WATERFEST BY THE BAY (2nd Day) - Fujifilm S6500fd (Pic intensive warning)

[Clockunder]

No. of pictures : 15

In order to improve, critiques are strongly welcome.


#1 Panning shot at 1/80


#2 Stars of China performance


#3


#4


#5

[Clockunder]

WAKEBOARD ACTIONS
Although it's usually much better to show the face, I find some backside shots are also interesting.

#6



#7


#8


#9


#10

[Clockunder]

SOME "CANDID" SHOTS
#11 Taking a shot behind the camera


#12 "What is he doing so high up there?"


#13 Getting ready and focused


#14 A female competitor from the Philippines (am impressed how little apparent noise there is at ISO 400 for this camera)


#15 A quick snap shot of the dramatic sky after the event

[sprintist]

I think its abit too heavily DI-ed..toned down abit as the people don't look natural.

[Clockunder]

Originally Posted by sprintist I think its abit too heavily DI-ed..toned down abit as the people don't look natural.

Thanks but what is "DI"?

[dw2chan]

way too much saturation in the shots for my taste (unless that's the look you're going for)

a lot of the shots do look quite unnatural.

you should also watch the edges of where you mask saturation (dont know if that makes sense) but look at #14, look at the skin right above her boots, by the shorts, knuckles, shoulder, and cheek by the helmet strap. the skin is a much redder/orange tone.

and her shorts are an example of over saturation.

but other than that, i love the shots. you got the wakeboarders in good poses, and have composed around them nicely, i would suggest a shallower DOF to separate them more from the background though. good job!

[John Tan]

wow amazing sport series from non-DSLR...

[jenson]

i am using Fuji S6500fd too.. may i ask if you shot these in RAW or JPEG?

[Moonstone]

Never thought that a non-slr can take this sort of action shots. Keep it up!

[grantyale]

Time for a camera

[evershine]

Very good !

[Clockunder]

Thanks everyone for leaving some comments !

[acidbyte]

Very good close up shots. Now these are good examples of a skill/timing of a photographer and not the gear they use. My shots were nowhere near these. Good shots especially the last one with the sunset. Lurve the sky.

[Clockunder]

Originally Posted by dw2chan way too much saturation in the shots for my taste (unless that's the look you're going for) a lot of the shots do look quite unnatural. you should also watch the edges of where you mask saturation (dont know if that makes sense) but look at #14, look at the skin right above her boots, by the shorts, knuckles, shoulder, and cheek by the helmet strap. the skin is a much redder/orange tone. and her shorts are an example of over saturation. but other than that, i love the shots. you got the wakeboarders in good poses, and have composed around them nicely, i would suggest a shallower DOF to separate them more from the background though. good job!

Yes, the saturation is very high because I personally like it. So I've not only set the camera to high saturation (i.e. "Chrome" in this camera) but also increased the saturation further in post processing.

I agree that they (especially and not limited to skin tones) do not appear natural but I've always like highly saturated pictures more than "natural" look. It's just a personal preference and that's why all the pictures I've posted in clubsnap in the past all have high saturation.

They may appear over the limit in some monitors and I may have overdone it.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Ya, I wasn't careful in post-processing. Actually it wasn't just mask saturation. As the background is too well-defined, I've used the lasso tool to roughly select the wakeboarder, increased its saturation, inversed the selection, contracted the selection, then applied a lightly-handed gaussian blur (0.5 radius) to the background (resulting in an undesirable uneven sharpness to the water sprinkles), contracted the selection a little more and apply another round of gaussian blur (0.5 radius). It was to make the subject stand out slightly better (colour saturation and sharpness) against a messy background.

The "too well-defined" background is not so much of a DOF issue but a bokeh issue. I've used the largest aperture (F/3.8-F/5) or within 2/3 stop of the largest aperture at those focal lengths to take the pictures but the out-of-focus background remains very well-defined because of a short actual focal length (25mm-66.7mm) used. Based on the shooting distance and aperture used, those actual focal lengths yield a DOF of not more than 2 metres but as can be seen from the pictures, even an out-of-focus building which is a few hundred metres away in the background is still rendered very well-defined at such short actual focal lengths.

In prosumer cameras such as this Fujifilm S6500fd, the actual focal length range is very short 6.2mm-66.7mm but gives 28mm-300mm equivalent field of view because of a small image sensor (1/1.7" type in this case). Even at the longest focal length (66.7mm, e.g. pic #13 above) and largest aperture (F/4.9) at this focal length, the background remains pretty well-defined even after I've applied some gaussian blur to it. A 200mm lens on a 1.5x crop factor camera would produce a similar composition when shot at the same distance but with a much nicer and smoother looking bokeh.

That's one of the main disadvantages of a prosumer camera vis-a-vis a DSLR.

One of the reasons some people want to use full-frame sensor DSLR is the ability to achieve a nicer looking out-of-focus background with the use of a longer focal length for the same composition as a picture shot with a crop factor DSLR at the same distance.

Another main advantage of a DSLR is the possibility of much more details for very distant objects when shot with a very long actual focal length lens.

Thanks again for your comments.

[Clockunder]

Originally Posted by jenson i am using Fuji S6500fd too.. may i ask if you shot these in RAW or JPEG?

I shot them in jpeg as there isn't enough room in my 1GB x-D card to shoot RAW.

Lots of details have been captured only because the subject is just a few metres away unlike in real wakeboard actions where he/she will be at least 30-40 metres away.

So this S6500fd (max. 66.7mm) will not get as good details captured when shooting in the coming Wakeboard World Cup 2007 at Bedok Reservoir.

Given that 30-40m distance, you would need a DSLR with a very long actual focal length lens (300mm at least) to capture details.

1.5x crop factor APS Sensor size : approx. 24mm x 16mm

If you're shooting landscape framing and want the wakeboarder to occupy at least 0.7 of the 16mm, then image on the camera sensor must be 0.7 x 16mm = about 11.2mm.

The magnification factor a 1.5m tall wakeboarder to become 17mm = 11.2/1500 = 1/134

With a shooting distance of 40m, then the lens required is = 40000 x 1/134 = 299mm for a 1.5x crop factor camera.

A full frame camera would need a 300mmx1.5= 450mm lens.

[Clockunder]

Originally Posted by acidbyte Very good close up shots. Now these are good examples of a skill/timing of a photographer and not the gear they use. My shots were nowhere near these. Good shots especially the last one with the sunset. Lurve the sky.

Thanks.

Actually, not much skill involved.

I set camera to continuous shooting mode (2.3 fps in my case), use manual exposure (shutter speed fast enough, appropriate aperture and ISO ....... for more control....subject is a little back-lit against the afternoon sun and I varied the ISO between 100-200 and adjust the desired shutter speed, depending on the light condition and action speed), half-press shutter to pre-focus on something at expected shooting distance to subject, aim at where the wakeboarder is expected to jump and when the wakeboarder starts to jump up, press the shutter button fully down and try to pan the camera in the expected direction.

As it is difficult to predict what kind of stunt the wakeboarder will try, he/she can end up being captured anywhere within the frame. So needed to do a lot of picture cropping for the desired composition. While some are captured big and nice within the frame, some of them need much more cropping than others.

Actually, the biggest challenge to me was to avoid other photographers, security personnels and event helpers blocking the action. I might also have accidentally blocked some photographers to my right.