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shooting an interview for this fella, here are a couple of shots that I like but wouldn't mind some feedback on.

cheers,

james

I like them too...they are sharp... and you have caught the action very well.. but damn that background as he is kinda blending in there... I don't suppose you could have gotten down any lower in the first image to frame him against the sky?...

Perhaps some selective darkening of the background would make the riders "POP" a little more.

given that you usually shoot at night and the background is allot darker making the riders stand out more these shots dont inspire as much as others i have seen from you.

i'll post up some other versions of the first later this evening. i really dug the sky in that shot... it went from nice blue sky to overcast really, really quickly. you guys will probably like the composition a bit more in the other shots, and josh was really popped out from the sky in them too.

the second shot, i was going for more of a natural, balanced light rather than stopping the ambient down heavily. with that said i was shooting at 1/250th, f10, iso 100... middle of the day shooting presents some challenges

Second shot is great, at first I thought he was flying through the air!

What's the minimum shutter you would use for these kind of shots?

it really depends on the look you are trying to achieve, and how much ambient light you are competing with.

at night you can shoot at like 1/60-1/100th without worrying too much about blur.

during the day you want the shutter as high as you can get. unfortunately the d200 only syncs at 1/250, there are some tricks to getting around it but they can be limiting on your compositioe...

as a rule of thumb, they say you need at least 1/500th to really freeze action without flashes.

Cool, thanks.

I don't understand why the D70 syncs at 1/500 and the D200 at 1/250? Why would they do it this way..

Pehpsi wrote:Cool, thanks.

I don't understand why the D70 syncs at 1/500 and the D200 at 1/250? Why would they do it this way..

The difference is that D70 has a mechanical and electronic shutter, where the D200 only has a mechanical shutter. The electronic shutter allows for faster sync times.

I should've known that, I read it recently

Next question is why they left the electronic shutter off the better camera?

The composition is pretty good, but if you could go wider aperture I think you'd get better separation from the background. Or use a fill flash if the rider is ok with that, so you get a darker background. You will probably want a diffuser on the flash I think.

moz wrote:The composition is pretty good, but if you could go wider aperture I think you'd get better separation from the background. Or use a fill flash if the rider is ok with that, so you get a darker background. You will probably want a diffuser on the flash I think.

was using two flashes for fill. you'll notice that the sun is coming from behind in the second shot.

i'd need to shoot a lot later to be able to achieve a wider aperature. this shot was taken about 2-3pm on a sunny day.

if i cut the shutter speed down and opened up the aperature, i lose flash sync-ability... only solution would be to shoot when there is actually less ambient.

Pehpsi wrote:I should've known that, I read it recently

Next question is why they left the electronic shutter off the better camera?

electronic shutters are generally considered inferior... i believe the reason why the d70 d50 et al had electronic shutters is because the shutter component used was of a inferior build to more upmarket nikon dslrs, and the mechanical shutter is only used up to about 1/125, after that its electronic.

does that make sense?

personally i'd really like the option of an electronic shutter, to achieve higher flash syncs.

Makes perfect sense, cheers..

Hi, great action almost too crisp - may have almost been better with a bit of action blur.
These look like excellent candidates for the photoshop technique 'Border breakout' to make the action Pop and remove the distracting background - done a couple for my son and he loved them .
A free tutorial can be found at
http://www.thedigitalphotographyconnect ... orials.htm

Let me know how they work out if you give them a go
Deb T