Saturday 1 24 09: Hookipa

A day in which I didn't like the wind at all (freaking gusty and offshore), so I took photos for a long time. Hard to make a selection when you got so many decent ones.

After a long scrutiny I decided to award the honor of the first and best photo of the day to Andres, also considering that he was sailing with a broken finger (!).


Close competitors were the following photos.
The usual Levi. Notice the compact, stylish and relaxed body stance. He keeps the board slightly twisted so that he can catch some wind under it and flight a bit higher/longer and he's looking at the landing spot. Overall, a sense of absolute control.


Glenn checks if he threw enough spray.


Two words on the zoom of Glenn's photo. It was with 12x optical, plus 1.7x of the additional optical lens plus 2x digital. Taking photos with the digital zoom, a decent photographer told me, is the same thing than cropping a photo afterwards. I don't agree with that.
First, there's the challenge (and the fun) to get the subject well centered and not blurry at the very moment you're taking the photo. Big challenge (and fun) when you shoot photos without a tripod (like I do).
And secondly, once you crop a photo that much, the resulting photo is not going to be as big as the original one, even if you save it as big as photoshop allows you.
Here's the Levi shot after a cropping that brought his body size comparable to Glenn's one. Click on both photos and you'll see what I mean.


So, in other words, even though taking photos with digital zoom will clearly deteriorate the quality of the photo, it's sill better and more fun than cropping photos, IMO. Or, am I missing something?
Of course you need a camera with a good digital zoom. Mine has a decent one. I've seen other more expensive ones that have crappy digital zooms.

Let's move over. This is Keith. Don't remember how much, but clearly a bit of digital zoom too. It's the internet you guys, it's not a magazine. It's just fine...


Carter shows off an old school Drops. I believe that's one of those shaped my Sean Ordonez, but I'm not sure... illuminating comments are welcome on this one.


Laurent in a classic high jump. Knowing him, I'm sure he thought about throwing a forward loop, but the gust must have been just too strong. Look how sheeted out he is.


Yes, there were some really strong gusts and if Glenn got one on the way out, that's how high he went. Glenn, how's the world upside down? AND, where the hell did you pass? Between those two sailors?


Andres trying to save his hand.


Giuliana's brazilian superfreak.


The rest of the photos in this slideshow.