Pond Skater

From My Photo BlogISO: 400 Exposure: 1/250 sec Aperture: f/5.6 Focal Length: 250mm Flash Used: Yes

It was an exercise trying to get a shot of the pond skaters in this beautiful waterfall pool that we swam in. They were skipping all over the place and proved impossible to focus on. Just before we left, however, this calm individual floated slowly around and gave me time to experiment.

First, the shots were blur as it was in the shade and constantly in motion. I decided to turn on the flash and that managed to provide enough light to freeze the blur. Next, the focus was a little hit-and-miss as I was shooting at full zoom with only a few mms of DOF. It was aim-for-the-eyes and snap. I then tried manual focus, turning the focus ring to the minimum, and moving the camera, which worked to a large extent. This shot is nicely focused on the eyes, not perfect, but almost there.

The problem with using the flash is that it caused unnatural colours - making the pool/water brown. I tried to minimise this by using a faded b&w effect and removing the colour from everything except the pond skater.

In the end, I picked this shot because of the ripple in the water that I happened to catch, which adds interest to the photo. Well, this was an experimental shot. Any comments on how to improve?