first go at BMX photos

[firsty]

I took one of my sons up to the local BMX track for a ride and while I was there I took a few photos of the locals having a play... I didn't know any of them so these are just what I could grab as the did their own thing

all of these were taken with my tokina 12-24 and an off camera flash using manual settings for camera and flash. As it was an old SB28 using cheep ebay remotes I didn't have the option to use ttl, so a lot of learning was going on









comment and Ideas on improvements most welcome

[wendellt]

3rd one looks surreal with the polarized sky nice one

[Alex]

Agree re No. 3. The sky looks like one from a painting.

Alex

[PiroStitch]

Firsty, great shots for a first go. One thing I always paid attention to was to try and make the background a little bit underexposed, then used the flash to bring out the rider a bit more to create the depth in the image.

One other way of doing this was to pan and make sure the background was blurred out to increase the contrast from the rider. Keep it up!

I prefer #1 but do a bit more curve manipulation to darken the background a bit more.

[firsty]

thanks for the comments
I was struggling with the very bright sun light... I was at my fastest sync speed 1/250 to darken the back ground but if I closed down the aperture to get the final background level I wanted I didn't have enough flash to light the subject without going to full power which stuffed up the recycle times so it was a catch 22 situation
in #3 (also my fav) my son was holding the flash right next to the track and is only just out of shot... but it only took the rider to jumped 4 feet to the other side to lose the flash level (#4)

I have put up a gallery of some of the other shots here
http://mcgoffs.net/?page_id=239

thanks

[jamesw]

they look good.

few things...

1. avoid extra wide angles, as the field of view mellows out the jumps or ramps.
having said that, right now i would kill for a 12-24. there are sometimes where you just dont have the room to get the shot you want...

2. in full sun your going to struggle with a sb-28 (or any nikon flash) trying to out-power the sun. especially with a 1/250 sync (my pet hate on the d200.... why oh why... heheh)

apart from that, there are a couple of nasty shadows on a few of the riders, but you were only using one flash so thats excusable... hehehe.

[Cre8tivepixels]

These look sensational...welll done...........i love them!!!!

[Alpha_7]

Nice work Keith I'm impressed for your first try at something different. Where did you pick up the Sb-28, I've been after one or three for a while, but can't find a well priced one. Mainly thanks to strobist making them so popular they price has skyrocketed.

[Hudo]

Awsome pics... nice use of a off camera flash.. Well done..

Hudo