Tall Ships pics Pt 1

[stubbsy]

Christian (CD) and I had a great day on the tall ships yesterday and between us should have some great shots. I've just started sifting through mine and have the first PP'd and up. One thing that really paid for itself was my circular polariser. The entire gallery is at http://stubbsy.smugmug.com/gallery/433052

As usual, I'd be interested in comments - the good and the bad.

[the foto fanatic]

Good pix, stubbsy - #2 especially.
Real "Masters and Commanders" feel.
Must have been enjoyable, eh?

[Hlop]

Hi Peter,

First one! I like the light and colours

[rokkstar]

Really nice pics Stubbsy.
beautifully sharp and just look right. What lens were they with?

[MHD]

great shots!
Looks like you had great conditions too!

[MCWB]

Nice Stubbsy! I sometimes wonder whether my CPL was a waste of money, but shots like these prove otherwise. Tried sepia conversions on these? A bit cliched, but would go well IMHO.

[Glen]

Very nice Stubbsy, looks like a great day out

[stubbsy]

Really nice pics Stubbsy.
beautifully sharp and just look right. What lens were they with?

Matt I don't think you want to hear the answer to this. All were shot with the 70-200 VR + 1.7 TC Ahhhh the lens lust (get the 12-24 first)

Nice Stubbsy! I sometimes wonder whether my CPL was a waste of money, but shots like these prove otherwise. Tried sepia conversions on these? A bit cliched, but would go well IMHO.

Not yet, but that would be a good idea. Will try that out tonight.

Mikhail - there's a differently PP'd version with different colours of the first one here

Thanks to all who've commented so far. It was a great day.

[rokkstar]

Dammit that lens is sweet stubbsy. It really is a toss up isnt it??
I was in the botanical gardens yesterday though and wanted something wider than the 18mm so yeah, im going fo rthe 12-24 first.
But the 70-200 VR is right behind it

[birddog114]

stubbsy,
Those tall ship's pics can be printed & frame in super A3 size.
Next time when you come to the meet, bring those files along and we'll try on the Epson 2100.
Unfortunately, those can't be go into the challenge No:4 cos they have all 4 sails on the ships

[Hlop]

Mikhail - there's a differently PP'd version with different colours of the first one here

Honestly, I like this version more (I mean the one on top of the page) - overal picture looks bit cold but warm light goes through sails and make the picture beautiful. Just IMHO

[sirhc55]

Peter - great shots, in particular #1 and #2 - just one small point (a pet hate of mine) the sea in #1 will drain off to the right if you are not carefull

[Mal]

stubbsy,
Those tall ship's pics can be printed & frame in super A3 size.
Next time when you come to the meet, bring those files along and we'll try on the Epson 2100.
Unfortunately, those can't be go into the challenge No:4 cos they have all 4 sails on the ships

But they have three masts...

My vote is for no.2. It sure is nice to see these ships with the canvas up. I oftern pass by when they are at Pyrmont.

[stubbsy]

Peter - great shots, in particular #1 and #2 - just one small point (a pet hate of mine) the sea in #1 will drain off to the right if you are not carefull

I've been straightening up quite a few in PP - the joys of shooting from a ship at sea - must have missed this one. Interestingly this showed just how magical active VR is - of the 650 odd shots I've only discarded about 50 as duds for technical reasons (my workflow is to start with a quick look and permanently delete images that failed technically - OOF, overexposed etc)

[SoCal Steve]

Stubbsy - I really love these pictures.

The first one has a wonderful old world feeling but the modern buildings on the shore and showing through the sails bugged me so I took them out. Sorry. I hope you don't mind too much.

Wish I could have been down in Oz for that event.



Cheers.

[Mal]

There goes some prime Sydney real estate...

[MHD]

haha... how to wipe out several billion dollars

[stubbsy]

The first one has a wonderful old world feeling but the modern buildings on the shore and showing through the sails bugged me so I took them out. Sorry. I hope you don't mind too much.

No problems Steve. Shame I didn't think of it. I'm going to do two of these in sepia tonight. Might use your idea as part of that.

[christiand]

Hi all,

being back in Canberra I'd like to add some photos from the event:







a few more are at http://christiand.smugmug.com thanks to stubbsy.

Cheers
CD

[xerubus]

some wonderful shots there guys.... well done ... looks like a lot of fun.

cheers

[birddog114]

CD,
They're nice pics. BTW, can you and stubbsy share your exepriences in shooting while on those tall ships, is the VR help? any other advantage of items, gears which you may recommend to have, use during the trip?
Thanks

[Killakoala]

From an old sailor like me, there's nothing that give me greater pleasure than to see a tall wooden ship in full sail in the wind and showing all it's charm and history.

I was fortunate enough to have served on the last Navy ship to have a wooden deck so i know what it's like to feel the old teak deck under my feet. It's a great feeling and certainly gives one a look back to how it was done in the 'olden days.

Thanks for sharing your pics fellas. I am going to get all nostalgic now

[Wombat124]

These are great shows from both lucky ....

Steve

[Nicole]

Really interesting by the looks of it. The pics of the ships are great and I like the pic of the bell. These would look nice up on the wall.

[Mal]

Nice, there is something very surreal about that first picture with the bridge and the boat all silhouetted. It looks very "dark" almost like the begining of a pirate movie...

[sheepie]

Love them

You've both done nicely on these, especially Stubbsy's second and third ones

Pity I was cruising around the Newcaslte harbour on a Wine Tasting afternoon and not where you were - although the wine was wonderful too!
I got a nice Coffee Liquer I'll share with those camping at the weekend

[Matt. K]

christiand
That first shot is worth the cost of the ticket alone. You should be able to sell it to the tall ship company. A magic image!

[christiand]

Hi all,

The gear:
the gear I was using was the kit lens + Circular Polarisor,
70-200 mm VR + circular polarisor and TC-17EII.
I set the VR to on and active according to Birddog's recommendation.
All photos are sharp including the 70-200VR plus TC-17EII.


Tips and tricks:
well honestly I only really have a very few.
We had ample light, I was able to go for small apertures and I haven't taken any records regarding shutter speed.

At times I was probably shooting at 1/125 with small apertures with the CP filter at 340mm on a rocking boat without a sharpness problem.

I guess one of the challenges is to have the object as large as possible in the viewfinder on a rocking boat but also to press the shutter at the right time so that the whole object is in the image and not cropped in a bad way such as cut off masts or hull, which can be quite difficult to achieve.

The CP filter is quite useful to control the appearance of sails, clouds and water.

I found that the light as such during 11 - 5 during the day is producing a very high contrast which can be hard to manage.
I had a lot of high contrast images.
If you want to take shots of the masts, sails and ropes etc you may want to consider a wider lens than the kit lens.

Environment and cleaning:
Girls and boys, we are dealing with saltwater mist and spray in this situation.
If you happen to wear glasses you know what will deposit itself over a period of time.
I f you don't wear glasses, lick your skin after a while - sea salt !
You may consider protecting the lens and perhaps the D70 with a plastic bag or so. Has anybody tried a condom on the lens ?
I wiped the camera. lens and converter with a damp cloth at the end of the day and the gear doesn't taste salty anymore.


HTH

Regards
CD

[Matt. K]

A condom on the lens? What a novel but practical idea...........and kinky.

[stubbsy]

In terms of gear I had very similar to CD. I started with 12-24 mm but quickly realised it was too wide and switched to 24-120 VR. Once I'd nailed the wide shots I wanted while in the harbour I switched to the 70-200 VR in Active mode (There's no Active switch on the 24-120 - I had it to On). I then used the 70-200 formost of the day (even the wide shots are with the 70-200 only from a distance which shows the power of the active VR). Late in the day I switched back to 24-120 to take shots on board the ship.

Some shots I have are sharp as a tack, but I know when I was framing them in between pressing the shutter the subject ship might go from mast tops poking out of the bottom of the screen to nothing but hull at the top. I just tried to squeeze the shutter in the middle and the active VR did the rest - MAGIC and just in case you don't realise this I am very with the 70-200 VR. I too took a garbage bag with a draw string and wrapped my lens. If I was doing it again I'd have taken rubber bands to tie the #%@$# thing on (I figured a drawstring bag would suffice).

Other tips. Circular polariser is ESSENTIAL. I didn't have mine on until Christian mentioned it (thanks Christian) and it made an enormous difference bringing up sky & cloud detail

Only other things:

- If you're on the Svanen you'll also help the crew hoist and lower the sails and some other minor duties. There's no compulsion, but hey it's fun even if you're a muscle free wimp like me

- I took a bottle of water and emptied it in the first 2 hours. There was water on board and I just topped up the bottle. ALso had plenty of sunscreen on and took a cap to protect my bald head - there's very little shade.

I'll stop here. the post is long enough! Other than to say if you can afford the $200 book the next time this is on. We left at 10:45 am and got back about 6:15 pm. That's value (the food was pretty good too).

[birddog114]

Thanks stubbsy and CD for the brief report.
Conclusion: Active VR will do the job once you're on the boat, rocking chair or moving car, ute, bus, airplane, I learned it once I first got the 70-200VR 18 months ago. BTW, happy to hear and see no "whip mark" on your backs

[stubbsy]

Almost forgot. I generally shot at -1.0 EV (it was VERY bright) and used the fastest shutter speed that didn't read as an error

[stubbsy]

Christian

The bounty Silhouette is fantastic. Wish I'd managed something as good

The James Craig shot in your gallery is damn good too.

I have done sepia versions of my first 2 pics (used Nik Color Efex) and (thanks SoCal Steve) removed the modern buildings from the James Craig shot:

[flipfrog]

beauty-ful!

i like 2 the best as well

[christiand]

Hi Stubbsy,

glad to see you had great photos of the event.
I am also looking forward to your post prossed photos once smugmug is back.

Thanks everyone for your kind comments.
I also believe that the silhouette of the Bounty is magic.
Those were Matt's words and I very much appreciate it.

(right place, right time, right gear, right light, right hunch and we told a lady a few minutes before that taking a shot under these conditions would turn out compost ! How wrong ! and I tried it anyway.)

Cheers
CD

[birddog114]

No stubbsy on line tonight, perhaps he's showing off his takes of the tall ships to his photo class and his teachers

[stubbsy]

No stubbsy on line tonight, perhaps he's showing off his takes of the tall ships to his photo class and his teachers

No - photo class is finished. I have 23 hours of TV to watch on my Topfield set top box and so its hard disk is almost full. I was watching some TV to free up the space for some more stuff due to record this week so figured I'd have a night off from the forum (I need more hours in the day ).

Only thing I did camera wise was continue a very frustrating exercise trying to buy Dxo Optics Pro . So far there have been 6 emails back and forth and they can't get their processing bureau to accept my credit card despite the fact I've made three other overseas purchases in the meantime and the CBA says my card is fine!