Christmas Day surfers

[wfooshee]

I had a 4-day weekend as my employers generously admitted Monday would be useless and let us off. My family events were all on Christmas Eve, and living alone, I had no place to be on Christmas itself.

That means Camera Day for me!

I expected to be shut in by the storms, but most of the weather happened north and west of here. I wasn't in it, but I could see it from here (Rokinon 8mm fisheye):



To the left is south (ish) and the early afternoon sun in a nearly clear sky. Straight ahead is west (ish) and a thunderstorm that passed over yonder that-a-way. Florida proverb: If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes.

I went up and down the beach and finally found the surfers I expected. I was hoping for some kite boarders, but no luck on that score. All of these were shot with my D7000 and a 70-300 at 300. Exposure was 1/320 shutter-priority, ISO started at 200 but I bumped it up to 400 when I kept seeing "Lo" in the finder.







This guy was using a long board, which was pretty useless, I think; he couldn't turn it into these waves and had to ride them straight in once he stood up. 2 or 3 seconds is all he ever got. But he was festive, so he gets a pic!

[Bob32]

"All of these were shot with my D7000 and a 70-300 at 300. Exposure was 1/320 shutter-priority, ISO started at 200 but I bumped it up to 400 when I kept seeing "Lo" in the finder."


I like photo #4 where the surfer is at an angle and the top of the board is visible.

Have you tried shooting shots like this at aperture-priority using auto ISO with maximum ISO set to something like 1600 and minimum shutter speed set to 1/500? That type of set-up usually works well for me when I'm shooting daylight sports with my 70-300 VR, and it avoids under-exposure due to shooting at a too-low ISO setting.


Bob

[wfooshee]

I like #4 best myself. It's the only one I got with a really hard turn being attempted. Most of the waves just didn't last long enough to have time for a turn back into the wave. Unfortunately, he didn't finish it and was in the water immediately after the shot!

One issue with exposure was the cloud cover. I aimed out to the water when I got there, metered, adjusted to a usable speed, but then it got darker while I was out there. I could have run the ISO up a bit more, but I wanted to keep it as low as possible. Old film-days mentality, probably. (I still have trouble wrapping my head around 4- and 5-digit ISO settings!)

The D7000 has an auto-ISO capability, but I don't care for things being selected that I didn't select. I like to know when it needs to be adjusted, but I want to make the adjustment. Control freak, I guess.

The other issue is that these rides really weren't very long. It's not like I could follow a surfer for 10 or 15 seconds, as most rides were actually only 3 or 4. This surf was in a space between a sand bar and the shore, and was not a lot of room at all. The waves start to build beyond the sand bar, then settle back down in the valley, then come up to a break just 50 yards or so offshore.

[Bob32]

Ah, yes, film! I remember when I used to shoot Kodachrome starting when the ASA rating was a smashing 10 and eventually working my way up to Kodachrome with a mind-boggling ASA rating of 64. I also can hardly believe it when I am now able to shoot at an ISO as high as 12,800 with my D700 in some school gyms properly labelled dungeons. I find that Auto ISO works great, and I use it most of the time except that I set exposure manually when I'm shooting stuff like basketball and volleyball in gyms. One big advantage of Auto ISO is that it saves having to fiddle with exposure settings when lighting conditions are changing.


Bob

[wfooshee]

Kodachrome rules!!! Or ruled.....

I probably have 5000 Kodachrome slides from 1980 through 1985 or -6, from during and right after my college years. Most are 64 with some 25 sprinkled in. 25 had incredible latitude! Those were done with my dad's then-30-year-old Voigtlander Vitessa unmetered folding rangefinder.

But we digress.... (Something codgers do, I guess.)

[Bob32]

Codger 1 to Codger 2,

In my refrigerator I still have two unopened 36-exposure rolls of Kodachrome 64 with a 1997 expiration date. I'll pass them on to my son who may be able to sell them one day as valuable historical artifacts. Also in my Nikon F2A is a partially exposed roll of Kodachrome 64 from 1997. I never finished the roll, and it remains there today. I didn't do any still photography from 1997 until 2007 when I went digital with a Nikon D200. Film to digital: What a revolution!


Bob

[wfooshee]

If you have a lot of money and a lot of time, Rocky Mountain Film Lab can process your Kodachrome as B/W, with prints and a CD. You have to really want it, though: $36.50 a roll and several months turnaround (while they wait for enough film to show up to run a batch.)

[Bob32]

If you have a lot of money and a lot of time, Rocky Mountain Film Lab can process your Kodachrome as B/W, with prints and a CD. You have to really want it, though: $36.50 a roll and several months turnaround (while they wait for enough film to show up to run a batch.)

At $36.50 and a long wait I definitely don’t want it!


Bob