Photographing Wakeboarding - from the towing boat

Hi all, first I’d like to say hi to everyone on this forum – been a lurker for around 6months and been coming on here

rather religiously to pick up knowledge, tips and see everyone’s opinions on photography related topics. I must say

that the level of sophistication from the replies are astonishing and that one day I hope to be one of the more helpful

members contributing to discussions.

 

For my question about the wakeboarding, I’ve already gone once with my selected photography gears (originally for

the sole purpose of experiencing some different photography and learning new stuff) and have enjoyed it very much.

And as half expected, I also ended up doing some wakeboarding myself. A lot of care was taken in both preparation

and the duration of the trip – I left my film camera at home and brought with me a Canon 400D (i.e. Rebel XTi) with

the 70-200 f2.8L for some good focus length, a monopod, a tokina 10-17 zoom fisheye and an ebay trigger with the

430EX. It was a super sunny day and we were all on the towing speedboat with a canopy, the strong contrast of

being under the sun/canopy made the fill flash a must for me. I’m planning to go again soon and as I don’t have a

massive collective of photographic accessories, I’ll probably end up bring the same lot of stuff. What I want, however,

is NOT to end up with the same photos… so I have a few questions and am wondering if anyone have any tips/ ideas

to try out

 

1) thanks to the towing line being a fixed length, I’ve found myself taking pretty effective pictures at 135mm

on the tele (that makes 216mm on fullframe) with manual focus. I didn’t even have to worry about focusing individual

pictures as it was correctly exposing the wakeboarder at ISO100, f/11 and 1/800 or even faster shutter speed.

Obviously I also did some with the aperture open for some bokeh, and closed down for some panning albeit getting

kicked between the eyebrows with diffraction (screw you, physics!). However, at that amount of light I couldn’t bring

in any panning effects WITH BOKEH, which, I reckon would bring in some pretty eye-pleasing pictures. So I’m

wondering – would ND filters be my solution to this? I hear that unless you go for top dollar ones, ND filters affect the

skin tones in different way as that of blue/green colours… is it enough of a concern? If ND filter is recommended, I’ll

be happy to fork out for some as long as the blowout in the wallet isn’t as bad as the much dreaded overexposure.

 

2) two of the riders regularly enter comps and the boat tows them at very high speed, so panning while they

carve to the sides of the boat are pretty easy. But there’re also a couple of girls that just started and we go at a

much slower speed, I had to lower my shutter speed further to reach panning effects but as I was at focal lengths

upwards of 200mm, I started having concerns when the shutterspeed approached 1/150 – the panning wasn’t

enough, yet camera shake was already my problem (diffraction is also a minor concern)… I haven’t figured out a way

yet since the panning asks for slower shutter but camera shake asks for the opposite – I couldn’t get a happy

medium between the two even with my monopod as the boat itself isn’t exactly a standing piece of flat ground, but

more like an angry horse trying to ruin your pictures and throw your gears into the salty water. is there a way to get

round this problem, apart from poaching an IS version of the lens??

 

3) The pictures of the beginners are only nice when they carve to the side, otherwise the water splash from

the boat makes this great white wall that blocks way too much of the wakeboarder when they’re cruising directly

behind the boat, where they spend a majority of the above-water seconds getting more learned to controlling – this is

part of the reason I went to manual focus as the water splash’d screw with my focusing object whenever it comes

into the frame. But I’m struggling to take pictures with a wall of splash right there?? Standing up at the rear of the

boat isn’t an option as it affects the ‘watertrail’ of the boat when my wrinkly fat ass isn’t in my designated seat like

everyone else. I only get to choose to rear left or right seat since I’m the only sucker that’s on a speedboat with my

camera gear.

 

4) Waterproofing was only done the poor man’s style, each lense (well – I only brought two, the 70-200 and

tokina 10-17 fish) gets its own ziplock-bag-with-a-hole as raincoat while the 400D with grip was wrapped in cling film

(hehehe..) obviously I couldn’t seal up as I had only one camera and had to change lense, but I’m just wondering if

this would be sufficient? I bring everything into a de-humidifier as soon as I get home but since its salt water,

repeated trips like this might prove the mightiness of salty water on electronic circuitry.

 

5) When the sun’s directly over head and blasting down, I’m getting some bad overcast on the wakeboarder

with massive underside shadows – the water doesn’t seem to reflect that much light. Is there a way to minimize this

when taking the picture? There’s work I do in post processing but I try very hard to learnt to take a proper picture

rather than relying on PS if I could.

 

 

I know that I might be asking for the impossible, but you never know what amazing tips people could come up with if

you just throw the question out there.. so if you guys have any tips, please share 

 

Cheers,

 

Eddie

 

The monopod may be causing more 'shake' that it is helping. It will conduct engine vibrations as well as the 'wave bouncing' movement directly to the camera. I'd certainly try shooting without it.

Polarizers will help to allow shutter speed adjustments for panning and nice bokeh. The Cokin series is reasonably priced and of good very quality. Someone else here could suggest what 'power' of these filters to get. also, are you using a circ polarizer? Theat reduces incoming light a bit as well.

 

As far as shadows on faces of the board riders...shoot when sun is lower in the sky, figure out which direction that boat is travelling, in relation to sun, gives you most/best lighting on their faces. Fill flash may help also, but may illuminate the 'rooster tail' from the boat and be a distraction.

thanks Steve

 

1) about the monopod, as mentioned i did ended up struggling more trying to use it, it become a rest for me between shots, its ultra tiring to hold up the camera + grip + a telezoom for an hour at a time, especially when i'm also wakeboarding myself (its super tiring on the arms). it still works as a good camera rest though :)

 

2) the polarizer idea sounds interesting - i'll put more research into its use etc. however at first glance i'm not sure how'd it help me do panning with strong bokeh? my problem being that when i open up the aperture, the shutter speed slows down. but before it slows down to the range that i get good panning effects (for the beginner wakeboarders, ie. the boat at MUCH slower speed), i'm already facing problems with camera shake (200mm effective focal length and 1/150 shutter). nevertheless it should give me more leeway in opening up the aperture

 

3) agreed with your suggestion about shooting when the sun is lower - last trip was limited by the time that we could use the boat for, which was from 10am-2pm and the sun was way above head most the time - i guess that's down to an issue i can only be patient about.

 

4) for the fill flash, i did use it with slave trigger - but only with the fisheye, for 'on the boat' shots. i doubt my 420EX is powerful enough for the wakeboard, who's quite some distance from the boat, especially in the broad daylight. and i can't exactly ask them to hold the flash themselves, so i guess i'll stick with arranging the boat for later times in the day.

 

cheers, Eddie

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