First try at Skate shots (Harold Day II)

First time ever shooting skate shots (3 week newbie into photography). Took this yesterday at Harold Day II here in NYC. It was quite challenging since this skate park was under the Manhattan Bridge so a lot of my shots were underexposed (probably would have helped with a lens with a lower f stop). Shot this at 17mm, f/4.5 & ISO 1600. A few questions:

1) Do you feel the photo needs to be cropped?
2) Does this look OOF to you? I can't tell if it is OOF or maybe there's quite a bit of noise shooting at 1600 ISO.
3) Does having the subject in the middle make the photo look boring?
4) Is the background blown out?

C&C please! Thanks guys!

Honestly:

1) Maybe, I think it would be worlds better if you had been physically standing closer to the action.

2) The picture is much too small to tell.

3) Yes. The busy background hurts more though.

$) Yes, but it may have been hard to avoid.

1) Hmm...this is a very good point. Although considering it was a skate jam format (skaters were coming in from both sides) I couldn't really get that much closer to the action than where I was standing. I was standing pretty much where the other photogs were standing.

2) Photo size is now enlarged.

3) There were hundreds of people at this event. Maybe I shouldn't have shot it in a wide angle format since I wasn't standing super close? I was concentrating on trying to give the photo a start and an end point so people don't question what happened before and afterwards.

4) Yeah, super sunny day outside. Dark and shaded under the bridge where the skate park was.

Butt shot, loose composition, early shot, and extremely busy background... This stuff takes awhile to learn haha.

Ahh well...I totally appreciate all the honest criticism. I think one thing that made it really hard was because it was a skate jam format so I wasn't able to anticipate what the skaters were doing next. If it was just friends skating it would be a lot easier if I could instruct them what to do. Plus being a skate jam there were WAY too many people in the background. So a few questions for those experienced it shooting skate photography:

1) Are there some basic "dos and do nots" rule of skate photography?

2) A lot people stress getting closer to the subject. How close are we really talking? I was probably standing most of the time about 5 feet away from my subject shooting at 17mm. How about if I just shot at a longer focal length? Would that work or maybe it wouldn't have the desired distortion you would want from a wide-angle lens.

3) In cases where the background is busy (like this skate jam) how should I compensate for that? Should I should tighten the frame of the photo or something?

Thanks!

Do's and don'ts:
Butt shots=No
Busy background=wide aperture to get a better DoF, and just get in closer.
The main thing I've learned with skate photography is tight composition. Lots of weighting too. You never want something dead-center, especially when shooting long lens. Dead center is sometimes acceptable with fisheye stuff because usually things shot with fisheye have REALLY tight comp, hence the need for a fisheye to get that wider angle but still be able to get in close.

More do's and don'ts:
Timing: early--no. late--no. try to get it right during the middle of the trick. you just have to shoot a lot of skate stuff to get timing right.. its still something I'm struggling with too.
ALWAYS SHOW THE LANDING, and always TRY to get the run-up in as well. The run up can be sacrificed for a cool angle if necessary, but never nix the landing. The basic idea is for the photograph to tell the story. Where he came from, what he is doing now, and where he will end up. Leave nothing to the imagination.

No butt shots - check

Busy background use narrow DOF - check

Time composition - check

Time for the middle of the trick - in my case if the trick is a frontside boardslide isn't the 'middle' essentially when the subject gets to the middle of the rail?

Get run in/landing - How do you get both? Do you mean shoot multiple shots then piece them together in PP? Not 100% sure what you mean.

Thanks for all the great advice!

1) I feel that maybe in a series of shots then this waide angle would be "ok" but on it's own i feel it is almost hard to see what is cracking off...
2) Doesn't look "too" oof, maybe it is, but i guess that depends it is movement oof. What autofocus selection were you on?
3) Yes...but the background is too busy, the subject doesn't stand out enough, i feel that a longer focal length would be better! But as i said above, in a series this may be ok.
4) Maybe...sounds like you culdn't really help that though!

What kit were you using? I'm guessing if you have 17mm wide angle, you will either have a 17-70m sigma 17-85mm canon or 17-40mm? Each of which have good zoom, well apart from the 17-40mm

1) It was a series of shots but I think the tight composition suggestion was valid since I'm looking for 1 good shot.

2) Was on AI Servo mode.

3) This is where I am a little confused. A longer focal length will tighten the composition but getting closer and using that wide angle is still the preferred method right?

I guess it must be a delicate balance in terms of composition since you want it to be tight but you also want to make sure you are about to see the start/finish of the trick.

I have a 17-85. Was originally going to buy a 10-22 but they ran out of them at B&H. If the weather is good this coming weekend I'm going to another skate park here in NYC and trying shooting with a tighter composition.

Well It depends how close you can get. You want wide angle if your very close, so you get distortion on the subject.
But you also want some with a longer focal length, so as you correctly say it tightens the composition, and also improves the bokeh and Dof

That is a really good point. Considering I was shooting a lower f-stop maybe I should have really tried to shoot with a local focal length and use the bokeh to fix the busy background. I was so consumed with trying to capture the wide angle distortion in my shots (that is only skate shots I know) I probably would have come out better off shooting with a more narrow DOF instead. Man, I was dumb.

So my mini realization due to you guys is:

If I can get super closer shoot with wide angle otherwise pretty much all other shots shoot with a narrow DOF (especially if there is a busy background)

How close should you be before you start using the wide angle? 1-2 feet?

Excally!
Well even when your really close you may need to zoom in a little to get the shot you want. But you also need to position yourself to get the most from your wide angle, for example on the above shot if you could position yourself around the "zooyork" sticker, then as he is grinding the pole you snap him...
When you were standing i would have zoomed into, to (at a guess) around 60mm, this would create some nice bokeh, but also give the skater "room to move" which is another ey thing to remember. Too tight a crop looks bad lol!
Basically take loads and loads of shot until you feel you have nailed it, try lots of different angles, zooms etc...
Hope that helps!

ps. i have never actually shot skate, so i may be talking rubbish

Well here's the problem. If I stand where it says Zoo York I am pretty much going to be in his way when he tricks off the rail (unless I pop in and out super fast). Since I was unfamilar with the skate park (and everyone in it) and last thing I want to do is to piss people off by getting in his way...haha.

The suggestion you made is valid. There were a bunch of filmers which were running alongside him while he was doing the boardslide. They were filming less than a feet away from him. Let me try it out with my friends first then see if I can execute this at the next skate jam.

big_apple_ken wrote in post #5553956
Well here's the problem. If I stand where it says Zoo York I am pretty much going to be in his way when he tricks off the rail (unless I pop in and out super fast). Since I was unfamilar with the skate park (and everyone in it) and last thing I want to do is to piss people off by getting in his way...haha.

The suggestion you made is valid. There were a bunch of filmers which were running alongside him while he was doing the boardslide. They were filming less than a feet away from him. Let me try it out with my friends first then see if I can execute this at the next skate jam.

Fair point

Looking foward to seeing the results!

big_apple_ken wrote in post #5553496
Get run in/landing - How do you get both? Do you mean shoot multiple shots then piece them together in PP? Not 100% sure what you mean.

Thanks for all the great advice!

Just play around with angles, the idea is to tell the story, be sure you can tell where he came from.