Zac Efron

Working on films can expose you to places and situations that you may never find yourself in otherwise.  I had the privilege of being the still photographer on "Charlie St. Cloud".  There is a lot of sailing in the storyline which meant I spent a lot of time trying to stabilize myself in a boat and shoot photos at the same time.  It sounds quite pleasant being out there in the sun and sea, shooting photos of hunky Zac Efron but it is was not easy.  I was lucky to find a spot in the "camera boat" while we shot the action in a boat holding the actors beside us.  Most of the time I was shooting with my Nikon 70 to 200 zoom lens while our boat was moving and rocking.   I tried to root myself by standing with my legs wide and holding the lens steady and shooting the actors who were also in a boat that was moving and rocking.  Putting a camera on a monopod would only make the camera jerk more.  Then I often had to look out of the corner of my eye to duck when the motion film camera came flying by my head on the boom that you see in the "behind the scenes photo" below.  At this point I was very thankful for the little bit of martial arts training I had that taught me how to duck under a blow while holding a camera that weighs about 8 pounds with lens and sound housing.  It was challenging but a lot of fun too.
When using a long lens especially when you are not stable, it is very important to keep a very high shutter speed so as not to blur the image.  This was shot at 250th of a second with a focal length of  155.  I had a nice low ISO of 200 to preserve quality.  With the abundance of light I was still able to keep a large depth of field of F8.     

 I took this photo while on a boat that was taking me out to the camera boat.



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