Gulf Coast Sailing Club Members's Recaps

Media Releases and Data

4/1/2009: Coverage of the Gulf Coast Sailing Club's 33rd Annual Regatta

4/1/2009: Coverage of the Gulf Coast Sailing Club's 33rd Melges Competition

4/1/2009: GCSC's Shutterfly Photo Album of the 33rd Regatta

3/20/2009: Gulf Coast Sailing Club's 33rd Annual Regatta Media Advisory and Time Schedules

3/17/2009: Press Release for Gulf Coast Sailing Club's 33rd Annual Regatta including the Melges 24 Regatta and a Keynote presentation by Dawn Riley.

3/10/2009: GCSC General Background Information Data Sheet

3/1/2009: Press and Support Boats from Management Marine Service

3/18/2009: Media Release Melges SouthEast Region

3/1/2009: Dawn Riley Site, Data and Blog

Guide to Taking Digital Photos for the GCSC Website and for use by Publications
1. Use optical telephoto whereever you can to fill viewfinder ... this gives best resolution or image quality. 3X optical telephoto is minimum ... 10X is better. Try to avoid sailboat photos with lots of blue sky and blue water around the boat. When the sky and sea is cropped out the resulting image quality ends up low and fuzzy.
2. Use image anti shake or image stabilization. When on a moving boat photographing moving boats you have no choice. This may be called anti blur control.
3. If you have a choice of shooting Modes or styles elect sports or action photography also called "subject in motion"
4. Go for the high image quality such as large-print or pc-editing ... do NOT use email or Web or post card quality. Unfortunately with some cameras as soon as you ask for quality ... they fall back on the too slow shutter speeds.
5. You need 1/500 sec equivalent shutter speeds if possible
6. If they give you a choice of ISO speed 200 is a good choice.
7. If they give you a choice on Automatic Focus -- "always on" is best as it is in focus faster and you don't have to wait that long for the lens to focus.
8. If you are taking a team shot in direct sunlight ALWAYS use "Flash Fill in" to help eliminate the dark shadows under hats. Again get close enough to fill in the frame with the crew and not half the boat.
9. Always take more photos than you need as once the photo is converted onto a PC you will see that many action shots are still either too blurry or something else may not be right ... better to pick 1 out of 6 than only have one choice to begin with ... THE BEST PHOTO is ALWAYS the ONE you were able to pick out of a half dozen. There is no such thing as the BEST when you only have one to choose.
10. For Reference: A two-column publication quality digital photo (say 4 inches by 5 inches) needs to be close to 1.5 Mpixels. That is after it is cropped ... or if you use the telephoto to fill the frame in the viewfinder so it doesn't need to be cropped.
A 4x5 web-quality photo can run from 100 Kpixels up.