Shutter Speed

hey..
we just got a new canon digital camera and was wonderin what shutter speed is best for wakeboarding..
Thanks

It depends iof you want to stop action. Probably 1/250 is about right. If you like to follow the rider (panning) you can use a slower shutter speed (maybe 1/60) and still stop the rider's action, but the background will show motion. Closer zoom will require faster shutter to stop action unless you are panning. If you are having someone take pics of you, you probably will want to just set the zoom, focus, and shutter yourself. Most newbie photgraphers can't pan very well, and have a tendancy to jerk the camera when they trip the shutter, so a faster speed is better. Remember as shutter speed gets faster, the depth of field gets shallower. Deep depth of field helps overcome focusing problems...

Hope this helps.

Another issue with digital cameras is "shutter lag". When you push the button to take the pic, some cameras take a second or two before the shutter opens.

What this means to we wakeboarders is that many pics will come out with the rider out of the frame on the pic. :-(

Just takes some practice.

What camera did you get? Most canon dig cameras have a macro for action shots.

None of the Canon point-and-shoot digital cameras have much of a zoom so you don't have to worry about it. Just set the camera to the Sport mode setting and it should do fine. That way it'll select the highest shutter speed it can for the available light.

David...
Re: Shutter lag...
On most digi cameras if you press (and hold) the shutter release button 1/2 way down it locks in the focus and charges the system. When you want to take the picture, push the button the rest of the way down and it will shoot without the delay.

Here is an article on shooting.
http://www.wakeworld.com/articles/2003/buffalow2.asp

I would recommend 1/1000 or 1/1500. As you can see below, at 1/500, the drops of water start to elongate, at a faster speed they are more of a drop.

Shutter speed: 1/500.00
F-stop: 6.7
ISO speed: 200
Focal length: 300.0000

Slower shutter speeds will bring the background into focus (pinhole effect), but you may blur fast moving objects (water droplets). High shutter speed = crisp action & Blurry background.

And for shooting something like wakeboarding, a blurry background is much better because it will separate your subject from the background. The best wakeboard photos are usually shot with a long, fast telephoto lens with the aperture wide open for minimal depth of field.

The photo above is a good example - the background is slightly blurry. The photo below is another example - I shot it at 1/2000 at f4.5 @ 220mm (85-300 zoom).

Just curious, what camera are you shooting with Bill? The canon point and shoot you mentioned above?

Personally I didn't think that article on WW was very useful.

Gregg, I bought an Olympus c730 sorta-point-and-shoot. It's a compact digital but it has a 10x optical zoom so it does a decent job.

This pic was taken in Detroit using the c730, shooting from the boat with an overcast sky.



The pic of Todd above was taken with a 15 year old Canon T90. I also have a Canon F1 and A1. I'd love to get all new equipment but I have a large investment in lens and I don't mind manual focus.

Well Bill, you've got some awesome shots. I really want to get an slr style digi camera. I've spent a lot of time behind slr cameras and my point and shoot (P&S) frustrates the snot out of me. My P&S is a Nikon coolpix 5700...and it's crap. I can manage to get good images but, man it is serious work.

Here are a few images shot with my crappy P&S.
http://www.wakepics.com/media.php?searchstr=user:1638&trick=Any&type=Any&t ime=1058541109&search=search&limit=10

Matt,
The WW photo article seemed to be geared to someone who was going to do (or wanted to do) a pro shoot...in which case they would, most likely, know all that stuff already. Most people, it seems, want to know how to get the best images from their P&S or old slr.

Buffalo says: "The first thing is figuring out who you are shooting and why they are worthy. Just because somebody can do a couple of tricks does not mean that you want to spend time and money capturing it on film."
If I told my wife she was not worthy of the film, it would be my last day on this earth.
Most people want to shoot my fam and friends and make them look awesome. Buffalo's article wasn't for that.

A beginner article would just cover the basics of getting a clean image. Stopping motion, use of light, focusing, framing the shot, and timing your shots. Telling us we need to spend 8 grand, have a large crew, shoot from tubes & a second boat to get good images is not really a practical viewpoint for amateurs.

Gregg, I agee the your comments on the article, not very helpful to most P&S. I upgraded to the Canon 10D slr and am enjoying lots of shooting. No shutter lag and less depth of field . I have a lot more to learn but enjoy it much more. Don't forget that lots of pictures you see have been cropped and the rider framed to make a great shot. The shot I posted was resized out of the camera for posting, thats how I took it. Mainly wanted to show an example of a slower shutter speed to answer the question posted. Take a shot like this and crop the extra width, and you can get a much better shot. My point here is, good photos sometimes are made after the shot is taken. Lots to learn.
TIPS for Shooting:
*Manual focus or half pressing the shutter to get focus lock before they hit the wake can help reduce shutter lag.
*Pratice, learning when to press the shutter allows you to snap the picture before the action happens so the lag will be timed right.
*shutter speed over 1/750 are good, 1/1000 better-(shutter priority mode)
*using a lower F-stop# helps to get the shutter speed up and help to get the out-of focus background-(apeture priority mode)
*Sun on the riders face.
*160-200mm lens if shooting from boat (most longer zooms) or crop out a 3x zoom image to get closer.
*cropping= digital darkroom, learn the tools to clean up and frame image on the computer to get the best results. My crop of the handle and drops could have been sized to enclude the whole body.

Well thats all I can think of for now. Hope this helps someone. I know I am still learning lots.

Yeah, I agree that the P&S cameras are really lacking in some things, like real control over settings and shutter lag. I had a chance to shoot with a high-end Nikon digital SLR with a $4,000 lens and it was amazing. No shutter lag, felt great, etc. I think I'm still more of a Canon fan though

I would love to pick up even a 10D but with the lens that I want it would be about $4K. More than I can spend right now on camera gear! And the high-end stuff is still super expensive, with just the body going for $6K - $8K for the 10mp model. Then add the 1Gb microdrive cards and other accessories and it gets expensive fast.

At least digital has finally reached the quality of 35mm. I can't wait to see some inexpensive digital SLR cameras hit the market in a year or two.

Airfreak, those are all good tips. The most important thing is taking lots of shots. Most pros will shoot several rolls of film (or hundreds of digital shots) to get a single "keeper". One of the best tips is Buffalow's article is about lighting. If you can shoot early morning or late evening the lighting will be much more dramatic. That pic of Todd I posted above was shot early morning.

Airfreak, I think you've laid it out flawlessly.
Your points would have made a much more useful article to the readers of this forum. I'm not knocking Buffalo's feature, it was well done but probably should have been titled: "how to shoot like the pros".
Your points, Airfreak, would compliment Buffalo's feature perfectly.

Are you happy with the 3 fps on your 10D or do you just time your shots and shoot single frame?
I had wanted the 1D, it does 8 fps. Less Megapixels and loads more cash. Also, do you shoot at the faster iso settings (1600 or 3200) if so, how is the noise level?

Bill, get the SLR. I still want the $$lens but am having one heck of a good time with a cheep non-USM 75-300 canon lens. The camera is only one month old and I am on shot 28xx or so. I will get better glass soon, but don't let that stop you. I wanted the 1D but I figured I would learn on the 10D and upgrade later. The 11mp 1Ds still is as slow as the 10D. Pro cameras, 1D for sports and 1Ds for studio works. I want the rumored 3D. Years end might bring the sub$1k SLR.

Gregg, no I am not happy with 3fps but I was willing to accept it concidering the cost difference of the 1D. wouldn't be happy with 8fps if I could get 15 so it will never end. It is very usefull but if I need it my Minolta 7i does 7fps at 1mp. Good for learning tricks and such but to for great prints unless you past them together. I do shoot in burst mode with good riders and capture several frames. I can watch the rider ride up the wake, jump, press shutter while in air, focus lock and fully press and get shot before mid tricK.
Iso 1600 does show noise. Havn't used it boarding but have done kids night time baseball games. Just haven't messed with it much. Iso 800 not bad.

burst frames:

Bill,
I have the olympus C 730 as well and I was wondering did you figure out how to do several frame shots (sequence shooting)? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Steve

I too agree with your comments on the article Greg.... Maybe it should be called "How to shoot pro's like pro's... if you are actually worthy of shooting pro's"

Taking plenty of shot's is also a great tip. I read once that National Geographic photographers collectivley shoot over 1 million pics every year, from which the 1200 or so that get printed in the magazine are selected.

Matt - that's a great point. You have to take a lot of pics to get a few good ones. That used to be an expensive proposition, but now with digital cameras there is no reason not to have a very itchy trigger finger.

I am looking for a new camera myself and do not know of one as fast as my 15fps Olympus E100RS. I want higher than 1.5 megapixel, more like a minimum of 5 megs. I shoot alot of things in sequence and just to get the cute dog picture took me over 100 shots.

Typically I am shooting action shots at around 800 shutter speed and only use manual focus, in sports mode. Because of the changing of directions so much on the Delta I do let the camera set the aperature and everything automatically. Large media cards are cheaper these days and if I am in a shooting mood I will take over 2000 pictures a day.

We have got some old digital camera, really chunky..but dad just bought a new canon digital camera, its awesome it takes still an everythin...we got some footage yesterday but still gotta read the manual figure it all out.

I just purchased a 10D also. Most of the time. i shoot at 1/1000 iso100. during the day i can still get f 4.5. I just got back from Board Bonaza and i took over 1000 shots. I didn't do any sequence stuff, no time to do them. I took some of every ones run and other things. I also printed some out and sold them. I'll post some on here as soon as i get them from my laptop on to my computer.

These are from my Minolta S414.
4 meg camera with 4X optical zoom.
For the price tag of $329.00 you can't really beat it. Manual settings including focus, 1/1000 shutter, F3.6 apperature, ISO 64 - not cropped or altered.
These pics weren't even taken at the highest resolution to save space - actually just under 3 meg resolution, but zoom is all the way out, shooting from the boat obviously with 75' of line. Camera is pretty quick with almost no delay in release of shutter. Couple cons though are that you can't buy a waterproof housing from Minolta (I've heard you can for most of Canon's products) and that it seems like finding lens/filters for this model (35.5 mm) is not easy. Probably need to find an adapter or something.

Airfreak, who is that rider with the Popeye calves doing the invert above?
Great pic BTW.

Popeye calves Don't know the rider.

Here is one of the best from this weekends KS INT. Resizedfor the web doesn't do justice as the dull image does.