How would you improve this shot ?

Hello I have a freind who as you can see, likes to do jumps on his Bike.
Where he does this is under alot of shade from trees.

With my ISO at 1600, the best I can get is 1/50th at f 5.6. I didn't want to use a larger aperture with fear of losing any sharpness.

I also hate using iso 1600 because of the noise when a pic is not exposed correctly.

So i decided to whack my SB800 on to my D70 and see what results I got.

Using f5.6, 1/150th or 1/200th and the flash on TTL EV 0, this is the result i got.

He does not look too bad but everything around him is too dark and unnatural looking. I know why this has happened but I don't know a way around this.

What technique would you use for this type of shot.

Thanks

Paul

Good looking shot.

I don't use flash much, so can't help you there, but I'd get him to wear brighter clothing that contrasts with the background more. I think you also need a lower position to emphasize how high he's jumping, get a bit more ground in the shot and not so much tree above.

I'd play a lot with different exposures and setting and experiment with slow exposures together with front and rear curtain synch which will give you opportunities to get some motion blur and sharp detail in each shot. Take a look at the magazines around to get ideas for angles and poses, there's some fantastic action shots around.

Getting a good biker is the hard part, and you've done that!

Thx for the reply. I had a quick try at Rear Curtain, but it made no difference. No motion blur at all. Now maybe i had to fast a shutter speed for that !

I was actually as low as i could get unfortunately because like you say, i would of liked to get a better impression of height !

Anyone else ?

Thx

Paul

great shot I think the next move is go to photoshop cut out the rider lighten the back ground ans paste in the rider....... fixed
oz jb

Try rear curtain sync and meter for the background. Ideally use a tripod and then you can use longer exposures without camera shake. You should be able to slow the shutter down to 1/20 1/15 maybe even slower. This will lighten the background. The flash will freeze the subject on the bike and rear curtain sync will put any motion blur, from the long exposure, behind the subject.

I brought the levels up and then brought back the detail in the biker using Layers.

I would much prefer to get it right in camera though to avoid noise issues.

Cheers

Paul

bump

There might be a motion trail. using this technique
--
Stan ;o()
I'll misquote Donald Rumsfeld when I say,
'You go take pictures with the glass you've got.'

To improve this type of shot get lower on the ground, even lay down, take the shot upwards and avoid getting the ground in the shot.
This will give the illusion of much higher heights while actually not.

It is an impressive result when you do this.
Good Luck
--
John say's H.S. Football Photography is my hobby.
My wife is my passion

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70-300 ED
SB-800
CoolPix 8700
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http://www.TartarFootball.Com

get him to try to jump the same spot and use that technique. photoshop is not cure for a bad photo and i'm a photo retoucher so i'd prefer a good shot to touch up than a bad one. get the best shot you can then do what you want in post.

Yes, I'd definitely go for getting even lower, even if you have to practically lie down to get the ground out of shot. Also, try different angles, if it's possible at this location for him to do the jump over and over again easily... Try tilting the camera a little bit left or right to put more interest in the shot? It might look pretty good with a bit more blur on it, depends if you WANT it sharp (I mean motion blur, not out-of-focus though!)...

As for correcting what you do have here, I would darken him a little, AND lift the trees a little rather than lifting the trees OR darkening him...

Just my twopenneth - thanks for sharing and let's see the next batch!

Cheers,
Owen

--
http://i-shot.blogspot.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/owen-b

I posted this one a little while ago...is this what you were kind of looking for....This was shot raw manual 1/15 or 1/20 f4 kit lens...handheld....SB 600 slave set to manual 1/4 power



or did you want more of a frozen motion like this...This was shot raw manual at 1/500 or maybe a little less f3.5 on board flash



The trick is to definitly get low (as low as possible) to make your subject seem higher than normal....these are not really a good example of that (I'm fairly new to this myself)...also try to time your shot when your friend is at the peak of his height and his bike levels out...This will show the style of the biker more....hope this helps, and watch out for incoming bikes.....