On your marks!!!

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I used to swim in high school, but that was a long time ago - I won't say how long. I recently had an opportunity to go watch my younger cousin Aaron swim a race at a recent swim meet he had. He had a few events, the 100 Freestyle, 100 Butterfly, 100 Breast, and the 200 IM(Individual Medley). He reminds me a little of myself when I swan. I also swam IM and my best stroke was my backstroke. =)

Anyway, I was excited to get a chance to take some pictures of Aaron in action. So I pulled out the 70-200mm in my endeavor to capture some swimming. I think this is probably my favorite from that day - Aaron swimming the butterfly leg of the 200 IM - just as he's at the end of his stroke.

On a photography related note, the meet took place in the late afternoon while the sun still was still pretty harsh and there was a pretty harsh shadow halfway down the lane. I started shooting in Manual mode but everytime I crossed that stupid shadow, my settings were horribly off. So this is one of the few instances I've ever used Shutter Priority(Tv) and set the shutter at 1/1000 sec. This way I knew my shutter would be fast enough to freeze the action, and still compensate the other settings to maintain the shutter speed. Bad, variable lighting? Try using Shutter Priority.

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