A bit of water sport action

I putting together a presentation on photographing water sport action for my camera club and have had some fun digging through my archives to find some images to go with it. Shot using the EM-1 with the 40-150 f2.8,

I thought some of you may enjoy seeing them

Skeeterbytes wrote:

Brian Wadie wrote:

I putting together a presentation on photographing water sport action for my camera club and have had some fun digging through my archives to find some images to go with it. Shot using the EM-1 with the 40-150 f2.8,

I thought some of you may enjoy seeing them

Super set Brian! (Especially for a camera system so reputedly so-so for sports.) Am left wondering whether this person is still with us?

Cheers,

Rick

Thanks Rick, I find the system does everything that I need it to and I rarely if ever "miss the critical moment" (but I have a pretty good understanding of water sports having spent a large part of my earlier life messing about on the sea, in the surf and a fair bit of my time under it too! )

This lad is the world champion at freestyle (and a Brit as well ) so despite one rather heavy landing was still hale & hearty after 3 such display sessions

enjoyed your photos brian especially the upside down jet ski rider ,good to see the 40-150mm doing so well did you use the t/c on this occasion ok got it top two with t/c .great combo my favourite with my em-1 ,and the surfer is real sharp ,and you lowered the res  on your jpegs

excellent especially number one.  Yet another person who doesn't understand that m4/3s can't do action 

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

excellent especially number one. Yet another person who doesn't understand that m4/3s can't do action

I really should give up trying to get m4/3rds to do this, I do know that it can't cope but I keep forgetting

In fact I rate this combo better than my canon 7D with 70-300 LIS or 400 f5.6 (but please don't tell anyone )

Brian Wadie wrote:

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

excellent especially number one. Yet another person who doesn't understand that m4/3s can't do action

I really should give up trying to get m4/3rds to do this, I do know that it can't cope but I keep forgetting

In fact I rate this combo better than my canon 7D with 70-300 LIS or 400 f5.6 (but please don't tell anyone )

I've no time for people like you who just don't get the message:-) and as for being better than your Canon set up, wash your mouth out with soap, people have been tortured for less blasphemous comments

Strong situations and compositions.

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

Brian Wadie wrote:

Trevor Carpenter wrote:

excellent especially number one. Yet another person who doesn't understand that m4/3s can't do action

I really should give up trying to get m4/3rds to do this, I do know that it can't cope but I keep forgetting

In fact I rate this combo better than my canon 7D with 70-300 LIS or 400 f5.6 (but please don't tell anyone )

I've no time for people like you who just don't get the message:-) and as for being better than your Canon set up, wash your mouth out with soap, people have been tortured for less blasphemous comments

shot out of a cannon, in fact. Oh, different spelling.

A little exaggerated ;-). I like the pics. But one has to keep in mind, too, that DOF is quite large. So is any mis-focus seen? I expect the TC shots at 210mm, f6.3 to be around 40-50 m away, is that correct? If so, DOF is around 11m? Shouldn't put a lot of stress on horizontally moving objects. And before you shout, I used the EM1 quite often and liked it. Was just not for me.

HFLM wrote:

A little exaggerated ;-). I like the pics. But one has to keep in mind, too, that DOF is quite large. So is any mis-focus seen? I expect the TC shots at 210mm, f6.3 to be around 40-50 m away, is that correct? If so, DOF is around 11m? Shouldn't put a lot of stress on horizontally moving objects. And before you shout, I used the EM1 quite often and liked it. Was just not for me.

I'll let you into a secret, I neither know nor care about DOF and no "mis-focus" was apparent, even when shooting with f3.5. The system produces the images I want and it does so better than I could with my canon gear. Shallow DOF for the type of work I'm doing here is irrelevant, all I care to comment on is my own experiences, anything else I have no knowledge of (and at my age, will never need to worry about )

(ifs its of any interest the surfing shots were more like 40 - 40ft away, shot from our pier or off the beach away and the jet-ski I would guess not a lot further as it was performing in the surf line but I didn't worry about distances I just took the shots and there they were )

Maybe I should clarify one thing - I am not and never will suggest that my experiences relate to anything other than my experiences

I let others instruct us all on what works best for everyone else - I stick with explaining what works best for me - end of story

That's fine. However, if DOF is plenty, then the AF system doesn't need to work that hard. Set 1/1000, focus close to the surfer and everything required is in focus as the subject stays within DOF. I know the EM1 is not that bad and handles horizontal motion quite well. But it is not a situation I call difficult to handle. If you do soccer or football in a dimly lit location where a mis-focus means an out-of-focus image, that's a different situation. Not easy even for D4s or D1x. Please don't be offended. I don't mean it that way. Just my thoughts.

Love it !! Excellent action Bri and hey, don't you want to be 20 again Fun shots and extremely well taken.

All the best over there, nice work and shots.

Danny.

HFLM wrote:

That's fine. However, if DOF is plenty, then the AF system doesn't need to work that hard. Set 1/1000, focus close to the surfer and everything required is in focus as the subject stays within DOF. I know the EM1 is not that bad and handles horizontal motion quite well. But it is not a situation I call difficult to handle. If you do soccer or football in a dimly lit location where a mis-focus means an out-of-focus image, that's a different situation. Not easy even for D4s or D1x. Please don't be offended. I don't mean it that way. Just my thoughts.

not offended but I don't see your point (other than to propose situations where you believe that a DSLR may be better). I won't bother to load them as I don't wish to continue this part of the debate but I have more than enough head-on approach shots of Thundercats coming head-on toward me at > 60 mph and aircraft doing the same at >500mph to know that, as I explained, the EM-1 + 40-150 meets my needs better than my canon system did

End of debate as far as I am concerned, as I have no wish to try to change your viewpoint

nzmacro wrote:

Love it !! Excellent action Bri and hey, don't you want to be 20 again Fun shots and extremely well taken.

All the best over there, nice work and shots.

Danny.

thanks Danny, not sure about 20 but 35 would be good

Mind you, some of the people doing this mad stuff are either disabled (a couple of the Zapcats are crewed by disabled ex-service personnel) or in their 60's (we have some kiters and boarders who look like they can hardly walk but who fly when the get on their "planks" )

thanks Colin, interesting to hear that your experience with this is similar to mine

"though the last one, not quite sure what's going on there."

It was a sequence of images I took trying to make something different from a long-haul race (3 laps of 15 miles each) during which the teams had to make one pit stop.

I decided to play "Catch the critical moment" as each crew came ashore and that shot was an example of one of the more extrovert processes, when the crew leapt out of the boat before it stopped.

A few more to give you a better idea of what was going on

here's another, trying to run on water

and another coming to a dead stop (just before doing a "face plant" )

this was how they wanted to do it!

"secondly shutter speed to freeze the water means being left with not a lot of DOF." Not an argument. Why isn't it possible with FF? Just increase ISO. Advantage certainly is a smaller kit you can have with you.

great shots, nice to see you're still clicking away