Whitewater Rafting Photo Tips from the Pros, Part I

March 11, 2009.

How do the pro’s get those amazing images? It looks easy, but when you try to replicate some of your favorite images, do you get the same kind of results? We asked John Blaustein and Justin Bailie (two successful professional photographers who shoot for O.A.R.S. on occasion) to share some of their tips with us. They each will be leading special Whitewater Rafting Photography Trips for O.A.R.S. this year… Justin will host a 6-day photo trip on the Colorado River through Cataract Canyon on May 3rd and John will host a 6-day photo trip on the Main Salmon River in Idaho on June 14th.

O.A.R.S. – There is such a feeling of movement in the photo because the water is rushing and blurred. What’s interesting, though, is that the boatman at the oars is not blurred. How do you do that?

JOHN BLAUSTEIN: First of all, this is a good example of working with the conditions at hand. It was late in the afternoon, so there wasn’t much light and it would have been difficult to shoot at a fast enough shutter speed to “freeze” everything and also have enough depth of field to safely keep the boat in focus. Consequently, I decided to use a long exposure time – around 1/25th of a second – and pan the camera with the boat. The goal is to keep the camera moving downstream, in line with the boatman, so there is very little movement of the boatman relative to the camera. Since other elements in the photo are moving at different speeds, they appear blurred. A side benefit of the long exposure time is that the aperture setting – f/16 in this case – guarantees ample depth of field and good focus on the boat.

O.A.R.S. – We like this picture because it really puts us right in the middle of the action and is quite unique! How do you do that?

JUSTIN BAILIE: I love this shot from the South Fork of the American River. There is water everywhere, people are having fun and it looks so cool. Creating images of water with a camera allows us to see things that cannot be seen with the naked eye. I used a Canon Mark 2 with a 15mm fisheye lens at F5.6 in a SPL water housing.

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