I just happened acorss a thread on rec.roller-coaster (RRC) where various users are talking cameras. I found it interesting as the range of equipment used varies greatly. I’ve always been of the belief that you don’t need great gear to take a great photograph and I still stand by that.

But more to the point of this blog entry and the thing that caught my eye was that a couple of the guys using ‘bigger’ cameras mentioned the burst capabilities as a big plus of their gear. It struck me mostly because I’ve taken thousands of photos of roller coasters and never once have I used burst mode on any camera I’ve owned. In fact, it’s not even a spec I consider when buying new equipment. It’s just not how I shoot.

Perhaps I’m way off here, but to me the ‘burst approach’ would be to lock in on the composition of the shot you’d like to take and as the train gets near, fire off shots until it passes through the frame. Then go back and choose the best one. Again, I’ve never used that method, so I’m assuming that’s the point. Snap off a dozen shots of a train as it crest the hill coming at you (or perhaps even fire off a couple dozen frames following the train from side-to-side or whatever) and one will be ‘the’ shot.

You know what I do? Lock in on my ‘shot’ and wait for it. Perhaps I have cat-like reflexes or maybe I’m just dumb enough to leave it to chance, but I snap one frame. Bam! Done.

I suppose it’s just a matter of preference, but it made me start to wonder if I’m missing out on some great approach to the whole thing. Being as I rarely feel like I missed a shot, probably not. It was one of those things that just caught my attention. Whatever works, I guess.