The third and final installment of Fraser Britton's Photo Tips series details the use of flashes in action sports photography.
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Most of the time, when photographers get a few extra bucks, they run out and spend it on whatever product is the flavor of the week. Be it a new lens, a newly released body, some goofy flash bracket or another piece of needlessly updated software.
All of these products can, of course, be great additions to a photographers arsenal but the one item that can make the biggest difference always seems to get forgotten. Light. Light is what all photographs are made of, in one way or another. An artificial light source such as a flash, studio lights or even a flashlight can radically transform an image and is a great tool to augment natural light. Given the choice between a new lens or more versatile lights, Id choose lights every time.
The first thing to remember is your flash can be a fantastic way to simply help bright out the details. Natural light almost always looks best, but a little fill flash here and there can make all the difference in the your photos. It can make your subjects really stand out from the backgrounds due to slightly different shadows, or catchlights. Try not to overdo it with your flashes, instead use them in addition to natural light sources.
The first light you need to get organized is your on camera flash. Learning to use this and more importantly, use it effectively is key. Most cameras basic metering functions with flash will expose for the flash on your key subject. Therefore people shot in a semi dark room will mean properly exposed people and an utterly dark background. This is also largely due to the fact that pop up flashes are woefully underpowered and simply cannot properly expose anything more than a few feet away.
While it will allow you to see the subject of your photo, the photos lack context and are usually pretty boring. Add to that that on camera flash is too close to the lens, and your subjects will have red-eye. Red-eye is caused by the reflection of the flash off of the blood vessels at the back of your subjects eyes. Once the flash and lens are off axis, this is no longer a problem.
The best way to get past all of these problems is to get your flash off camera. While a flash bracket will help (you see many wedding photographers with these), using them to shoot action photos will severely limit your creativity by keeping your camera and flash on the same axis. This washes out your shadows and makes your shots look flat and lacking dimension.
Getting a flash off camera can be done in a variety of ways. It can be as cheap as an old garage sale flash with a sync cable, to an expensive long range wireless system and portable studio lights.
Vivitar 285HV flashes are a popular, inexpensive light source for action sports photographers. They run about $89, are bomb proof, have plenty of power and are easy fired with either a sync cable or something like a pocket wizard. The more expensive, but much more versatile method is to use a wireless trigger. The most popular (and expensive) of these is the Pocket Wizard. They have huge range (1600+), are pretty much indestructible and are incredibly reliable. One for the flash, one for your camera and you are off to the races. With a wizard you can also fire the camera with a $40 cord attached to the trigger, leading to some interesting possibilities (think backboard camera, netcam for hockey etc).
There are less expensive wireless options as well, such as the Elinchrom Skyport system as well as the new Alien Bee trigger. Both get very good reviews, but lack the range of the pocket wizard; however, at less than half the price, its a tradeoff many can afford to make.
Once you have the flash off camera, learning to meter all over again can be a trick with one or two flashes and no ETTL, many people get instantly lost. Once you get used to lighting this way, you can mostly eyeball it, but a good wireless flash meter like the Sekonic L 358 can save a tremendous amount of headaches. With a digital body, you can simply experiment until you kill all your batteries, a huge advantage for todays photographer.
The key isnt to kill every single shadow; the key is to manipulate them. Use the shadows to your advantage and create form with it. The difference between a realistic 3 dimensional looking photo, and a flat motionless photo of the same subject is simply light, and how it is recorded.
A great trick to creating motion is to meter for background light, pan and then use a flash to freeze your subject. The background will be still and will fill in naturally with a slower shutter speed, but the fast motion rider will catch the flash and freeze, seemingly stopped in time. This gives the viewer an image fill with motion and speed that would otherwise not be possible.
So get your flashes off camera, play, experiment, and have fun! It will make all the difference and give your images life they wouldnt otherwise have.
