windsurfing photography tips from a beginner

here is my attempt at slow shutter speed effects which i mentioned today. iso at 1600 no flash and WB set to incandescent. not perfect as the shutter speed and iso should have been reduced a little. i have tried this with windsurfing and not had any success. any tips for motion blurring?



i'm keen to also try some other effects.

like flash fill effects. haircut showed me this where i jumped in the air and he used the flash to fill me with a super fast shutter speed so the background was dark. cool effect and lots of fun. the fanatic photos are excellent at showing this for windsurfing.



i've also tried into the sun contrast shots to. not got any good outcomes there either to date. have tried spot metering on sky or water as well as average but no luck. was thinking of trying sunset white balance and bracketing to see if that helps.
and recommended settings? jono knight's photo below does it well.

Interesting article - thanks Gestalt. I see this is going to take me some time to get my head space thinking in different ways, and learning new techniques. One thing that he did mention that is very true - once you have the equipment, digital photography is relatively cheap when compared to film. I would expect that the time involvement would be about the same until you become proficient with the technology also.

RE: Black and white digital bodies - unsure. I think my canon has a B&W setting - but I have not had a real chance to check this camera out yet.

Regarding motion blur - not really sure what the effect was you were going for, if you wanted the people moving and the stautes completely still, you could try a tripod with low iso manual shutter and remote release - that might give you the appearance of a wave of motion moving in and around the stationary objects. But you would have to be careful that the overhead lights did not burn into the image.

Flash effects can be really interesting - you should invest in a dedicated speedlite if you really want to exploit flash photography from a hobbyist point of view. If you want more than you need bigger and better stuff again. My speedlites of past allow for strobing flash, changing timing of flash at the end of the frame as the shutter closes and so on. But I'm not sure about pushing a shutter speed to super fast. My flim body would not let you push the shutter past 1/200th with an on body unit. I was never really into flash photograpy apart from necessity so I have never experimented much with these effects.

Silhoutte shots - i would suggest you switch to manual. Base your settings on the metering of what you want the detail in foreground / background and then shoot your subject. Definately bracket a couple of stops each way. I don't believe that you will achieve the results with a aperature or shutter priority - because the camera may continue to hunt for exposure correction based on its light metering.

There is a high speed flash sync function on both the Canon Flash and Camera. You will need to set it manually but it will dramatically reduce the battery live and power of the Flash.

Also, if you have the EX580 there is a good change it will overheat after a couple of shots and shut down for a few minutes. Problem doesn't exist with the EX580 II.

the external battery pack (cp-e1) increases the recycle times but doesn't increase overall flash power. I got an article kicking about on high speed flash photography using Nikon and Canon speed lights... only just got back from an overseas trip... will post it for you as soon as I get around to digging it out.

would you guys happen to know of any australian second hand slr camera websites or stores?

For those who have Canon cameras, there is a great firmware "add-on" that turns a $200 camera into a >$1000 camera .. like saving into RAW mode, increasing shutter speeds to 1/32,000 or as slow as 65 seconds, increase/decrease ISO and Aperture beyond "standard", running scripts that use the lcd sensor as a motion detector (great for lightning photos) etc.

Its called the Canon Hackers Developers Kit (CHDK), see this website
chdk.fandom.com/wiki/CHDK_in_Brief

Here is a brief blurb about it:

What extra capabilities does CHDK provide?

The current set of extra capabilities fall into six categories:

a. Enhanced ways of recording images - you can capture still pictures in RAW format (as well as JPEG), and for video images you can have increased recording time and length (1 hour or 2 GB), and a greatly increased range of compression options.
b. Additional data displays on the LCD screen - histogram, battery life indicator, depth of field, and many more.
c. Additional photographic settings that are not available on the camera by itself - longer exposure times (up to 65 seconds), faster shutter speeds (1/25,000 sec, and faster in some cases), automatic bracketing of exposure, etc.
d. The ability for the camera to run programs ('scripts', written in a micro-version of the BASIC language) stored on the memory card - these programs allow you to set the camera to perform a sequence of operations under the control of the program. For example, a camera can be programmed to take multiple pictures for focus bracketing, or take a picture when it detects that something in the field of view moves or changes brightness.
e. The ability to take a picture, or start a program on the memory card, by sending a signal into the USB port - you can use the USB cable to take a picture remotely.
f. The ability to do a number of other more useful (and fun) things, such as act as a mini file browser for the memory card, let you play games on the LCD screen, etc.

for the newbies amongst us.....

1/300 hss???//?????



p.s. love that shot nebs. everyone that sails wello will know the beauty.

might finally see the long awated 5d update now that nikons d700 is out and starts taking a slice of canons cheapo full frame market



photographybay.com/2008/06/18/nikon-d700/

yeah i've seen all the guesses at what it will include and look like for the last year and a half. might be a lot of either elated or very disappointed folk when it comes out