October fun in Indiana

If you're familiar at all with Indiana weather, then the amazing thing about these photos is that they were shot October 7 in northern Indiana (Lake Mississinawa). Normally a jacket would be in order. It felt more like August.

1.

Tell me about, here in NW Indiana last weekend it was 88, today it is 52! Like your action shots, the sequence tells a fun hair raising story. Hope you were not driving the boat too! What lens did you use?

Good shots from a fun day out.

It's good to see that I'm not the only one who likes to bring the lens out into the boat and try to steady it well enough to get some good action shots of watersports. You don't wrap the lens or camera in anything do you? I'm usually not that concerned about it, espcially if I can get a captain's chair behind the windscreen of the boat, but I know it does raise concern with some people...

How do you like the Big Bertha, by the way? We have the same tube, and we find it to be just a bit, well, big for having lots of fun swinging outside the wake and trying to get good air whilst maintaining some control.

Great pics...definately not your typical October fun in Indiana

Wow, I had to dry myself off after those! What great capture of color and action!

jtull01 wrote in post #4114347
...What lens did you use?

My favorite! I used my 70-200 f/2.8 L IS. I LOVE this thing. About the only time I ever take it off the camera is when I just have to have a wider angle than 70mm.

folville wrote in post #4114807
It's good to see that I'm not the only one who likes to bring the lens out into the boat and try to steady it well enough to get some good action shots of watersports...

You've got that right. The biggest challenge was trying to hold the subject in the center of the frame while the boat was bouncing over the waves. That lens can get kind of heavy after a while. I definitely felt it in my left arm and shoulder the next day.

folville wrote in post #4114807
You don't wrap the lens or camera in anything do you? I'm usually not that concerned about it, espcially if I can get a captain's chair behind the windscreen of the boat, but I know it does raise concern with some people...

I thought about doing that but the lens is "weather resistant" - although the 5D isn't, but I still managed to keep both dry. The toughest part of keeping them dry though wasn't when we were towing the kids, it was when they got back in the boat (and we had a dog with us that liked to swim) and were all dripping and shaking water everywhere.

folville wrote in post #4114807
...How do you like the Big Bertha, by the way? We have the same tube, and we find it to be just a bit, well, big for having lots of fun swinging outside the wake and trying to get good air whilst maintaining some control.

I can't really say. I was just invited out with friends and that was all their stuff, and it's the only tube I've ever seen used. I know their kids really seemed to like it.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. Always appreciated!

A couple more...
1.

Ah, good stuff. So, what do you think your keeper rate was approximately, or if we want to expand that a bit, how often were your shots in focus? Shooting from a moving boat can be tricky, and I'd like to know if you have any secrets for success!

Cool shots- i bet that was fun

folville wrote in post #4116431
Ah, good stuff. So, what do you think your keeper rate was approximately, or if we want to expand that a bit, how often were your shots in focus? Shooting from a moving boat can be tricky, and I'd like to know if you have any secrets for success!

Actually I did discover a secret! (At least for me since I had never shot from a boat before) Since I was sitting in a fixed seat and the rope was a fixed length, I used autofocus to focus on the boys when the rope became taught, then switched to manual focus and didn't even worry about focus after that. I probably took 150 shots that day and I think my keeper rate was probably at least 90% or more as far as IQ goes. The thing I was most surprised about was the fact that almost all of the shots were framed fairly well. Given the way the boat was bouncing, I expected to have to throw out half of them just because of poor framing. I think I only tossed about 3 because of this. Other than that, the only problem was, as you might imagine, most of the shots where essentially identical.

The only thing I might do over would be to possibly bump up the ISO so I could shoot at an even higher shutter speed. I think most of them were around 1/1250 sec. (at about f/3.5). I'd rather have them closer to 1/2000 sec. or more.