2013 Project 52, Week 4 - Winter Sport

Week 4 - January 22-28

And now for something completely different:

50mm (DX)  :  ISO 800  :  f/4  :  1/1600s

50mm (DX)  :  ISO 800  :  f/4  :  1/1600s

50mm (DX)  :  ISO 800  :  f/4  :  1/1250s

Mere minutes after I finished saying that I wanted to get some work on sports/action photography, I walked a few blocks from our front door to Central Park to check out Winter Jam 2013, a wintersports festival set up by the tireless NYC Parks Department. I parked myself by the Red Bull mini-slope, shook off some long zoom rust, and tried my hand at shots of the skiers and snowboarders as they went on run after run.

[Thoughts and lessons learned after the jump.]

Because I'm a nitpicker, and because this blog is a heck of way to log reminders and pointers, a few things I noticed either during or after the shoot:

1. I left my ISO at 800, but by now I can't remember if this was by accident or if it was a conscious decision. There was certainly enough light that I probably could have set it all the way down to the lowest native setting for the D40, ISO 200, and still have had fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action and do without all of the graininess affecting every last photo I took that day. There's always one setting I forget to check; this time it was the ISO. 
2. I tried to stop down a bit from the lens's constant f/2.8 aperture in the hopes of trading some shallow depth of field for sharpness. It was tricky all around thanks to the action constantly coming towards the camera; over the course of the hour I was there I would notice that many of my shots seemed quite sharp in the middle of the frame... but the action was NOT in the middle, rather it was off-center and oftentimes a bit soft. This will require more practice.
3. Also, I know myself well enough to say this: Given my instinct for perfectionism, pixel-peeping will be the bane of my existence. This isn't a recent revelation, but this week's experience just reinforced that suspicion.
4. Tangentially technique-related: How in the world do people shoot photos in below freezing temperatures? I had bulky gloves on the entire time, but my fingers still felt like they would fall off. Maybe people use heat packs or handwarmers?

2013 Project 52 entries:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 |