The photographer enjoys photography, swimming, and swimmers and their families. He got a new digital SLR camera to replace his trusty 35mm SLR camera and dragged the new camera to high school swim meets in which his son and daughter were swimming. He figured that shooting photographs of swimmers would help him learn his new camera. Therefore, the pictures were not taken with any particular purpose in mind other than to practice photography. If some of the photographs are useful to visitors to this site, that is an unintended consequence.

Conditions for photographing at indoor swim pools are generally poor, resulting in a relatively low yield of useful photos. Some of the worst are never seen by anyone but the photographer. The lower limits of quality are stretched (broken?) in case there is photo that would be useful to someone for some purposes. Almost all of the photos can be improved digitally if a better quality print is sought.

Light levels are low, and the artificial lighting changes the colors of everything. In many cases, pools have different color light bulbs throughout the pool, casting different colors across the same photograph. Flash photography is forbidden.

The distance at which photos are shot can vary widely. Depending on the effect sought, focal useful 35mm equivalent focal lengths of lenses can vary from 35mm to 200mm. In some cases in some pools, 400mm focal length would be useful. In order to stop action, even at ISO 1600, fast glass is useful. At the longer focal lengths, minute camera vibrations and other movement will reduce the sharpness of images significantly, especially at the slow shutter speeds required under the low level of lighting.

Then there is the problem that swim meets are not organized photography events. In most cases, the photographer has no better access to the pool than the other spectators, and must shoot from the stands, testing the tolerance of fellow spectators. The photographer greatly appreciates the patience of those sitting near him as he shoots photos.

The conditions are such that photography would have been all but impossible for film cameras, except in the hands of the most intrepid and knowledgeable photographer willing to shoot specialized, fast (ISO 1600) film. With more recent digital cameras, the problems remain difficult, but much more doable. Digital prints shot at ISO 3200 compare favorably to 35mm prints shot on ISO 400 film. Digital corrections are much more effective than older darkroom corrections.

 

Prints

Unlike previous years, the photos on the website are lower resolution, compressed JPEG files. These characteristics facilitate viewing over the internet at a reasonable speed, but is not always good for prints, particularly enlargements. Lower resolution reduces the size of photo that can be printed at a given level of apparent quality. JPEG compression is a "lossy" compression, meaning that some picture information is deleted in the process of saving the file. The photographer has the original, high resolution raw files and, in some cases, very high interpolsated resolution Photoshop files, for most of the images, and can provide a digital file in a variety of file formats that would be suitable for higher quality prints particularly enlargements. Simply ask the photographer at a swim meet or call him.