Some Pow Pow from Brighton ski resort last weekend.

[zerodog]

Over my holiday break I went snowboarding in a resort a few times. On par with every time I have been out on my board this year, starting in mid October, it has been overcast or snowing. Someday I will get to shoot a few pictures on a sunny day. This was not that day. It snowed all day. And Brighton received 30+ inches of snow for this outing. It was good stuff It was worth the lift ticket price this day for sure.

On all of these shots I am not happy with my focus. Not sure what happened. Could have been wicked flat light, could have been the snow falling, and it could have been my AF setting? I am trying a different AF tracking setting next time . I think the snow faked it out. Or when I moved, it snapped to another object.

The Drop


My favorite shot of the day


It was deep.

[Photo-John]

What are your AF settings?

I like the second one, too. In that last shot you are cheating your subject out of a few degrees of pitch - straighten that sucker out

[NoKnees]

Nice shots... At least you managed some color in that light. My last day out I had to process everything as BW because it was so graybird...

At the size of your shots on the web, it's hard to tell how off the AF may be. These don't look too bad, but maybe it's the ones we don't see that have the issue..

Anyway, shot two is my fav as well. One would have been better a little earlier while the rider was still compact.. They seemed to open up a little early for that drop... Nice looking drop though!

[zerodog]

What are your AF settings?

I like the second one, too. In that last shot you are cheating your subject out of a few degrees of pitch - straighten that sucker out

I was using Continuous, 21 point area,dynamic point, with focus tracking lock on set to off. The focus tracking set to off I believe was the problem. When off it lets the camera adjust fast. It works well for things moving straight at you. And this is what I usually use for trials. Could have been getting faked out too easy by the snow. Next time I will set it to normal to see if it helps.

[zerodog]

Rotated that powder shot a bit more.

And here is the shot just as he is rolling off the edge. The arms out like he is trying to fly is my buddies signature move!

[armando_m]

Great shots ! At this size I only see a slight focus problem on the third shot, where the tree seems to be in focus and not the skier

About AF settings, By dynamic point you mean the camera follows your subject ? If so, I gave up on the dynamic point since I have not been able to get decent results and I likely only found out the subject is blurry once seeing the photos in the computer, instead I use single spot, continuous focus, and only triggers when it has obtained precise focus, it is more work because I have to have the AF sensor over the moving subject, I'm thinking this may not work for you but I have never shot something as fast as a skier passing only a few feet from me.

[zerodog]

By dynamic I mean dynamic single point with a 21 point area. So if the subject leaves the single point there is 21 points around the single point it will track to. This is still single point, not auto area or 3D tracking.

Anyway, being out of focus always sucks. Part of the learning curve with snow I guess.