If photography is a sport...

molested_cow · Nov 18, 2012

then this is sports photography!

I went to a surfing competition. Since everyone's lenses were bigger than mine, I decided to make them pose for me instead.
Also, hearing all those D4 and 1D firing their burst shutters.... intimidating!

The only few surf pics that I kept... my lens is crap.

And for the girls!

molested_cow · Nov 18, 2012

BTW what's this lens on the D4?

SCraig · Nov 18, 2012

molested_cow said:
BTW what's this lens on the D4?

It's a red-dot rifle sight. When you look through it all you see is a red dot. When properly adjusted, put the red dot on the target and you won't miss. An interesting concept for a camera that I've never thought of.

molested_cow · Nov 18, 2012

So having it on the camera does...? I still don't understand. Does it cast a red dot on the target so he just needs to aim at the red dot when looking into the view finder?

May be they should invent something like a laser tracing mechanism, like laser guided missiles. The camera will follow the target automatically!

SCraig · Nov 18, 2012

No, it's not like a laser. You only see the red dot when you look through the back, it doesn't project anything out the front. I don't know exactly how they work, I've used them but haven't looked into the physics of them, but it doesn't matter exactly where your head is, the dot is always on the target.

I guess he's using it to help find his subject with that long lens. Look through the sight and get the dot on the subject, and then just drop the eye to the view finder. Long lenses with their narrow field of view do make it hard to find a subject sometimes. It's an interesting idea.

JSER · Nov 18, 2012

Actually before they were used as gun sites they were Telescope sites.

pgriz · Nov 18, 2012

Interesting that so many lenses need to be camouflaged for a surfing competition...

fjrabon · Nov 18, 2012

yeah, what in the world, why all the camo? I've literally never seen anything like that?

SCraig · Nov 18, 2012

JSER said:
Actually before they were used as gun sites they were Telescope sites.

True. I have one on my telescope to and forgot about it.

The_Traveler · Nov 18, 2012

probably protection from salt spray

fjrabon · Nov 18, 2012

The_Traveler said:
probably protection from salt spray

Well, I get that. Why camo? I guess they're all wildlife shooters and it's what they just had? I mean I have a black weather cover, so I get what the actual cover is for. The camo just looks funny when shooting surfers, haha.

Wildlife shooters are probably the one genre of photographer I really never come into contact with in real life.

and the camo umbrella is THE BEST.

Is this Japan or South Georgia? haha

Overread · Nov 18, 2012

I suspect that a good few who can afford those big lenses also do some wildlife as well, either as a major thing or now and then - thus getting a camo rain cover makes more sense to them. It might also be that someone at the event was selling/sponsoring their use at the event (cheaper good rain cover - yes please they all said - which might also explain why a good few look to be the same brand, although this market is normally pretty light on competition).

The eyesight I've heard about their use once or twice before, the idea being that you can keep your head above the camera, use the red-dot to pinpoint the focus point of the camera and then be able to see the whole scene rather than just what is through the viewfinder (a great boon if you use your left eye to look through the viewfinder as like that you can't see anything but camera with the right eye).

I've never used an eyesight, but I can see it being a boon, though being in the UK I've not seen them in use (we don't have as much of a gun culture here so some things like that are just not as promenant on the market/in peoples minds).

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/bp/flight