofocus speed.

John