Friday night HS football

Shot some football on Friday night trying out the flash under the camera setup. Let me know what you think.

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I think you did great. Number 5 not up to the level of the others.

Thanks for the comments. I know 5 isn't up to the level of the rest because I cropped in a good bit. I was just impressed with the play.

Thats always a challenge russell, sometimes you have to balance between the best technical shot and the shot that shows a point of interest or action.

those are good. Flashed or not, pretty sharp shots. I'm (apparently) getting WORSE with my flash shots.

I've had the flash straight on the hotshoe, mounted below on my monopod and on a flash bracket last week. Can't figure it out. Flash just SUCKS!!!

dave

Looks great! 3 and 4 in particular although I do have a crit about that kid's form in #3, hell, Ernest Byner protected the ball better than that!

Exposure looks solid and you got some great action. Really can't complain!

Thanks for the comments.

What I did was I put the flash underneath the camera on the monopod and set the flash to 1/2 power 50mm f2.8 ISO 1600.

On the camera I set it to 1/250 ISO 1000 and then varied the aperture up and down to balance the flash. If they were far away (40+ yards) I used f2.8. If there were close I would dial up to about 4.5. It wasn't exact but worked pretty good.

Whites look blown out to me. Green uniforms look great.
Did you try a lower ISO? I don't shoot above 800.
#5 may not be above ambient enough?
Dave

Thanks for the comments.

I did try a lower ISO but they came out too underexposed and in #5 I dont think the flash fired. I was having problems with my triggers at one point during the game.

EDIT: Looking again flash did fire Im going to blame the poor quality on the heavy crop I did.

If your flash settings are correct the players should be completely black if the flash didn't fire.

Dan-o wrote in post #8771555
If your flash settings are correct the players should be completely black if the flash didn't fire.

No cause the field is bright enough to shoot at 1/250 f2.8 ISO 1000 and only be about 1 stop underexposed which can be "fixed" in post. Normally when I shoot ambient on that field I shot around 1/500, f2.8 ISO 2500.

I wanted to use the flash should I could get better exposed shots. Im not using the flash to completely overpower the ambient light, just to assist it. Thats why the shots aren't totally black if the flash doesn't fire.

northpointphoto wrote in post #8772804
No cause the field is bright enough to shoot at 1/250 f2.8 ISO 1000 and only be about 1 stop underexposed which can be "fixed" in post. Normally when I shoot ambient on that field I shot around 1/500, f2.8 ISO 2500.

I wanted to use the flash should I could get better exposed shots. Im not using the flash to completely overpower the ambient light, just to assist it. Thats why the shots aren't totally black if the flash doesn't fire.

But if your ambient is only 1 stop less than flash, and if your shutter speed is limited by xsync to 1/250", I expected more ghosting and motion blur.

I think #1 is lit nicely. And I like the dive of orange jersey #54 in picture #2. From the shadow and red-eye in #2, I'm guessing flash was mounted slightly below on your monopod.

The only ghosting I see is on the left of picture #4.

Can you share exif (SS was 1/250" on all)?

What type of flash, flash settings, and mount? From the shadow and redeye in #2, I'm guessing flash was mounted slightly below on your monopod.

I'm with Clarence, if your only one 1 stop above ambient 1-4 are amazing
results.

clarence wrote in post #8772874
But if your ambient is only 1 stop less than flash, and if your shutter speed is limited by xsync to 1/250", I expected more ghosting and motion blur.

I think #1 is lit nicely. And I like the dive of orange jersey #54 in picture #2. From the shadow and red-eye in #2, I'm guessing flash was mounted slightly below on your monopod.

The only ghosting I see is on the left of picture #4.

Can you share exif (SS was 1/250" on all)?

What type of flash, flash settings, and mount? From the shadow and redeye in #2, I'm guessing flash was mounted slightly below on your monopod.

wyofizz wrote in post #8773694
I'm with Clarence, if your only one 1 stop above ambient 1-4 are amazing
results.

Only about 1-1.5 stop above ambient plus some tweaking in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Nikon SB-26 w/quantum turbo battery underneath the camera about 2 feet off the ground on the monopod. I had the flash set in manual to 1/2 power 50-85mm f2.8 ISO 1600.

On the camera I set it to 1/250 ISO 1000 and then varied the aperture up and down to balance the flash. If they were far away (40+ yards) I used f2.8. If there were close I would dial up to about 4.5. It wasn't exact but worked pretty good.

northpointphoto wrote in post #8774782
varied the aperture up and down to balance the flash. If they were far away (40+ yards) I used f2.8. If there were close I would dial up to about 4.5. It wasn't exact but worked pretty good.

I've seen a few people use aperture to balance flash power. I've only tried flashed football a few times, but I was trying to adjust between 1/1, 1/2, 1/4 power levels. Also seems like using FEC would be more suitable, so I'm going to give that a try next time. I'll also try the "vary aperture by distance" method.

One other thing that I'm curious to experiment more with is longer shutter times... I thought 1/250" xsync was slow and constraining. And a lot of people cheat that by bumping up to 1/320 and for the minor risk of partial shutter curtains at the bottom of the frame.

But I'm actually intrigued with the pleasant results I was getting when I was slowing down my shutter, like to 1/100".... letting in more ambient background, but still letting the flash freeze and expose the foreground.