Input: some two thousand X-E1 50-230 action shots; result: some 23 large montages

[Menneisyys]

I've just finished creating photo montages of my about 2000 action shots shot at the well-known Wife Carrying World Championships, this July, Sonkajärvi, Finland.

The montages themselves are in the flicker set https://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/sets/72157648232147455/ . The originals are in my about 25 flicker WCWC 2014-specific albums – just search for the (Finnish) “eukonkan” text at https://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/sets/ to quickly find these albumbs. I dedicated a separate album to each run, five on the first day and 16 on the second; the albumbs have, in general, between 40 and 120 shots. As you may have guessed, I've used burst shooting for most of the time. I've created a separate montage for each and every run (see the above flickr set) and a separate one for the Parade of Nations.

Generally, the results are excellent for such a very-slow-to-AF camera + lens combination. If you do pre-focus a given area (for example, a not very long pool) and use aperture priority at f/11, you can shoot a lot of action without much of the action outside the focused zone.

Generally, where I did need to use AF (with the pool, I always pre-focused and used MF), about half of the shots turned out to be defocused, shooting runners from the side. Don't forget that this is shooting runners. (Nevertheless, even out-of-focus shots can be adequate for photomontages if you just use a thumbnail of them.)

All in all, I'm very satisfied with the system. Excellent IQ and, if you do pre-focus, pretty reliable and consistent results. The Achilles' heel is, of course, AF.

(BTW, my Flicker account has tons of other shots, mostly also made with the X-E1, depicting the Finnish life. Feel free to check them. Some of the album names are Finnish only as I've generally created these albums for relatives / other people in Finland; feel free to tell me if you'd prefer also having English titles.)

 

[BillyInya]

Great photos.

In this politically correct and equality driven world we live in, the "wife carrying championships" could be seen as sexist or derogatory towards women by some.

But I think it is fabulous, huge fun and I really enjoyed looking through your montages.

If any complaints then by all means lets have the husband carrying championships so everything is equal. LOL.

Excellent photos, great montages and super fun subject matter - thanks for sharing.

 

[KKJohn]

Could you explain how you made your photo montages? Looks like fun to do. Picasa has a montage program but is limited in what it can do. I sometimes use it when I shoot a family event with tons of shots which I can send to people. I used to use Photoshop but I no longer can afford to use it. Any other programs you would recommend?

Thanks for the pics. I guess this is only done in the summer. Has it ever been done in the winter? I also have the 50-230 lens but haven't used it for MF. Agree it's too slow for AF action shots. But still a good lens for general use which I use on my XA1.

 

[Menneisyys]

Could you explain how you made your photo montages? Looks like fun to do. Picasa has a montage program but is limited in what it can do. I sometimes use it when I shoot a family event with tons of shots which I can send to people. I used to use Photoshop but I no longer can afford to use it. Any other programs you would recommend?

I only use(d) Photoshop for this, using its layer masks. (See the montage tutorial at http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/layers/layer-masks/ )

Thanks for the pics. I guess this is only done in the summer. Has it ever been done in the winter?

I don't think so. Finnish winters, particularly at the latitude of 63°40′, can be very cold. -30 C degrees (-22F) are not uncommon. It's REALLY rare for the temperatures to "raise" to around -5C (when there massively are clouds during the night).

 

[Sonyshine]

A great set of montages and quite amusing too! Thank you!