I took this photo and many, many others today with my K-1. First day for a work out for my new camera.

The lens is a 77mm at f5.6

For some reason I can't seem to make the quality look the same here as it is on my screen.

[eaglem]

Sharp crisp with great colour....

[alamo5000]

Sharp crisp with great colour....

Thank you!

I am still trying to figure out how to make my pictures show up here just as sharp as they do on my screen.

It was fun to get out there again. It was a sanctioned tournament so I couldn't ride in the boat.

Some of these guys were running deep into 39 1/2 off... which in the slalom world is pretty awesome.

[Fenwoodian]

77mm on a full frame K1 seems a bit short for waterskiing.

Last year I was the association's photographer at the 2016 Barefoot Worlds Competition. All of my photos were with a 300mm lens on a crop frame body (Nikon of course).





Also, I have found that any image I post directly to this forum gets reworked and degraded. I have found that you get your best quality image posts by first posting your image to flickr, and then in the advanced setting click on the "insert image" icon (mountain with sun) and paste in the flickr URL.

---

Last edited by Fenwoodian; 06-17-2017 at 06:52 PM.

[normhead]

Last year I was the association's photographer at the 2016 Barefoot Worlds Competition. All of my photos were with a 300mm lens on a crop frame body (Nikon of course

Does it help to have big feet for that?

Let's not hijack someone's thread here.

[Fenwoodian]

Let's not hijack someone's thread here.

Mr Head, please go back and re-read the last paragraph that I posted under my second photo. It specifically answers the OP's question.

Since when is it against the rules around here to post one's photos if they are intended to:

1. establish credibility and
2. demonstrate that the answer I am giving to the OP's question indeed is a proven solution (what better way to demonstrate how to post sharp photos on the forum than to actually post some sharp photos?)

I will not change my post nor do I believe that I hijacked the thread.

[alamo5000]

77mm on a full frame K1 seems a bit short for waterskiing.

Last year I was the association's photographer at the Barefoot World Championship. All of my photos were with a 300mm lens on a crop frame body.

World Championships? REALLY? Wasn't that held in Wisconsin or something like that last year?

I personally haven't been able to ski for years because of an injury but I still enjoy the sport as much as possible. BTW I was injured while training for US National Barefoot championships many years ago now.

As for the lens it depends on the site and specific events. This event today had numerous people who were short line slalom skiing. A few of the competitors were getting into 39 1/2 off. For the non skier that's 39 1/2 feet off of a 75 foot long rope. That makes the rope only 35.5 feet long. The complication comes when you realize that it's 38 feet out to the buoy. Some of these guys were skiing on ropes as short as 34 feet.

If you are shooting from the boat with someone running that short of a rope odds are you might need even a shorter lens at times.

Also the venue where I was is a private lake purpose made for skiing. I was never really that far from the action. About the only thing better that I could do was get on the water somehow. If it wasn't an official tournament I could easily have done that.

Admittedly I did have to crop some but I got some decent shots with what I have. BTW I can't figure out how to display my images to the quality here shows the same as it is on my screen. For some reason the IQ is being degraded a lot during the upload procedure.

I probably could have used a longer lens but I don't own one.

---

Last edited by alamo5000; 11-23-2017 at 09:27 AM.

[alamo5000]

Does it help to have big feet for that?

Let's not hijack someone's thread here.

It's alright Norm. It's a worthy topic for sure. Really it gets down to event planning and knowing your sport and venue. For example as I stated in a previous post... these guys were doing shortline slalom. That means the rope was not the standard 75 foot version. They were pulling as much as 41 feet OFF of that rope which makes skiing that course exponentially harder. If you are photographing from the boat your subject will be 34-35 feet from you at all times. Plus if you want to capture the spray and all that you need a wider angle.

Also for a slalom event knowing the event venue is also very important. Even from the shoreline I wasn't far away from the action at all.

But now look at the photos that Fernwoodian put up vs some of the ones I put up. Barefooting is done either on a boom out beside the boat (during practice) or in tournament conditions on a standard 75 foot long rope. That sport is totally different than slalom. With barefooting it's a lot easier to get better shots by isolating your subject and focusing right on the skier.

With other events, and part of my goal though was to pull back and get more 'event' or 'lifestyle' type photos. If you look at some of my shots I have the skier, the spray, the boat, the scenery all in the shot...

Basically it's just an entire different method all worthy of discussion.

And BTW big feet only marginally help when barefooting

[alamo5000]

Mr Head, please go back and re-read the last paragraph that I posted under my second photo. It specifically answers the OP's question.

Since when is it against the rules around here to post one's photos if they are intended to:

1. establish credibility and
2. demonstrate that the answer I am giving to the OP's question indeed is a proven solution (what better way to demonstrate how to post sharp photos on the forum than to actually post some sharp photos?)

I will not change my post nor do I believe that I hijacked the thread.

I will add more pics but see my post directly above where I was talking to Norm. Different sports require and sometimes have a different visual appeal that will help dictate not only what, but HOW you approach a shoot. In your shots they are zeroed in narrowly focused on the skier. In many of my shots it was intended to give a much more broad sense of what was going on. Boat, spray, skier, 'the scene'...

Surfing is the same thing. You can (if you choose) get right up on the surfer and focus on him or her... but a lot of the time pulling back and showing a perfectly breaking set of waves with a rainbow in the background while also having a surfer carving up a wave in some paradise location... it's a whole different approach to how certain sports are captured.

Are you going pure action or are you going for more of a lifestyle type shoot? Tournament barefooting lends itself a lot more to pure action whereas shortline slalom you have a lot more leeway to get 'lifestyle' type shots.

[alamo5000]

Here is an example to show what and where... This shot is the full frame of the image. No crop, no straightening, nothing. The only thing I did was fiddle a little bit with the exposure. It should demonstrate quite nicely just how on top of things I was. This was obviously taken from shore.

[alamo5000]

I am thinking that Flickr is degrading the images that are directly hot linked or something. Anyway here is a link to the image I just posted so you can click, enlarge and see.

IMGP0269-3 | alamo5000 | Flickr

[alamo5000]

[Kerrowdown]

re-read the last paragraph

I think he meant about opening the thread to the discussion of feet sizes.