Freeride Mtn Biking

[tadrscin]

I did far more riding than shooting, but here's one from yesterday.

[Jimmy B]

Nice composition on the shot Tad. Any elaborate lighting or on camera flash?
JB

[tadrscin]

I used my dedicated cord to get it off the camera. It was hard to keep the flash on the rider though. I shot this at 1/125 to get some motion blur, but it wasn't enough. It looks like it was unintentional. Just not enough time to play around much with it.

[tadrscin]

Here's one with no motion blur. I think it would've looked better with the flash off the ground, but that would've meant hand holding it which I didn't want to do. There just wasn't another other place to use a stand. I have some soft boxes on the way to use. I'll be experimenting with those soon.

[Photo-John]

I used my dedicated cord to get it off the camera. It was hard to keep the flash on the rider though. I shot this at 1/125 to get some motion blur, but it wasn't enough. It looks like it was unintentional. Just not enough time to play around much with it.

Flash position looks pretty good. Shooting a little earlier would have give you a little more shadow action. But it's hard to get it perfect in the woods. I know all about it

For shutter speed, you're gonna need to go really slow if you want some blur. I'd be shooting at 1/15th or even slower. As for keeping the flash aimed right - that is tricky. I usually try finding a body position where I can sort of prop it. The I do a dry run pan just to see if I can pan and keep the flash pointed in the right direction. If you've got a third rider, get him to hold the flash for you. That works best. Would have worked better in the last photo, too.

Good to see some techy Northwest (or Southwest if you're in BC) mtb photos! I'm starting to get ready to trade the skis back in for the bike again. But it's gonna be a while here. It's been snowing in the mountains for the past couple of days...

[tadrscin]

Thanks John. I had just as many that looked like the flash didn't even go off because I had it aimed wrong. I never even thought of having someone else hold it for me I didn't want to do any panning here as we usually like to see a nice sharp pic of the things we're riding. That's why I decided to use a slower shutter speed than normal. I just wish we had more time to session and photograph stuff. We had too big of a group for that though.