Having trouble tracking moving subjects

DDCSD wrote in post #9001714
Yep, seen tons of them. There's many, many different reasons that photos appear to be oof. Posting a few examples can take the guesswork out of it and we can likely give you an idea of what may be happening. Without those examples, all we can do is list the reasons that photos may appear to be oof.

You photos may not even be technically oof. There may be something else going.

If it takes you 3 minutes to convert a raw file in DPP, you need to have a look at your workflow. You don't need to process the images for this, just convert them and post them.

Even if it does take you 3 minutes a photo, wouldn't it be worth spending 9 minutes to post up some samples if it gets you a good answer? Isn't that better than wasting all that time taking the photos only to delete them?

If you can't be bothered to take a few steps to help us help you, why should anyone waste their with you? Many people here (myself included) are more than happy to take some time helping people out. Our time is just as valuable as yours is.

There, I just wasted 3 minutes of my life to explain why you should post up some examples. Why not invest 3 minutes of your life to make your photos better? I think you owe it to everyone that has posted in this thread trying to help you.

Hahaha, that last part made me laugh, enough so that I will convert some out for you. It takes three minutes per photo to go from a RAW to JPEG through DPP. Not sure if that could even be my fault. I'm a believer in "its the indian not the arrow" but in this case, is there even anything I could be doing that would make the transfer go so slow?

gregpphoto wrote in post #9003499
Hahaha, that last part made me laugh, enough so that I will convert some out for you. It takes three minutes per photo to go from a RAW to JPEG through DPP. Not sure if that could even be my fault. I'm a believer in "its the indian not the arrow" but in this case, is there even anything I could be doing that would make the transfer go so slow?

Maybe shake your computer to wake up the little hamsters inside of it that seem to have fallen asleep?

See if these help, or do you need me to post them full size?

This one is more like what I was getting all day and deleting on site. Looks like my track didnt track, it focused on the rest of the park behind the skater.

#1 looks like you did indeed mis-focus and catch the background. Are you using only the center AF Spot?

#2 looks as if you need to raise your shutter speed some. You've got too much ambient mixed in and that's why your subjects hand and and board are smeared.

You have to think of flash as TWO exposures:
1) Get proper exposure for the background (and both of these are a tad on the overexposed side)
2) Add flash to get exposure on your subject

I shoot motocross all summer and know what its like when that focus dot
misses the subjet your shooting it sucks but it takes time and practice.
I got published twice in a mx magazine this year so I must be doing something right.

gregpphoto wrote in post #8986838
50D... using a few flashes actually, and shooting anywhere from 1/250 to 1/500 so I know I'm freezing the action, so it's gotta be the focus, right?

gregpphoto wrote in post #9013099
See if these help, or do you need me to post them full size?

So w hats my best bet? Prefocus and pray? Or keep tracking and pray? Or f**k me and pray?

EXIF would help. Need to know what mode you were shooting in and what settings you had on your flash. For example, if you were in Av mode and/or using HSS for flash... Av mode really gets screwy with flash... SS drops to xsync, which is too slow to stop motion, unless your flash overpowers ambient by 2 or 3 stops (which ain't gonna happen in mid-day at this skatepark).

So you'd need to use HSS, which is perfect for this setup... fast shutter speed and you're close enough to your subject for HSS to reach (the pulsing decreases the flash range in half).

Also surprised that you used such a narrow aperture... huge DoF. If EXIF was there, I could see if you were already maxed out on minimum ISO... if so, you might need ND.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #9015242
#1 looks like you did indeed mis-focus and catch the background. Are you using only the center AF Spot?

#2 looks as if you need to raise your shutter speed some. You've got too much ambient mixed in and that's why your subjects hand and and board are smeared.

You have to think of flash as TWO exposures:
1) Get proper exposure for the background (and both of these are a tad on the overexposed side)
2) Add flash to get exposure on your subject

Good advice here.

I'll add that it's tough to track a moving subject with a fisheye when they start out fairly far away from you. They'll be very small in the viewfinder to start with.

If you're using speedlights for flashes, you'll probably get some blurring from the long flash duration at full power (combined with not being far enough over your ambient light). To get the flash duration quicker, you'll want to shoot them around 1/4 power or less. You may want to shoot later or earlier in the day when the sun is lower in the sky and easier to overpower.

Those shots you see in the mags were likely shot with very little ambient light and/or with very powerful strobes.