Volvo Ocean Race and my 5D markII

telefonica blue... winners of leg 3

shot at 6400 ISO on my 5D markII... no noise..

Yesterday couldn't have gone any smoother. I am stoked and still recovering from the high of last night's Volvo Ocean Race coverage. The sounds of outboard motors and the slicing of the waves, the familiar scene of tanned, weather-beaten bearded men walking around and arriving at the marina to hugs and kisses of family members leaves me smiling. I love sailing. I've spent my whole childhood sailing. So this is like a dream for me, seeing all the Olympic medalists out there together on a yacht that probably costs more than my home, racing together. These people are a dedicated, talented bunch of sailors. To be able to sail around the world. you have to be more than a sailor, better than an average sail maker, boat repair man and sail trimmer. It's one thing to be doing all these on shore. But when you're out there in the middle of no where, braving swells of up to 5meters high, on a heavily listing yacht... it's a feat trying to even stand up straight. In fact, you never ever stand up straight (for obvious balancing reasons). So being out there, as a journalists, having to work at 10pm to 4.30am, was shockingly pleasurable. Not to mention the timely arrival of my new office camera, which i never knew about. The guys over at the AP sent in two boxes of Canon 5D MarkII cameras. Apparently one was for me. THANK YOU Santa oops i mean Chikako. I'm not a techy person but i've heard that this is an AWESOME camera. I didn't even know it was full frame. Hey i just like taking pictures.. Give me a camera, any camera.. i'll just use it and try to make the best pictures i can with it. I'm so not worthy of this piece of equipment which saved my life out in the pitch black sea last night.

We were all struggling to make a picture of the yachts crossing the finish line last night. There was minimal light, on a listing boat who's driver was trying not to tear out his hair at every instruction given to him to follow the volvo racing yacht which was also going much faster then us... ahh. It was complete madness for like 30seconds. That one shot of them across the finish line was what mattered and after that, they take down the sails and it's over. Our flashes, didn't fire, the shutter refused to click cause there was no focussing point. It nearly became a horror show. I decided then to abandon ship -no punn intended-. Focus on what you can do and at least get a nice picture - even if its a mood shot. At least it's pretty. I couldn't expect to get a cracker of an action picture at this point. It's just too dark. Defy the whole meaning of photography right... which means light.... sigh.

So with a lot of faith and a quick whisper of a prayer, i fiddled with the camera ( in the dark... with an equipment which i haven't even taken a good look at... its so new i didn't have time to charge my batteries, i even used AA batts with it.. that is how new it is!) I bumped the ISO up to 6400. I was shocked at the results.

There was NO NOISE! I have never gone above ISO1250 in my life. My cameras never allowed me to get anything close to decent. But this was 6400ISO... i felt like someone gave me a farrari when my first car is a Suzuki Jimny. Ahhhhhhhhh........ Thank God. Thank AP... and i got my shot, smiled and enjoyed the ride home.