Advice for shooting motocross.

Bassit

Bassit

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Hi, i have been shooting some motocross recently (and will be for the foreseeable future) and would appreciate if any of you that shoot mx could share some tips on what metering modes are working for you, exposing for the sky at 2pm when everyone else has put there camera down because the lights useless and any tips in general.

I am using a camera mounted flash on ttl with the pull out diffuser out and still having to add some shadow recovery in lightroom, is this right ? although having had a look at other mx pics they all seem to have a fair bit of shadow recovery added too.

So far i have only tried matrix metering and although it works ok, i would still be interested to hear what settings you all use.
 
Tips... don't shoot into the sun.

Metering, you want to meter for your subject. Where is your subject in the frame? Is the background lighter/darker than your subject? Use whichever metering mode gives you the result you want - including when light is really, really tricky - manual! There is no stock answer to this question...

Flash, you need to understand exactly how powerful your flash is/isn't. How are you trying to use the flash?
 
Hi desantnik, thank you for your reply.

The metering question i have answered myself by trying out the other modes at the weekend and it seems that matrix is the best for this, along with 39 focus points (if i remember correctly).

I was having a problem with the backgrounds being very bright and overexposing when i meter for the subject, i know you say don't shoot into the sun but for last week there was bright clouds almost everywhere i looked and whilst the sun wasn't visible it was making the whole sky hard to look at and seemed to overexpose every time if i metered for my subject, so i was considering metering for the sky instead of the subject and hoping the flash would cover my subject enough (i did try this on Sunday with ok'ish results).

The flash is an sb700, i have been using it camera mounted set to ttl, with -/+ EV to suit.
 
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So your trying to do aerial shots with just a bike against the sky? How far away is your subject?
 
I wish, not quite its mainly amateurs.

Its just about any shot that has the sky in, has the sky overexposed to some extent and i want to try to solve this problem so i can get the photos posted up as soon as possible with as little editing as possible.

I have just had a look back through some pics and the main problem i am having is a part of the image has overexposed (off the scale on the histogram), when what i am trying to get a nice curve on the histogram.

Anywhere between 30ft to 5ft away.
 
Can you show me an example of what you mean. Leave the exif intact
 
Sure, but i don't think there is any exif attached to it, i am sure i turned it off in camera at some point.

DSC_2158 by J.Garton, on Flickr

This 1 shows my problem a bit better.
DSC_2275 by J.Garton, on Flickr

Terrible photo's, i know, but they shows the problem i am having.
 
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Although I have shot some MX before - I have only done it a couple of times.

What I do remember though is that I needed 1/800 min really to freeze the moment whilst still keeping some blur in the wheels. I dont think you can get this with a flash unless its HSS - even then I understand it to be 1/500 max?

Light from the flash decreases to the inverse square rule (http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/07/24/the-inverse-square-law-what-it-means-for-photographers/), so to get that distance you would need a flash that is bright enough to potentially dazzle the riders. Depending on the track and the race, could see you getting kicked off or at least warned about flash usage.

There was a video of a photographer doing a similar photo as you're trying, but they were using 8 off camera flashes in a flower/radial formation on a stick to get the kind of lighting required to illuminate the rider. They were on what appeared to be a specific photo shoot though, not just a race shoot so the dazzling the riders wasn't so much of an issue. You can see the amount of light that this guy was needing and how close it was to the riders in his shoot (http://www.lpmotocross.com/2012/07/25/shooting-motocross-with-wireless-flash-2/)

HTH
 
Thanks George, i do have some (not a lot, but some) idea with using lighting.

I'm not trying to overpower daylight like i assume the guy in the link was (not read it yet), i am just trying to lift the shadows on the riders with the flash and i am aware of blinding the riders and have checked with some of them if the flash is a distraction for them and they have all replied not at all (which tells me its not firing that bright).

The problem is on bright cloudy days, if i expose for the riders i get an almost blown sky with that horrible almost metallic sheen in the sky, which when applying shadow recovery gets even worse, i have had some ok results with using a nd4 filter, maybe a bit too strong for what i need but it's all i have at the moment.

All photos sooc, this one was exposed for the sky, which wasn't that bad on Sunday tbh, with said nd4 and flash on ttl.
DSC_4865 by J.Garton, on Flickr
 
Looking at those, centre weighted metering is probably what you want and then dial in some negative exposure comp to try and pull back some of the sky. In the first one, try manually setting the flash, set the zoom to max. It might not work of course.

If you truly want perfect exposure for the subject and the sky, the only way of doing it is to shoot as per landscape.. Either a grad filter or selected area exposure adjustment in Pp. This is motorsport though, blown sky won't bother the guys ;-)
 
Thanks desantnik, ill give centre weighted a go at the weekend.

I suppose if it doesn't bother the riders, ill have to stop letting it bother me, at the moment all i want to do is sell a few pictures (there not all that bad) to make it viable for me to be there.
 
Meant to add, high shutter speeds diminish your flash power once you exceed the maximum sync speed of your camera. The flash goes into focal plane mode and the power output is massively less
 
Again, thank you..

This helps a lot, i have just had a read here on focal plane mode, interesting read.
 
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