Photos PHOTOS (2010 Seymour night shoot)

1st photo: Needs some fill flash from the riders front side (why would you wanna light his back and nothing else?) and slightly less harsh light

2nd:  is blown out.  Try moving the flash back a bit, or if it is a manual flash stop it down a few powers to half or something it'll make for more dramatic lighting

3rd: a Second flash filling the right side of the tube would've been ideal imo but the lighting is good otherwise

4th: blown out as well. turn down the power.

so you can get his shadow on the stairs?... i thought that one was sick

its like someone was shooting a spotlight on him. light up the whole feature

1st pic is cool. maybe try calming the light down in some of the other ones with editing

agreed with all except the first one, i like the harshness of the light, if you had filled the front of the skier to the correct exposure, and maybe had a little fill on one of the walls, it all adds to the photo. you just got to keep going and shooting

Hey thanks everyone, I appreciate the criticism for sure

This makes sense.  Maybe try getting one of the riders that's watching to hit him with a flashlight or something creative like that haha!  Otherwise you could've possibly bongo tied a flash on low power to the railings in front of him and boom no light on the stairs for the most part (especially if you used a snoot or grid.) Good shoot still though, and post up snowboarding photos, snowboarding is steezy.

or he could just shoot it right the first time to avoid post. thats what i dislike about photoshop and lightroom and all these programs.

Its kinda late for that now.

werent you the kid who had a thread on hdrs a week ago?

HAHAHA but he done it all in the camera, no editing what so ever

haha well most of these shots were lit and metered for different riders, I just didn't post them at first since they;'re all snowboarding. Especially in the purple light box one, I learnt that Saga gear is pretty good at reflecting a hell of a lot of light... hence it being blow out!

Snowboarding, yes, but photos nonetheless. Click for big. Or peep my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/hbaxter/ or website below for real res/color/etc.

that last photo in the second set you posted is the most successful.

One sign of lighting that's not working too well is a really harsh falloff from the lighted side of the subject to black. It can be used intentionally, but it's obvious when it's not. The lighting in the last photo feels much better than the others.

To solve this, you should invest in some form of diffusion, be it an umbrella system or light modifying reflectors. I'm not sure if you are using speedlights or bigger flash heads, as I really didn't read much of this thread admittedly.

haha funny becuase that photos is just one bare strobe above left... I've always shot snowboarding with more of a studio approach, lighting just the rider, the trick, and the feature; leaving the background dark so the photo feels uncluttered. I like simplicity I guess.

I imagine that in the last picture, your light source was closer to the subject though? that will cause edges to wrap more.

Speedlights and umbrellas suck in even the slightest wind for sure.

I would for sure recommend larger flash heads. I use the alienbees, and they work great. They are heavier and less effected by wind, and they are pretty much just as expensive as the newer speedlights, minus the fact you need a battery pack.

After that, you can buy reflectors that will spread out and disperse light more evenly without losing much power, so you can keep your lights further from the subject and still get a more even light.

I use alien bee b1600s so that I can add light during the day. They are great, and have a short enough t5 time to freeze motion adequately, used with nikon's higher sync speeds too (not sure what you are using). But if you don't really want to bother with that, you can easily get the 800 or 400 for night stuff. They actually work better for action in dark, as they have shorter durations all around.

When I switched from lighting with speedlights to strobes, I was seriously blown away by how much easier it was to light larger subjects well.

For sure, I've been looking at getting a b800 or b400 at some point for night/cloudy day shoots... Do you use specific power packs or did you build your own? I shoot canon, so my sync speed are about 1/250, what are they for you with nikon?

Well, first read for the gist of this so you understand t5 and t1.

http://www.scantips.com/speed2.html

So, when you are thinking about buying bees, it's always good to think about what you are using them for.

if you get more power, you get longer flash duration you get. The good news is that the more power you are using, the shorter the duration is. So you can shoot a 1600 off in broad daylight and still get someone lit up, and not worry much about freezing the action.

Bees with less power have less duration. Firing a 1600 off at night might light up more of the background than you want, which could be corrected with your aperture, which might mess up the DOF you are going for. It's all a push pull.

I generally only use one light in daylight, as the sun is your key light. but it's fun to shoot into the sun and then illuminate your subject from the front or side with a flash.

I shoot with B1600s. They have done everything I needed them to do, and so far just with the silly little reflector they come with.



One light, camera left, about 25 feet uphill from me and about the same away from the subject. I don't remember anything else for this shot. Notice how broad it hits with just the stock reflector. I love it.

With a nikon my bees on remote will generally sync up to about 1/400, I have to follow my subject through the frame sometimes which can lead to blurriness in backgrounds with skiing. Not when it's my only light, but sometimes in daylight. Depends on what light I'm using for what, but the blurriness from your sync speed is generally more of a problem than your flash duration. I haven't really ever known a flash duration to be slower than a reasonable action stopping speed, besides real cheap gear.

I'm currently working on an online portfolio. I'm primarily a graphic artist, so I'm trying to build something baller before I put something up.

Here's some shots though.





That's about 3/4 power on a gloomy day, light is about 20 feet to my right and front, subject is about 30 feet from the light (I think).



That's pretty high power, maybe full power in broad daylight. The light was about 10 feet away from the subject, about 5 feet to my right and 7 ish feet off the deck of that hip on a stand.



That's broad daylight, full power, 6 feet off the ground on a stand camera right about 10 feet from the subject.



Two lights, about 3/4 power on a real cloudy day, one pointed at the top of the rail and subject, one pointed towards the bottom. Notice how much better it wraps as the lights get further away from the subject.

and I use the vagabond power pack. I don't have the knowhow to mess with life-threatening voltages.

ignore that, I wrote it in the middle of the night. Lights wrap better when they are closer.

Thanks man, that info above is super helpful for sure. I like the third shot a lot, the sun flaring works really well. Shoot me our webiste when it's up.