Joyful

With shots like this (and generally, imo) you want as fast a shutter speed as you can get, and a higher ISO to freeze any action you come across. Always check your histogram. You did pretty well here - I'm assuming you were on a boat and couldn't use a tripod well. That makes it even more esential to have a fast SS.
Sandy

Nice spray Lindy! The dark BG makes it stand out very well too. I assume you used f/2.8? If so, with that lens at this distance that could be right, as long as the focus is spot on . Personally I would crop some off the bottom as it does not add much to the image.

Nice image! I always love getting the spray in the picture, it looks so cool! I agree with Vincent about cropping off some of the bottom, it would bring the image to a whole new level IMO.

I would agree about cropping out a generous bit off the bottom of the frame, Lindy. If you have shot this at f2.8, it would be ok, because the subject is so far off, and you want to blur the bg. However, I suspect the aperture wasn't at 2.8 because a lot of the foreground is still focused ok - then again, my comments would depend on how much you have cropped off the original image! Now, regarding shutter speed - you want to get enough to counterbalance the shake in the boat, but you also want to slow things down to get the spray as a blur rather than razor sharp; the former adds to the drama, whereas capturing each and every drop (this is so subjective, though) isn't to everyone's liking. I hope I am intelligible - sometimes, I can't seem to understand myself, after I have read my comments!!!

Thanks everyone. Agit, , the image is not cropped and it was shot at f2.8 at 1/2000. What I did put down incorrectly was that I used a d300. Sorry about that. I think I will try cropping some of the bottom out. Thanks

Hi Lindy,

These guys are always challenging to photograph - but fun! I agree with the previous comments on cropping some off the bottom. In terms of the aperture - I have a bit different take here. While you want to keep shutter speed fairly high, I would argue you should stop down a little here. Why? Because it's real hard with these guys to get the focus spot-on - partly because you have little time each time they breathe, but also because the spray from the blow often "nabs" the AF system (and, as a matter of fact, I think this happened here a bit). And, virtually every lens on the planet is slightly sharper when stopped down 2/3 to 1 stop from wide open. So...I would say give away a LITTLE of that shutter speed (or, if your camera works well at decent ISO's) I'd stop down about a stop here. In this case that would have given you f4 and 1/1000, which still would have frozen the action...

Cheers...

Brad