dandantheadminman
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Assignment #3: Night Time ActionAssignment #3: Night Time Action
for january and febuary
For this assignment, you have to try and capture night time action, but still mountain bike related. Feel free to explore kinds of night time related mountain biking, be it street, or forest or whatever.
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mikedeere
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This is from a shoot I want to re-do:
That building is a police station! Icepick Slide to Barspin out.
There was one particular photo which was simple as hell, although under exposed due to my weak output flashgun. So that's the main reason I want to re-shoot.
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dandantheadminman
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two i took awhile ago you might recognize
i will hopefully be shooting some bmx street of my buddie at some stage one evening so should hoepfully have some better ones then
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Dob_mike
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Is that a hop barspin or just flatland?
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dandantheadminman
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flatland lol
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Hamish
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Great. We can look forward to lots (more) examples of badly used flash . And I'd probably lose my friends as a result of causing crashes by blinding them.
Could you not have suggested something better than night time MTB photos?
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dandantheadminman
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lol, yeh lots of badly used flash is guarenteeed, hehe
the prob without saying just night time mtb is we wouldnt get many people submittting
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farm boy
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heres mine
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dandantheadminman
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ooo they're nice
such a shame about clipping the fron wheel on 2nd, unlcuky dude
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Hamish
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AARGH! Too much flash and even red eye... and we've lots more to go 
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dandantheadminman
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i dont think its tooooooo much flash, and red eye can only really be avoided in mtb photos by having the flash not mounted on camera right? (not retorical, im just wondering)
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mikedeere
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Night-time action need not be a case of badly used flash, I urge everyone to use this oppourtunity to expand on their flash skills and take time to experiment with producing well rounded results.
I want to get back to using multiple flashes again, but in the mean time here's one from the trip using one (broken) flash:
Admittedly it's early night-time... Although the sun had long gone the sky was still lighting the clouds nicely.
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dandantheadminman
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have any of you got any tips for using flash effectively while shooting, lets say... night street?
thnx
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jetsetdan
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the only thing i ever heard was keep the light low and luminate from below is key
This applies to filming but i have heard it works for togs too.
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Hamish
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| Trail_Builder wrote: | | have any of you got any tips for using flash effectively while shooting, lets say... night street? |
I've not tried night action stuff before, but it's generally best to shoot before the sky is totally black as the background light is more likely to be balanced with the rest of the scene. If you're setting things up and the rider isn't going to be in the centre of the frame then read up on using FEV lock and using +/- FEV.
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mikedeere
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I'd recommend using a low power output on the flash, a large aperture, I like ISO400 and not *too* slow a shutter speed. Slow enough to give a bit of background exposure but not so slow that the scene gets washy and toooo blurry.
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rad2themax
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Heres a few of mine. Nothing too special but i'll go out shooting bmx street next time its dry  The first, second and third were kind of dusk-it was properly dark in about another 5 minutes- and the last is proper night.
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jetsetdan
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love the pics dude..
where are they?
is that on a beach?
looks awsome...
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sassycat11736
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| Hamish wrote: | Great. We can look forward to lots (more) examples of badly used flash . And I'd probably lose my friends as a result of causing crashes by blinding them.
Could you not have suggested something better than night time MTB photos? |
Daylight fill in flash assignments 
or
Bikes in un-bike places. 
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rad2themax
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| jetsetdan wrote: | love the pics dude..
where are they?
is that on a beach?
looks awsome... |
A beach?  Unfortunately not lol. They're at our trails which are in an old chalk quarry (hence the white dirt) is AMAZING dirt to dig with. Incredibly light and easy to dig through but still hardens up nicely and dries quickly, sticks to your spade alot in the wet though 
And Hamish im interested to know what you class as too much flash as i'm not too experienced at using flash. Would you class the pics i posted above as too much for example?
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jumpinjimbo
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mikedeere
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One I just found:
1/100th || f/3.5 || ISO 400
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Hamish
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| rad2themax wrote: | | And Hamish im interested to know what you class as too much flash as i'm not too experienced at using flash. Would you class the pics i posted above as too much for example? |
I'd certainly not class those as 'too much flash', rad. If anything they are a tiny bit underexposed. The flash seems to have illuminated the jumps more than the rider, but that's not your fault as you'd have been using onboard flash. I like the idea behind the third one. It's a little unlucky that it's that particular silhouette that was captured - if they were considerate enough to do something like a tabletop/tail whip then it would have fitted the scene better. Still a good effort though.
I personally hate photos with very little ambient light and flash as the main light source. You know the type of photos, like the crap ones taken with a cameraphone in a nightclub, or of someone in a forest, where the rider looks too bright and parts of the trees are too light with the background still too dark. Here's one of my own showing what I dislike - it was taken as the sun was starting to set, in a forest and even ISO 1600 and 1/30 shutter speed couldn't get quite enough ambient light:
I know in retrospect that could have improved things by reducing the flash output. That's a problem with dark riders against a dark background - the flash tends to overdo things way too much, thinking the black rider should actually be grey. That makes things even worse if they're also wearing bright shiny things which get overexposed. I also dislike the harsh shadows that you tend to get with flash photos. And, I take a lot of panning shots and flash can ruin the foreground blur if it provides more light than just a bit of fill (also demonstrated in the above pic with blurred background and sharp north shore).
Mike's pic in the post above is a nice example of a decent amount of flash, with the rider well exposed, however the mud on the tyres, the BB, and the pads are reflecting a lot more light, (which can't really be helped) and it dominates things a bit much and I'm personally not keen on that.
I'm probably not the best person to comment on this assignment as it's a style of photography that I dislike. I like flash photos where it doesn't look llike it has been used at all. And that goes for fill flash as well - I hate where the shadows are completely removed so that the rider appears to 'glow' rather than simply lighten them a bit.
Mini rant over
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rad2themax
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Ok thanks for all that, i someitmes find it hard to shoot in low light conditions without using flash alot.
| Hamish wrote: |
I'd certainly not class those as 'too much flash', rad. If anything they are a tiny bit underexposed. The flash seems to have illuminated the jumps more than the rider, but that's not your fault as you'd have been using onboard flash.
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Yer i thought that, particularly on the first one, but i just couldnt't find an angle that looked good where it didn't happen with onboard flash.
| Hamish wrote: |
I like the idea behind the third one. It's a little unlucky that it's that particular silhouette that was captured - if they were considerate enough to do something like a tabletop/tail whip then it would have fitted the scene better. Still a good effort though.
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I totally agree, don't you just hate it when you get a photo you like but captured in that annnoying backwheel down pose?
I see what you mean about the woods one aswell. I rarely shoot downhill/woods type stuff and was shooting it the other day and found that happened in quite a few of the photos. But particularly where the riders taking a berm its just so hard to pan with them correctly without flash. I'll post some of them up for critique when i get around to it.
Thanks again, Max.
Thanks again, Max.
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mikedeere
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| Hamish wrote: | | I personally hate photos with very little ambient light and flash as the main light source. |
I know what you mean, but then I shot indoor skateparks at night where using slow sync is not an option as it really does ruin the shot having the motion blur in those cases. This due to the fact that most skateparks have really low light levels anyway so even a really slow sync doesn't bring through too much ambient light. The only exception I've come across was Hangar 18 at Woodward which was really nice and bright, but still the odd dark corner became concern.
So... night time (and indoor) shots that are flash-only illuminated:
I've grown to love flash.
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Hamish
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| mikedeere wrote: | I know what you mean, but then I shot indoor skateparks at night where using slow sync is not an option as it really does ruin the shot having the motion blur in those cases. This due to the fact that most skateparks have really low light levels anyway so even a really slow sync doesn't bring through too much ambient light. The only exception I've come across was Hangar 18 at Woodward which was really nice and bright, but still the odd dark corner became concern...
I've grown to love flash. |
Why don't they just install some decent lights? It would make the world of a difference.
I'll just keep my flash hating stance until that happens (or I start shooting inside dark indoor skateparks). They're decent enough photos but they've still not changed my mind.
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Roo
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I'm a very regular user of flash, I probably don't like using high ISO about as much as you dislike using flash, so that's why I end up using it, I hate pictures with noise
This pic has obviously had flash used, but would have been at 200iso rather than 800 or similar. I always try to balance the two exposures more than some people do, and also try to get white balance right so that the flash isn't really white. I think quite a few people would not think flash was used in the below pictures if they knew nothing about photography which is a start? Obviously anyone into photography can spot it straight away.
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mikedeere
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| Hamish wrote: | | Why don't they just install some decent lights? It would make the world of a difference. |
Hangar 18 @Woodward has a lighting cost of around £100 an hour... Something that not a lot of UK skateparks can afford, hence the lower levels of lighting.
Bare in mind on our first day there we were in the Hangar from 9am til Midnight...
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dandantheadminman
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:O i never realised park lighting was that steep! no wonder...
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crazywelshman
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A few from my local, ive finally realised the wonders of flash
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westside*freeride
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Tom
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