Anyone got any photo question?

When I started I shot almost every rider at a national and sometimes that worked out if they ended up being a star rider but most of the time it just wasted film so I became more selective and these days I shoot the riders my clients pay me to or the riders I have a pretty good idea will sell. I find a spot and might shoot that for a couple laps and then move on to a new place but I hardly ever try to shoot more than one part of the track from the same location although sometimes that works. I try to find a section of track that has cool action and then find a vantage point where I can shoot from that will give me a nice background, no porta-cans, ambulances, track workers, dumpsters or general trackside junk. And remember that the sun moves, a spot that's nice in the morning might be awful at 2:00PM and then at 6:00PM be great again. The best time to shoot at a National is in the first two practices then in the last 450 moto.

Bad Billy Ursic hooked me up today with those wallpapers, sure was a nice surprise.

I think it's too late to do an 08 calendar but I might have to do one for 09.

Yeah Mike you know first hand what a challenge it can be, sometimes I feel like a photo surgeon trying to cut out the tiniest peice of the track that looks good. Sometimes you just can't so that's when a 300 2.8 comes in handy like this shot of Ricky from Highpoint, this jump was awesome but I really didn't like that row of portacans in the background so I switched over to AV mode picked f2.8 as my lens setting and hoped that the out houses would get blurred enough to be un-offensive.
[img:26m85tft]http://www.racerxill.com/images/wallpapers/800/0000001190.jpg[/img:26m8…]

[quote="pmcc":16pjyjb7]Paul how should I go about sending a few good shots that i think magazines might be able to use? I have emailed a couple of photos to mags this year but no response.

I normally go to Irish GP, British GP and MX of Nations, should I maybe be trying to sell the photos to companies for adverts?

Here a link to a few shots from this years british gp [url:16pjyjb7]http://www.pmccphotography.com/British_GP_Wallpapers/index.html[/url:16…]

Paul you just have to keep on knocking on doors, sending emails, making calls, sending CD etc get you foot in the door. Do the same with the companies since they usually have more money than the mags do, find out who their designer is, it's usually someone in-house, not many companies hire outside agencies. Start with your prices high cause if they protest you can always come down but if you start low you can't go up.

[quote="BARSmx":nolbipkw]Arenacross/Indoor sports photography. It seems to be the most difficult for me. What do you suggest, Mode & ISO? Just can't seem to get it right. [b:nolbipkw]TIPS Please[/b:nolbipkw]. (Nikon user)

Thanks![/quote:nolbipkw]

Try this AV mode, f4.5-5.6 ISO 200-400 ambient exposure compensation -2 to -3 stops, flash on TTL less exp compensation = more background blur which can be cool sometimes. Arenas are usually darker than stadiums so flash is more necessary in them. Try shooting ambient light at SX stadiums use 800-1600 ISO and manual mode, meter off something like the dirt then look at your cameras histogram to make sure the highlights aren't blown out or the shadows filled in. You might get 500 at f4.0 in a good stadium.

[quote="BARSmx":1hopowir]After looking at my settings from last season I can tell I was going the wrong way trying get the right light.

Thanks, I'll give it a try later this week.[/quote:1hopowir]

Post an example or two and we'll take a look to see how the new settings are working for you.

Hey those aren't bad shots, the KTM pic's pretty good and well exposed. In the two jump photos it looks like the camera was fooled by the ceiling lights so manual mode would have helped there. The track looks like an indoor practice facility so that's probably even darker than your typical arenacross venue, if that's the case shooting ambient might be out of the question.

Sure Trip, post a few.

Trip I'd just work on backgrounds, a few feet to the left or the right might have made a big difference. Also you might try one of the outer AF sensors, like in the Grant photo if he was more over to the right of the frame and the left side of the photo was all roost, now that would have been much better and that way more of the fence and fallen down banner would have been out of the pic (that woulda been a good thing!). Try cloudy white balance to warm up the colors even on a sunny day.

Yeah Chuck, post them here, that way everyone can see what's going on.

Hey BARSmx those are a ton better, you did great. Try some at -1 to -1 1/2 ambient exp comp to get some more blur into the background or if you were using manual mode try lowering the shutter speed 1 step for each shot and take around 8-10 pics at the same jump to see what the different shutter speeds get you. Start at 1/250 and go lower from there.
The guys in Ohio are going to like these photos, keep it up.

Squid, the exposure mode doesn't affect the color tone of the photo, that's more a result of the time of day and the white balance set on the camera. Try this, shoot a couple photos in a turn at noon, then a couple more at 2:00PM then a couple more at 4:00PM and finally a couple more at 6:00PM, I think you'll like the shots later in the day a lot better. But I know there are times when you can't say "Hey Mr Whitelock, can we run this moto when the light's better, say around five?" So try this too, at 2:00 shoot a couple shots on auto white balance, a couple on sun, a couple on cloudy and if you can a couple on custom WB. Stay in the same spot, use the same exposure mode just chage the WB setting. Finding the best angle for the worst light just takes practice but when the light's really bad (first 250F moto at a national) I like to shoot backlit and let the open sky illuminate the rider instead of direct sun.

Squid what camera do you have? Let me know and I'll find a pdf of it's manual online somewhere and get you some good settings