Know your equipment

Andy

I've been reading, with amusement, another board where a photographer is claiming that he's got to have a gazillion frames per second, in order to catch the "moment of truth." Well I say hogwash and bush-wahhh! Sure, it helps in certain situations - but in general, I feel:

Learn your gear, you can do it with nearly any camera.

Now these shots are just for the family photo album - but that means I have to please the toughest critic I have - SWMBO! (And friend of SWMBO)... Trev and his two mates went bang-bang-bang not much time in between shots, and since it was a very dark basement room of a church, I had to use flash - which also meant I'd only get ONE shot of each kid. And since it was competition, there'd be no re-shoots :uhoh So I show these to demonstrate that you can "get the shot" even under difficult circumstances, if you plan ahead, think it through, anticipate the action, and know your gear, know it like the back of your hand.








Oh and these two are from three years ago, with a Sony F717:





Enjoy (knowing your gear) photography,

John Mueller

How right you are Andy.I have one of those cams that fires like a machine gun,but seldom use that feature.I like to time it.

TOF guy

either that or .... know your photographer
I think that the "customers" knew very well the photographer who took these outstanding shots in spite of the difficult set-up . He was not picked randomly !

Andy, no offense, but other photographer than you can use some help from their gear to get that kind of pics !

This being said, shorter AF/shutter lag is more useful to me than the "gazillion pics" per sec. And don't say "no", Andy, because you take these pics with a F717. Not everybody can do what you do !

With the D70, I try to reduce the lag as much as possible. For instance, I may pre-focus the lens to the proper distance, disable AF, and close down the lens for more DOF (so that the subject is sharp enough if my distance estimate is a bit inaccurate). If on top of that I can pre-meter the scene and switch the camera to manual, then I'm in good shape because without metering and AF the D70 is basically instantaneous to take the shot when I press the shutter.

Well, that's what a less gifted (much much much less gifted) person like me does to get the shot :cry !

Thierry

rutt

When I frist got my 1Dmkii I used the fast fire feature a lot, but now it's reserved for one situation where my refleces just aren't fast enough: baseball. I've gotten great shots of balls on the bat, in the glove, &etc. But I can't even see it, let alone time it. I think baseball is the very hardest action sport. In a whole game, there might be three or four plays you really want to get and they require lighting fast reflexes and thinking to get. I'm sure there are other action situations which are just as challenging, but I don't know them.

Oh, yes, I did use the high speed 7 fps feature for finish pictures of a couple of bike races this summer and was glad I did. But that isn't photography; it's judging.

Andy

TOF guy wrote:

I think that the "customers" knew very well the photographer who took these outstanding shots in spite of the difficult set-up . He was not picked randomly !

Andy, no offense, but other photographer than you can use some help from their gear to get that kind of pics !

This being said, shorter AF/shutter lag is more useful to me than the "gazillion pics" per sec. And don't say "no", Andy, because you take these pics with a F717. Not everybody can do what you do !

With the D70, I try to reduce the lag as much as possible. For instance, I may pre-focus the lens to the proper distance, disable AF, and close down the lens for more DOF (so that the subject is sharp enough if my distance estimate is a bit inaccurate). If on top of that I can pre-meter the scene and switch the camera to manual, then I'm in good shape because without metering and AF the D70 is basically instantaneous to take the shot when I press the shutter.

Well, that's what a less gifted (much much much less gifted) person like me does to get the shot :cry !

Thierry

Hiya Thierry! Heh - funny enough, the first three were with my Canon 5D. I tossed in the 717 shots to show that it can be done with nearly any camera... you give me too much credit (blush).. seriously, in these situations anyone can do it, if you practice "hitting the bullseye" enough with your own gear..

Always nice to hear from you, Thierry!