It’s been awhile since I’ve played with the telephoto zoom lens, and since it was such a sunny day, I decided to take advantage of the bright light to try and capture some action shots.  I headed to the local skatepark where I found about twenty-five or thirty guys (where were the girls?) of all ages, zipping around the skate basins.

Here in the desert, even in the wintertime, the midday sun creates some harsh shadows that can be difficult to handle when trying for the perfect exposure.  I tried to remember all the little things I needed to adjust in my settings…switching to continuous-servo AF, using a smaller aperture for greater depth of field, but bumping up the ISO just a bit to get a fast shutter speed.  I was also using a polarizer filter to deepen the colors.

I had only been there about five minutes when I was approached by one of the skaters who asked me to take some shots of him, so I obliged.  Here’s Nigel at his best!

Taken with my Nikon D5000, using Nikkor AF-S 55-200mm 1:4.5-5.6 zoom with polarizer filter

Topaz Adjust came to the rescue on this shot, helping to expose the detail in the harsh shadows without blowing out the sky. I love Topaz!!