The second installment of Fraser Britton's instructional series has arrived. This article will cover using digital SLR cameras to capture great images in a variety of lighting conditions.
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Last week we covered how to use a point and shoot camera to take photos at a MTB or other sporting event. While it is clearly not the best tool for the job, I explained a few ways you can make it work and get the images you want without blowing a ton of money. This week I will go a bit more in depth into how to use the new models of inexpensive, digital SLRs to capture great shots.
It used to be that owning an SLR camera was a big deal. Expensive bodies, lenses and film processing added up and made it prohibitive for most people. While the bodies and lenses still are not exactly point and shoot cheap, the proliferation of high quality Digital SLR systems has made high end photography much more accessible to many people.
Before you blow a huge chunk of your savings on a body and a half dozen lenses, you need to take a good look at what you are going to shoot. All too many times I get emails asking Which lens should I get? and Which lens/camera is better when the items being compared are not even remotely similar. What gear you buy is highly dependent on what you want to shoot.
Would you buy a high end Specialized Road bike if you wanted to race downhill?
If you shoot landscapes you will want wider lenses, possibly with some sort of image stabilization or vibration reduction features. If you shoot field sports you will want big long lenses that allow in lots of light. For cycling in general, it is sort of a mixed bag. For MTB you can use anything from a fisheye to a 300mm monster. For road cycling you may use some shorter stuff from the back of a motorcycle, or longer stuff from the side of an embankment.
Before we go on, Ill just explain briefly the equipment I use, as I am sure Ill get emails asking about it. I shoot on Canon 1dmk2 bodies. Yup, they are a few years old and plenty beat up, but they work flawlessly. I use all canon lenses (15mm F2.8 Fisheye, 17-40 F4, 50mm F1.8, 70-200 F2.8 and 300mm F2.8). I have Elinchrom Ranger 1100w lights that I fire with Pocket Wizards, and a combination of Canon and Vivitar 285HV flashes.
Generally I try and pick equipment that allows in lots of light (lower number F Stop like 2.8) and that does not vary over the focal length of the lens if it is a zoom. The Canon 70-200mm F2.8 stays at F2.8 whether you are at 70mm or 200mm. Many consumer level lenses are not like this and that means you have less light to work with a t longer focal lengths, where it can help the most in reducing shake. I also try and stick to weather sealed bodies and lenses, as I am usually out in inclement conditions. There was a 2 day Snow Storm when I shot the X Games in Aspen and it rained at every single major race I attended (16 of them) in 2008.
EXPOSURE BASICS
The basic principle for shooting anything on an SLR is a trio of settings that are highly dependent on each other. Shutter Speed, F Stop and ISO combined are what give you your exposure, among other things. Start with the basics. For the tips below I am just going to assume that you understand the trio of basic settings and how they relate together. I wont cover this here, as better writers and photographers than I have covered it way better than I ever could. Look for books from National Geographic and Kodak if you feel you need a crash course or want to brush up.
I recommend: The National Geographic Photography Field Guide and Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson for the basics. If you are more advanced, I highly recommend Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting.
I shoot mostly Downhill MTB (or cycling in general) and football when covering sports for clients. It just happens to be where I have made relationships and where my interests lie.
First things first get your exposure right. There are way too many underexposed photos that would have been rad otherwise. Get away from the automatic modes on your camera, they will not help you at all. Learn about the different metering systems your camera has. I usually use spot meter on my Canon 1dmk2 and meter for the athletes face, if at all possible.
There is no one correct exposure for any scenes. If exposure is right at ISO 100, F/8, 1/1000th then it is also correct at ISO 100, F 5.6, 1/2000th. If I ever hear someone ask what were your settings!!11!! again, I may have to jump out of a window.
So what determines what exposure settings you want?
DEPTH OF FIELD
For Downhill MTB it is pretty simple. I hate photos where it looks like the rider is riding in the dark woods on a moonless night and got blasted with a flash. Therefore, I always bump up the ISO to 200 or 400 in the woods and try and expose the background as much as possible. This usually means I am closer to F4 or even F2.8. Not only will this help expose for ambient, but it will give the rider separation from the background due to extremely shallow depth of field. Depth of field can be your best friend in making a rider standout, or your worst enemy as only a tiny part of the rider may be in focus. Remember that DOF changes as your focal length changes, so it is important to know your equipment.
SHUTTER SPEED
I always try and keep my shutter speed no higher than 1/320th if I am shooting a rider coming at me. This allows for some tire spin on most DH tracks. Even though the flash will freeze the rider, the tire is exposed well enough with the ambient light that youll see some spin and the rider will look like he is flying down a DH course, not posing in the studio.
If I really want to show motion, I can shoot from the side or a ¾ position. This allows me to pan with the rider and really blur the background, while freezing the rider with one or more flashes. For pans, I usually shoot at 1/40th or 1/60th of a second. In order to do this you really have to practice panning. I cannot emphasize this enough.
When I first started, I couldnt even pan cleanly at 1/100th. Now I can pan with my 6.5lb 300mm F2.8 lens down to about 1/40th of a second. Panning can save LOTS of shots that would otherwise have been blurry, so practice. Its very different with a long lens than with a fisheye as well. You can get some pretty cool effects depending on your focal length, available light etc. Shoot cars driving by, birds in the sky, whatever it takes. Get used to panning, youll need it!
GET A METER
The biggest piece of advice for getting your exposure right is to buy a meter. If you are shooting with flashes, this advice is ten fold. Your camera is easily fooled by dark or light targets, as it is a reflective meter. It measures the light bouncing off of an object. This can work, but generally makes your life difficult. Imagine shooting a football game in bright sunlight with one team in black and one team in white. The exposure will be all over the map, and very seldom correct for either team! Light meters are Incident meters, they take their reading from the ambient light around them. If you are using pocket wizards, you can even get them chipped to fire your flashes wirelessly, which will make your flash setup about 100 times easier, with less trial and error. I use a Sekonic L-358 (http://www.sekonic.com/products/Sekonic%20L-358%20FLASH%20MASTER.asp) and could not be happier with it.
Next week: How to really make a shot pop using off camera flash. Shadows arent bad, they just have to be controlled and made to do what you want.
