High Speed

[snoid]

This is my first try at this
This boat is moving at about 150mph. The day was very overcast.
I tried prefocusing as the boat comes out from behind the yacht club rather suddenly and I wanted to show the the roostertail.

How do you guys manage to get a clear shot at that speed?

[fidgety]

I would use the AI Servo function on my camera and the center focusing dot and track the boat as it came my. Another option is to use a slower shutter speed such as 1/60ish and track the boat by panning and you will get a nicely blurred background. I don't use that with the sports I shoot but have seen it done and it can turn out really well.

[SmartWombat]

On the Canon, configure the * button on the rear of the camera to trigger AF.
Set the AF to servo AI mode.
Pan with the boat as it appears with * pressed.
Relase * and recompose with the boat on the right (pan a bit slower).

Next lap, just compose and shoot and don't touch the * button so it keeps the previous focus setting.

Your approach works too, my eyesight isn't good enough to manually focus.
You might want faster than 1/800 to get the boat sharp if you're not panning.

[fidgety]

Your approach works too, my eyesight isn't good enough to manually focus.

Isn't that the truth!

[dhyravy]

For this shot, it is a bit underexposed so about 1/3 stop more ISO would have been nice. As for the focus, if you want to keep the rooster tail in the shot with the boat off-center I would go with a single focus point, off center so it hits the boat and pan with it. AI Servo probably won't help much with objects moving laterally since the distance really doesn't change much. For this shot, a little "Auto Levels" in PS would help the exposure and maybe a little sharpening.