Wipeout

[Sebastian]

This happened right in front of me, left me covered in snow, but was well worth it.

[Asylum Steve]

All I can say is WOW! It's too bad you didn't get the skier in a more crazy, discombobulated, wipe-out position, but it's still a cool shot.

Maybe you could ask him to do it again...

[Old Timer]

Great catch!! You must have been pretty close to the action. I have had to scramble a few times on the football sidelines, but never gotten covered by snow or plowed under by an out of control skier. Nice image thanks for sharing.

[Lara]

Wow Sebastian! That's one awesome photograph!! Nice work, as usual.

[brianc]

NIce.

care to share some tips for skiing/snowboarding photography. The Jeep King of the Mountain race is at Mt. Snow VT this weekend and I'm going to go up for a day.

b

[Sebastian]

Thanks everyone!

Brian,

Meter manually to keep the highlights under control. I "spot" metered off the brightest part of the snow and went up by 1.5 stops to get it white while still retaining detail. AF was on continuous on the cross sensor, the most sensitive on my 10D, and just tracked them coming off the jump and landing. Rinse, lather, repeat.

The great thing about snow is it acts as an awesome reflector, so you can get cool backlit stuff like this shot without much worry about losing detail in faces.

[another view]

Lemmee guess... the next shot has his mouth open just begging for a caption? Nice work! Great job being ready with the camera, if he was that close it wasn't an easy shot to get.

[Trevor Ash]

Awesome shot Sebastian. One for the old portfolio.

[Asylum Steve]

Rinse, lather, repeat...

They say now that you only have to wash and rinse your hair ONCE...

[natatbeach]

cool shot...take it the camera survivied the icy spray.

[mjs1973]

This is a really nice shot Seb. I can't get over how calm the skier looks knowing that he's about to crash.

[brianc]

Thanks. I just figured out how to set the AF sensor to the middle one on my 10D. (boy there's actually some good info in the manual)

Hopefully I'll be able to find a good spot someplace along the course. and we have somewhat sane temps/weather.

[Sebastian]

Brian,

Make sure you prepare for the cold. When I was shooting the temps were in the 11-13 degree range, and everyone was dressed in snowmobile suits and many layers. I wore khakis. An hour and a half later, my hands and legs were numb, and the batteries started getting low due to the temps. Bring a spare set of batteries, keep them inside your coat. Once a set gets low put it in your coat to warm it back up while using the fresh set. Wear warm pants, and heavy boots. I also used those hand and toe warmer packs you can find in sporting goods stores. Don't underestimate the weather, you will be moving around but once you find a spot you're largely stationary and the cold quickly creeps up on you. Snow spray on the gear is no big deal unless the snow starts to melt, just wipe it off before that happens, you just don't want it seeping into the craacks and shorting something out. If the event has a scoreboard position yourself underneath it, the skiers will look at it after their runs and react appropriately. I missed a good celebration shot on Sunday, wrong place at the wrong time. There was no scoreboard, but I was cust too close and he blew by me too quickly to be able to track him while waving his arms and grinning real wide, would have made for a good photo had I been positioned where I was for the shot posted above. You live you learn.

[Sebastian]

Nat,

Thanks, and yes, the camera has survived much worse.

[Speed]

This happened right in front of me, left me covered in snow, but was well worth it.

What? No maniacal laughter and drums?! ;-)

Great catch Seb!

The skier looks pretty calm about his wipeout. I'm guessing it's not his first time.

[Trevor Ash]

Okay, I gotta ask.

I'm asking these questions to know how well the camera is performing in your hands.

I'm assuming this particular shot was one in a series of shots:
1. How many shots total in this sequence?
2. How far away was the subject at the start of the sequence?
3. How far away was the subject at this frame in the sequence?
4. How far away was the subject at the end of the sequence?
5. How many shots total in the sequence?
6. How many shots have acceptable focus?
7. What lens did you use?

I've tried this kind of thing before with my EOS-3 and it worked surprisingly well. I just can't see a 10D pulling off a shot like this without getting lucky. There's no way I'd be able to manual focus quickly enough to get the shot.

Thanks for the extra info Seb

[Sebastian]

1. How many shots total in this sequence? 8

2. How far away was the subject at the start of the sequence? I would estimate more than 300 feet.

3. How far away was the subject at this frame in the sequence? Tough to say, it was at 200mm, it happened so quickly and I don't have any frame of reference in these shots.

4. How far away was the subject at the end of the sequence? 10-15 feet, but he covered a football field length in a few seconds.

5. How many shots total in the sequence? Whoa, this seems SO familiar...8 ;)

6. How many shots have acceptable focus? 8

7. What lens did you use? 70-200 f/2.8 IS, with IS off.

Attached is the sequence minus the shots of him coming off the jump. Below it is a 100% unsharpened, unadjusted crop of the third frame from the posted sequence.

[brianc]

even more great advice. the weather could be brutally cold. It was -1F here this am and -17F up in the mountains. were expecting a huge dump late saturday night (10-14") too bad I can't make the finals on sunday.

I should have enough gear to stay worm enough, but I'm concerned with the bulky gloves and shutter finger. but I figure something out.

b