UKC

Had a great day yesterday photographing the Bristol Bikefest event. If anyone's interested in mountain bike photography, i've just posted on my blog some of the tips and tricks and the use of off camera flash. This is a learning experience at the moment so i'd be interested if anyone else has taken pictures in a similar way.

http://f-stopimages.blogspot.co.uk/

Cheers

Ben.

In reply to beneboy:
Ah I just picked that up via another source on Facebook! Great blog and I wondered where I had heard the name before, realise now it's from here. When streams cross...

In reply to beneboy:

In reply to Garbhanach:

All look good to me.

Like the blog - and I also want to know what tripod that is

Did you see this on dp

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/3215247995/mountain-bike-photography-techn...

In reply to beneboy: Great stuff the panning and blurred background really gives a sense of speed, though you are loosing a lot of detail in the shadows going for that kind of style, quite a nice blog what tripod are you showing in your hill kit pic.

In reply to ChrisJD: Good article, I have never tried panning bikes but have panned players at sports events, sometimes I found keping both eyes open instead of just one helped me keep track better.

In reply to Garbhanach: Good point about the detail in the shadows. Maybe adding a second (or third!) flash would help fill this in. The good thing about using the flash in this way is it doesn't have to be an expensive one, might search ebay for a cheap secondhand unit.

The tripod is the Giottos Vitruvian. It's a bit too light for a full frame camera but works ok if it's not windy. Great for travelling with though. I often use it as a stand for the flash.

Thanks for the comments on the blog.

Cheers

Ben

In reply to beneboy:
Nice pics.
Like the rest of your blog too!

In reply to beneboy: More flashes might work this would also let you reduce the power on the speedlights which would give you a shorter flash duration helping to freeze the action. Maybe the ambient light in this instance was just to low but you still got good results.

A lot of photographers who go in for this type of photography go for lights with very short flash durations like the Elinchrom Ranger or Quadra with A type flash heads which give very short flash durations helping to freeze the subject, this type of flash works diffrently from speedlights in that the more power you pump in the shorter the flash duration gets, I have seen motion blur added to this type of shot in photoshop to get that speed look.
Some photographers sites
http://tombolphoto.com/blog/2011/04/
http://laurencejphotography.com/blog/?p=201
http://domromney.com/blog/2011/06/behind-the-scenes-jet-ski-photoshoot/
http://www.erikseo.com/blog/

In reply to beneboy: You may have known the stuff in the post above but other might not, just wondering if an ebay speedlight would have the same flash duration speeds as a Nikon or Canon, then wondering does short flash duration matter when the likes of pocketwizard with hypersync can acheive high shutter speeds to freeze the action. Anyone shot any sports or action with their speedlight in FP mode

In reply to Garbhanach: Thanks for those links , some great work there . I've been pondering the quadra rangers for a while , being able to shoot hyper sync with full power just gives you so much more creative possibilities , don't fancy lugging it up too many hills though

In reply to beneboy:

My mate is a MTB photographer, have a look at his site, he just uses a 5D and 580ex's

http://dav058.wix.com/dave-bateman-photo#!portfolio/vstc1=cycle

chris

In reply to beneboy: My attempt http://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_db/4963670861/in/photostream using two off camera flashes.

In reply to Nadir khan: Nadir khan: Yes nice system one of the blogs has a feature on the Quadra and says the hypersync only works with the S heads
http://tombolphoto.com/blog/elinchrom-quadra-high-speed-sync-at-12500/

Says the same about the Ranger system as well S heads

Here's some pics I took at the Fort William Mountain Biking World Cup last weekend if you're interested;

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.405779582796990.85090.23759356294...

No off-camera flash used but I can see lots of uses for it (but only if it doesn't cause them to crash though!)

In reply to Garbhanach: For those interested in more high-end lighting solutions check out this video from Chase Jarvis...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UwzTRAfwqo8#!

Not sure about lugging a generator up a ski slope though!

In reply to beneboy:

Elinchrom stuff is quite expensive but the Broncolor Scoro A4S 3200 W/S Power Pack the generator is powering costs $12,647.88 and looks quite hefty as well, so stuff that

I saw this one on the Nikon site and I like the shot using rear curtain

http://www.nikonusa.com/Learn-And-Explore/Nikon-World/gqo43k9a/1/Fast-Frame...

In reply to beneboy: In reply to beneboy: Nice work Ben, really think we should get a shoot together this summer.
In terms of the shots, I appreciate the stylised effect but a closer balance bewteeen flash and ambient would bring some more detail into the shadows you mention. Up the ISO, down the flash power. (Increased aperture would have same effect but can make focus tracking a bit more hit and miss with the reduced DoF.) Does mean you have to be a bit more accurate with your panning technique though, but you only really need a small amount of panning blur to convey the sense of speed, so at that close range maybe a 60th would work. So at the other end of the 'strobe lit panning shot' scale you'd have an effect like the second shot in this gallery:
http://nelsonimages.co.uk/galleries/3_Mountain_Biking_Downhillv3/

Just a matter of playing with the set-up till you find what you like.
Personally I like what you've done already.

In reply to Andy Nelson: Great tips as always Andy! Definately on for a joint shoot, off to Cham tonight for a couple of weeks so hoping to get some good alpine shots. Will get in touch when i'm back.

cheers

Ben.