Best MX Photographer?

Nice stuff, Christian!

I have only shot MX once, and that was just for an hour trying it out. I think I really could get to like it.

Your flash work and that of Cudby's and th others is very cool.

thank you!!

How are these guys using strobes? I don't get it? How does the light reach the rider? Does it have to be fairly dark outside?

These are some good pics. I think a lot has to do with what you have to work with. If a rider isn't riding hard or just riding "straight", there isn't a lot of room for a good picture. Not only that but track conditions, the severity of the track, the obstacles, the position you can actually get (are you allowed on the track or not) has EVERYTHING to do with the types of pics you get. Then of course, is your lens focus fast enough and do you have the reach you need.

I'm not saying these guys aren't good but they have every chance in the world given to them for great pics!

LOL, actually the ONLY shot in my series that was lit with strobes was the first one of the rider with that black all around him. All the other shots were shot available light, and at pretty high iso bc it was crappy weather. AND I had to shoot most of those from off the track bc the organizers wouldnt let me go out and get close since they felt that i may step on the hired and press photographers toes, and that i wasnt with some big name magazine or manuf. so they said sorry guy, but you can get what you can from behind the fence. The photographers that were allowed out on the track were in the parking lots afterwards selling prints out of their portable printers to the riders for $10 Thats not what I had gone there for, I just wanted to do a bitchin series of pics for my portfolio.

Most of the other shots i see up here, if they are using flash, its basically a speedlight. In a perfect world, you could set up strobes and have the rider come through and get the best shot, but a sport like that, is so fast moving, and your kind of adapting and moving positions so much, that unless you had the time for setup and a rider to wait until your ready, if you were going to light it, your pretty much using on camera flash (Which I do not like)

By strobe do you mean a speedlight?

I mean like the one with only the light on him? How did you do that? Night time I guess? I also love that one with the fog in the background. I think the weather conditions played to your advantage!

Hoping I can get out on the track this Sunday. Its a fairly small track so I would think so.

Never thought about a portable printer... Never even knew those existed.

well, yeah, a speedlight is ust a small strobe. I consider strobes more like the packs and heads and mono lights I will shoot with. those you can put modifers on and get more control over the light. Some people love small flashes, I just often need more output than what they give. the one lit shot was shot early evening, just run the background underexposed and bring the main light up, drops the background out to black. Poor mans seamless being that it was shot in a parking lot lol.

The priner comment was more of a joke, but yeah, they have those, their little dye subs. some of those guys just spit the jpg right out of the camera to print. they dont look so hot imho, but i guess they use it to make a few bucks

Nobody knows about Cameron Baird?!?!?!

No offense but most of these shots are about expensive gear and right spot near the track.

Greetings humans..

Someone sent me this thread and I debated if I should respond to msactionphotos on page 2 or not, but what the heck...

In short (msactionphotos), I don't believe you. I have been accused of a lot of things, but getting in people's way is not one of them. As far as the US Open Sunday, it is impossible to get in anyone's way. There were never more than 2 or 3 people shooting it!

I used to go out of my way to encourage new people, and there is a long list of people that got their start on the website I was doing (Motonews). We used to call it the MX school of journalism.

I sold Kardy his first digital SLR and gave him my settings, and he learned the rest on his own pretty well. I also sold Cox his first digital SLR, gave him a quick class, and he took it from there. I also helped out Chris Tedesco (FMX shooter), Gundy (He did GNCC, Supermoto, and AX), and plenty others.

I don't care if people think the pics I did all looked the same, or were not all magazine masterpieces shot with a 300. I had a different reason for shooting, and that was news and blogs, not mag covers. I was going for the story, the passes, the shots that showed what was going on at the race, not necessarily the art (full frame, one rider at a time). I used a 70-200 and not a 300.

It doesn't matter because I don't do this anymore anyway.

Check out this for an example of shooting to get the story..

http://stevebruhn.com/​Jan2007.htm

It's the last year I was shooting full time. This is a blog I was doing.