Skater goes "Matrix"

[Apexer]

I just shot this image yesterday of my son. Am I just being a proud pop, or is this a wicked cool image ? I wish the background was better, but this is SOOC.

Thanks for lookin!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3162/3283299497_d40520a287_b.jpg

[DealsGapCobra]

You are a proud father AND that is a great capture. I agree with you on the BG.

[Zivnuska]

No question that you've captured your athletic son in a cool moment. There are a few things that could be done to get the picture just as cool next time.

1. Get a background that is not distracting. This house does not work.

2. Use a large aperture (small number f/stop) to reduce the depth of field and keep the attention on your son while blurring the BG.

3. Use center point, servo focus, to have your son in sharp focus. Here, the house seems in sharper focus than your son.

4. Avoid the situation where your son is totally in black and the background is white.

Keep shooting this stuff. There will be some great images ahead.

[jimmywires]

Mark....you think this is good wait till you see the next one. keep posting

[Apexer]

Thank you guys!! Much appreciated.

Zinuska - He was fairly stationary, on the horizontal plane. The center point servo focus would have helped here? I was under the impression that was mostly for subjects moving away/toward the camera.

[Zivnuska]

Mark,

When you open up your aperture, two good things will happen. You will have faster shutter times to stop the action without motion blur and the shallow depth of field will cause your subject to 'pop' off the page because the background will be out of focus.

A 30D at 50mm, f/2.8, and 10 feet will have a depth of field of just 16 inches (15 ft gives a dof of 3 ft). Longer lenses are even more demanding but give better separation from the background. With that shallow depth of field, you will want your focus to be perfect. That means that 'fairly stationary' will not be good enough and you want to choose the focus point--not let the camera choose. Servo focus will continually update the focus distance and the center focus point is the most sensitive. Just keep that focus point pegged on you son's face.

We want your son's eyes to be in perfect focus, his body in sharp focus and the BG blurred away. If you shoot a burst at 3 or 5 fps, servo focus will continually update through the jump.

Phil Z

[jcpoulin]

Agree with above comments....would add to change your angle. These shots look better ( IMO) if you shoot up or down on subject! Shooting from eye level is plain. Shooting up puts the sky as background in many shots.
PS....proud father and shooter....no problems there!!

[Apexer]

Same day, different son, flat on my back ! I wish I had caught the entire skateboard. I was going for some different angles this day, but it was cold, and laying on the ground with flying skateboards/expensive glass wasnt a long term proposition on this day.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3571/3284119058_3ddf856720_b.jpg

Phil - Thank for taking the time, I continue to learn a ton from folks like you and the others who took time to post here. Honestly, I am scratching my head a bit. I had the camera in Av and almost entirely at 2.8 knowing that DOF would be working for me and the day was cloudy and I wanted to shoot w/o flash.

With most shots I got A LOT of back ground. Then I did a close up of another son and some college photography came flooding back to me - focal length. I zoomed in for a head shot and got the desired effect, the BG was bokehed out. Its amazing what you forget if you dont stay in practice. ( yes, I have three sons - a beautiful daughter too )

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3350/3287094877_cb2e28295d_b.jpg

The lesson in my mind, with your input, and some trial and error, is an open aperture plus focal length get bokeh. Correct ?

[Zivnuska]

Correct.

I LOVE the perspective from the ground looking up. That's headed on the right track. Very dramatic!

Is there a park where the skaters practice that has a better background? Perhaps a different angle less cluttered? Combine that with a little late afternoon sun on the skater's face.

One other thing: You could use + exposure compensation to properly expose the faces or go to manual mode to create the same effect. These pics are too dark because the light sky/building is throwing off the exposure in Av.

[Apexer]

Correct.

I LOVE the perspective from the ground looking up. That's headed on the right track. Very dramatic!

Is there a park where the skaters practice that has a better background? Perhaps a different angle less cluttered? Combine that with a little late afternoon sun on the skater's face.

One other thing: You could use + exposure compensation to properly expose the faces or go to manual mode to create the same effect. These pics are too dark because the light sky/building is throwing off the exposure in Av.

Thanks, Phil. We do do have a skate park, that borders a city park - maybe I'll try some shots there. This was shot at a Church very close by our home, and was a very spontaneous session.

Just so I'm smellin what yer cookin....when you refer to the exposure you are saying to increase the ISO one full stop ? Then chimp it and adjust accordingly ?

[Zivnuska]

For next time with the good background:

First, you want to have your lens opened up (large aperture, small number). Something like f/2.8 should be good. This will allow fast shutter speed, shallow dof, and low ISO.

Second, I suggest that you want to end up with an exposure that has a SS of 1/640 or faster to avoid any motion blur. Yes, you could go as slow as 1/400 but if it's during daylight, no reason not to get 1/640 or faster. You will adjust ISO to get that desired shutter speed.

Third, let's hope the next session has better lighting. In the posted pics, your son was dressed in black with no sunlight on him and the background of sky and house was very light. This threw off your metering of the exposure. There are several ways to 'work around' this problem. If working in Av, exposure compensation will adjust the SS by increments of 1/3 stop. Or, you could adjust it yourself in manual mode. Chimp and adjust. If you are familiar with the histogram function, that will help.

Even better will be if your son has some of that very late afternoon light on him to give nice warm skin tones. Use Av or M depending on what you are comfortable with. If you use Av, read your 30D manual on how to set exposure compensation (EC) to fine tune if needed. If you avoid that very white background (and you should), you may be fine with Av and no EC. When I owned a 30D I routinely set it at +1/3 EC. Expose for the faces.

Fourth, servo focus, center focus point, and your choice of single shot, 3 fps, or 5 fps.

Post the results!

[Apexer]

Will do, Phil.

As for the histogram, I'm just delving into knowing about it ( tonal range, right ?). Slowly but surely getting there. This is my first "real" digital camera - I've had a couple of point-n-shoots. The learning curve has been steep, but I am motivated.

You guys are great!

[TheFilmBot]

Nice shots...

I would get down low to accentuate how high he is from the ground.

Space is good in skateboarding photography!

[Pruddock]

Cool shots! A fisheye lens would have made these look really wicked!

[Zivnuska]

Just so I'm clear: If you are shooting in Av and you adjust the ISO upward, the camera will adjust the shutter speed faster to give the same degree of lightness/darkness to the image. For sports in Av, you will set the f/stop open (probably f/2.8 ) and then adjust your ISO to get to 1/640 or faster shutter speed.

Adjusting the Exposure Compensation (EC) will give a lighter (+EC) or darker (-EC) image. Use this in Av when you notice your subject is consistently darker or lighter than desired.

Keep shooting and keep posting!