May 30, 2009; Day 28.
Victory Lap.
Peter and I enjoyed a barbecue and swim party today at the home of our friends Wayne and Brian. It was a perfect spring day. Although the weather has been cool lately, the pool was great because it is heated. Of course, stepping out of the pool was a bit of a shock, particularly after sundown.
I wasn’t expecting to pan today since parties don’t have much motion to them, but when I heard Wayne’s Massey Ferguson start up, I went running. My friend Dale, who really enjoys tormenting partygoers with my camera, was already in position and panning the riders. Unfortunately, his shutter speed was a little too fast. But then he ran me out of memory and handed me back the camera. This was a blessing: I deleted a few shots, set up the shutter speed for panning, and then captured my friend Charles having a blast on this mower-less mower. (It appears that Wayne only uses this for joyriding around the yard.)
I like that although Charles is more or less stationary, the Mack Truck hood ornament appears to be dancing.
Later, Dale and I teamed up to shoot the guys diving into the pool. He controlled the camera while I controlled the flash. Unfortunately, although I did think that backlighting the water would produce great results, I forgot to turn off TTL. When your flash is in the frame, the camera dials down the exposure so that the flash is not crazy bright. The action portion of those shots was too dark.
Raw: Color Temperature: 5200K; Tint: +21
Raw: Contrast: +39
Raw: Saturation: +6
PS: Curves: Linear Contrast preset
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur