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Moomba Masters Water Ski Slalom World Championship 2018 - Melbourne



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Magnificent Capture
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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo in Melbourne Australia, during the Moomba Masters water ski world championship in 2018. This takes place every year on the labour day long weekend in March.

Time

This shot is actually one of the most loved ones from that day since it also captured the winner of the women’s slalom! It was Whitney McClintock which was representing Canada that year. I still remember the sunburn that I’ve got that day by standing for so many hours there, taking photos of all the athletes! The event lasts for the whole day each day of the long weekend, starting early morning until late night, followed by fireworks! The photo was taken on March 12, 2018 at 13:59.

Lighting

It was a mostly sunny day with very few clouds so I was able to shoot hand held with a very high shutter speeds, over 1/1000 sec because I wanted to freeze the droplets of the water walls thrown by the athletes during the slaloms!

Equipment

At that time, I was using a Canon EOS 80D which was my second DSLR after my entry level Canon EOS 700D, with a Sigma 70-200mm f/2-8 EX DG APO OS HSM lens. I loved how that lens was so sharp wide open, capturing so much light, allowing me to use very high shutter speeds to freeze the moment! The photo was taken handheld, with natural light.

Inspiration

I love Moomba Masters and it was actually the first event that I ever went to once I first moved to Melbourne, a few years prior to taking that photo! Each year after that, I was trying to top my best shots from the previous ones and obviously there’s always room for improvement. I was sad to find out that this year the water ski was cancelled due to the pandemic and the travel restrictions for many of the athletes coming from so many different countries around the world. I’m looking forward to next year’s event though!

Editing

The only post processing that I did was to crop it to my liking and brightness & contrast adjustments. When you have such a fast moving subject in front of you, the obvious thing to do would be to shoot a little wider so you don’t miss it and then you can crop it as you like later in post to get the composition that you want.

In my camera bag

I usually carry my Canon 5D Mark IV with 2 or 3 lenses depending on the occasion. The all around lens that I usually shoot with is the Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 G2 but depending on the day I may also bring the Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 or a wider lens like the Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 G2. A much lighter lens that I also usually carry in my bag is the Voightlander 28mm f/2.8 Color Skopar which is a manual focus pancake size lens which is one of my favourites for landscapes because I love the colours that I’m getting with it!

Feedback

I would suggest to anyone who wants to capture a photo like this, to use a camera that can shoot in burst mode and the more frames per second the better. The lens to use should also be one with fast autofocus, around 200mm or more, depending on how far you are from the action and the widest the aperture the better because you can blur the background more that way, separating the athlete and the water droplets from it. Also try to find an angle where the sun will be lighting the athlete’s face and the water wall, having a darker background if possible to exaggerate the contrast between the highlights on the water and the background itself.

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