Rollerderby with Off Camera Flash

San Antonio (Alamo City) VS Houston Knockouts. First attempt with off camera flash using pocket wizard Flex5 / Mini and a 580EXII and 430 speedlights on stands set about 7 feet high.

I like it. Not sure if I'd want to shoot the corner the whole time but I bet moving the lights would have been a hassle!

DId you try the high speed sync with the flex?

Cozmocha wrote in post #12402516
I like it. Not sure if I'd want to shoot the corner the whole time but I bet moving the lights would have been a hassle!

The corners are the only place that you guarantee you will see faces though.

Great shots , good to see the crowd there.
Are the derbys well attended?

I get 90% of my shots in corner 3. I can shoot the straight away leading in and then the corner. Fast jammers usually break through leading out of corner 2. I rarely move unless I am going to shoot from the center.

Derby attendance depends greatly on the city hosting the event. Austin sells 2000-2600 seats now typically, Chicago 4000 plus and Seattle 6000 plus. San Antonio is limited by the rinks capacity to about 600. Dallas recently moved to the historic Fair Park arena next to the Cottonbowl and sold close to 4000 seats. Philadelphia and Baltimore usually sell out their venues as they are both top 10 ranked teams.

I like the apex or corner 3-4 because the jammers usually make first contact with the pack leading into that corner and that is where you get great blocking contact shots.

I think they are great Bill.
Excellent colours and sharp with no noise at all, would like to see a bit of EXIF data to check your settings for tips.

4000 spectators Here in the UK 400 would be a HUGE crowd

whiteflyer wrote in post #12415417
I think they are great Bill.
Excellent colours and sharp with no noise at all, would like to see a bit of EXIF data to check your settings for tips.

4000 spectators Here in the UK 400 would be a HUGE crowd

PM Sent.

great shots bill! i bet you are hooked on the ocf for derby now aren't you?

bigarchi wrote in post #12419715
great shots bill! i bet you are hooked on the ocf for derby now aren't you?

I'm getting there, but not all the way there yet. My keeper rate dropped to about 50% and I'm getting a lot of inconsistency in exposure, with some shots in a sequence totally blown out, and the next one will be fine. I'm not sure what's going on yet, and have some experimenting to do. I seem to get better results with the flashes up high above head level which leads me to think it might have something to do with uniform color and a skater right in front of one of the flashes when it fires throwing off exposure. I've also run into the well documented problems with Pocket Wizards and the 580EXII with severely limited range (about 20') and have not yet tried their shielding sock. I do like the end results when it works, but it is not working as consistently as I would like to shoot an entire bout that way. Figuring it all out is part of the fun though. I'm going to try shooting some with all manual power levels and using the zone controller next weekend.

hmm, interesting. so I take it you are using ettl then and that's why you are getting the inconsistency?

i shoot with manual triggers, but also get inconsistency depending on the distance of the action from the flash because I can't shoot them in ettl.

Yes ETTL and I think what is happening is that there are skaters right in front of the flash when it fires that are not necessarily my subject. I was sitting at the entrance of turn 3 with the flash at the apex of 3-4 looking back up the backstraight. Second flash was about 10 feet to my left. I think while shooting at subjects about 2/3 down the backstraight there were other skaters in black right in front of the flash at the apex which was mounted to a rail about waist high. When I shot a few weeks back I had them up about 7 feet and did not get so much variation.

maybe the height does have something to do with it!
also if you aren't already doing it average metering on the flashes might work better than evaluative..

Agreed on that, have been using averaging for a while, it gives better consistency when you have highly contrasting uniform colors on the two teams.

Get that sock on there right away!! If you're not getting it to fire and you're using the Flex/TT5 combo that's your problem.

I use 4 (yes four) TT5's (2 AB800's and 2 580EX's) and while I can't go higher than 250 when using the AB's, I would use two 580's while shooting out of turn 3. Using HS sync I never had any problems...and I even bought some battery packs for the 580's to use for th next bout.

I plan on taking pics of my setup for the next bout... in 2 weeks. Can't wait!

Oh...and the pics look nice and crisp!