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mikedeere
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Joined: 19 Oct 2006
Posts: 266
Location: South Wales
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 Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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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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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 136
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| Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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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
Site Admin
Joined: 24 Nov 2006
Posts: 126
Location: Surrey. UK
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| Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 1:04 pm Post subject: |
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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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Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Posts: 169
Location: Portsmouth
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| Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 3:02 pm Post subject: |
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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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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 136
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| Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 4:10 pm Post subject: |
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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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Joined: 25 Nov 2006
Posts: 8
Location: Thurso, Caithness
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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mikedeere
Forum Regular
Joined: 19 Oct 2006
Posts: 266
Location: South Wales
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| Posted: Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:25 pm Post subject: |
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One I just found:
1/100th || f/3.5 || ISO 400
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Hamish
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Joined: 29 Sep 2006
Posts: 1011
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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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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Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 136
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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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
Forum Regular
Joined: 19 Oct 2006
Posts: 266
Location: South Wales
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 10:38 pm Post subject: |
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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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Joined: 29 Sep 2006
Posts: 1011
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| Posted: Sat Jan 13, 2007 11:42 pm Post subject: |
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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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Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Posts: 442
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| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:31 am Post subject: |
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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
Forum Regular
Joined: 19 Oct 2006
Posts: 266
Location: South Wales
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| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 12:35 pm Post subject: |
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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
Site Admin
Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 1294
Location: Surrey, UK
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| Posted: Sun Jan 14, 2007 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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:O i never realised park lighting was that steep! no wonder...
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crazywelshman
Not quite so newbie
Joined: 07 Oct 2006
Posts: 17
Location: south wales
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| Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:41 pm Post subject: |
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A few from my local, ive finally realised the wonders of flash
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