"Dmitry" wrote in message news:Z0x0c.89826$4o.113910@attbi_s52...
Unexpected tax refund made me thinking.. What's a good camera to
take on the mountain, and more importantly, what's the technique?
I did get a couple of decent snaps with my digital Minolta F-100 (4MP,
3x optical zoom). I was setting everything to manual - this camera
actually allows that. Minimum aperture (f8 I think), fixed focus (~20 feet),
fixed shutter (minimum), ISO 100. Then gave the camera to my friend
and instructed her to not use LCD but use an eyepiece, and just press
shutter release and hold it keeping the rider (myself) in frame. This
produced a series of shots, and out of about 8 a couple were actually
pretty good. Here's one:
http://www.azazello.net/misc/sb.jpg
Now that camera is gone for good and I'm thinking about getting a
new one.
Having a big zoom is desirable I guess, but at the same time
would you be comfortable riding with big hard objects in the
backpack? This just doesn't seem to be a good idea to me,
back injuries are among the worst. Something slim and easily
pocketable seems to be the ticket, but those cameras only
have 3x zoom at best.
Also, manual controls are a concern. I'm not sure even the
latest consumer cameras can handle focusing on fast moving
targets on the snow. Snow usually throws their metering off
and they overexpose like crazy.
Maybe a pocket-size camera and a telephoto add-on lens would do
the job?
Anyway, if you have any positive experience with taking
action shots while snowboarding, please share. TIA!
What happened to your camera? The F-100 is a nice camera for
snowboarding photos.
Here are a few photos that I've taken a few years ago -
http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=ChangArvin&AID=1380965
Are you sure that snow causes your camera to overexpose? I've found
that when the scene is predominantly snow, it fools the camera into
underexposing (because it thinks that the white snow is some type of
very bright object). So to compensate I usually use +0.5-0.7 EV
exposure compensation or spot meter off an object.
I usually shoot with a polarizing filter in either shutter priority or
manual mode. In sunny weather I am usually using minimum apeture (F8)
although I might go wider to get at least a 1/250s shutter speed. In
general I usually prefocused off a point by aiming at where the rider
will be in 2 seconds (very easy for jumps) and half-pressing the
shutter button. I have used fixed focus as well (prefocusing and then
switching to manul focus mode).
As for zoom I agree that a bigger lens can be useful, but not always.
In the past I've used a Olympus 2100UZ (38-380mm lens) and a Sony F707
(38-190mm) and the reach is nice, but sometimes I wish I had a fisheye
so I could get really close to the jump and still pull in most of the
surroundings. I usually carried my camera in a side holster bag, but I
would be taking it easy so as not to fall on it (i.e. I don't take
those larger cameras up all the time). If you want a 10x zoom that is
compact, maybe you could look at the new Olympus C-765 (I think the
C-750 is essentially the same). It has a 38-380mm zoom while only
being 105 x 60 x 69 mm in size. To compare your F100 was 111 x 52 x 32
mm in size.
Personally I'm not a big fan of add-on telephoto lenses for digital
cameras as I think they degrade image quality too much. There are a
few cameras with 4-5x lens that are still pretty compact. I agree that
the AF systems on consumer digital cameras are too slow for fast
moving objects, but I have some the prefocus/fix focus setup to be
highly effective. If you camera has custom options like the G5 you can
set two quick presets and flip between the two.
I'm still considering buying a smaller camera to carry on the
mountain... not quite sure what I'm going to get, but the Canon A80
looks good. I'm still shopping though.
--Arvin