snowboarding 1st time

first time posting pics here, any c&c would be great. i have learned alot by reading at this site, and hopefully learn alot more by finally posting something.
and i know the lift cables are very distracting, put they have a lift on both sides of the park, so there was no way around. hopefully i can learn to PS them out. thanks for looking

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Yeah the cables are distracting but without a way to crop them out of the scene I may have considered using my telephoto lens to blur the background. I've never tried this but with a 50mm and the portrait option on your 40D maybe the speed and blur would have been in the ballpark.

It seems that the focus caught the background, not the subject (especially on the first shot).
I agree with blurring the background. You have to open your aperture at the max (lowest number) value while being in Av mode.
While shooting moving subjects, select AI-Servo mode with the central focus point only, and try to maintain it on your subject.

Then, practice again and again...

Good shots for a first try.

I agree that you should use as wide an aperture as possible but I prefer to shoot on manual and always use a fill flash.

I stop down my flash a coupls of stops and set it to allow fast shutter speeds as opposed to the sync speed of 1 / 250th

Also consider different angles, underneath, face on to get a different perspective and to make the jumps look bigger. if your in a pro park always get permission to position yourself close to the ramp. Hips are usually good as you can get right underneath the riders and your llooking up to the sky, also they get great height without moving forward to quickly.

I took these shots at whistler last week ish. As you caan see slightly different perspective and taken straight in to the sun.

Andrew

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When shooting snowboarding it is important to include the takeoff, and landing in the composition. Makes it so the subject isn't just floating in air. Adds to the feel of the photo imo.

IMAGE LINK: http://flickr.com/phot​os/hamsgod/2316238538

thanks for everyone's input. i shot a-i servo, and central focus, i just didnt maintain the center on the rider on a few. i also shot in av mode, which ended up giving me some crazy shutter speeds on some of the shots. i think get a couple shots with good exposure and then use those settings in manual would be the way to go?? i was also going with the recomedations of alot on this board with the tight crop, but i can see were having lip, landing, or both can show size. again thank you all, for the feedback. hopefully all this rain in the NE still leaves us a little snow on the slopes for another week or two so i can get back out.

Not bad. Just a suggestion you could always clone out the lift lines in PS, wouldnt be too hard to do.

not bad for begginers

I really like the backlit skier flipping.