First Time Shooting Skate Boarding (looking for pointers)

I went to the skate park after ridiculous conditions at the beach. This was my first time shooting skate boarders, the shots came out alright.

1.

I've never shot skatboarding, but I would say the principles are the same as any other sport. I would suggest shooting at a hight SS to get rid of the blur. I primarily shoot basketball and football where I try to stay at least 1/500th and sometimes this isn't enough. Since you shooting outside, there should be plenty of light to up your SS.

Also I would suggest trying to keep faces in the shot. #3 doesn't do anything for me. I'm sure the trick is cool, but I don't want to see the skaters backside. Just my opinion.

Good luck

X2 on what Chris said. Shutter speed is your biggest asset and keeping faces in the shots in any sports...... Remember keep shooting, its digital and can be deleted if you do not like the results!!!

ChrisK10 wrote in post #9458407
I've never shot skatboarding, but I would say the principles are the same as any other sport. I would suggest shooting at a hight SS to get rid of the blur. I primarily shoot basketball and football where I try to stay at least 1/500th and sometimes this isn't enough. Since you shooting outside, there should be plenty of light to up your SS.

Also I would suggest trying to keep faces in the shot. #3 doesn't do anything for me. I'm sure the trick is cool, but I don't want to see the skaters backside. Just my opinion.

Good luck

Back up is my first and biggest advice. all these photos are to crowded and i see no jump or landing or anything so i have no clue what is going on. i cant even tell what trick they are doing. Also bump up your shutter speed. read a transworld or skateboard mag or thrasher... and notice the only close ups are all shot with a fisheye, so unless you have one, which by these photos i can tell you dont... back up and try to copy their angles. thats me .02

edit: oh and avoid butt shots... i dont like lookin at dudes asses

Don't cut off body parts... and just leave your flash at home unless shooting with it off-camera.

Faster shutter speed. Nice points of capture. From the angle you are shooting at you really want a fisheye, so until then move back a bit.

The blur is called ghosting and is because you are shooting at a slow shutter speed because of the flash sync limitations of your camera. Because there is too much ambient light available you are getting a motion blurred exposure from the ambient and an action freezing exposure from the flash.

Either don't use the flash, which is going to make your subjects dark with a correctly exposed background or subjects correct with a blown out background, or use HSS with your flash and increase your shutter speed, open up the aperture and/or increase the ISO.

Shooting as tight as you are is one of the few times that HSS will work just fine for action sports.

Not cropping off body parts is good advice but disregard Joseph's comment about not using your flash unless it is off camera. In this type of setup you are not using your flash as your primary light. You are using it as fill light and on camera is one of the better ways to use fill flash so you fill shadows that are visible by the lens.