Advice on an action photo

[Diddy2theJJ]

Hey guys, I do alot of commercial photography for restaurants etc and have been trying to expand what I shoot into some more interesting, unique photos. I have been reading one of Joe McNally's books thanks to the suggestion from Big Mike (I appreciate that alot...he's amazing).

Anyway, a friend of mine is big into running and did well in the Boston marathon last year and we got to talking and we're going to try and get a cool photo of him running.

Here's what I'm going for. A brick wall as the background...and what i would like to do is have the shutter open for a long time and have a blurred trail of him running and a crisp image of him at the end of that trail. I'll try a couple angles, one with me directly in front of the wall and one with me closer to the wall getting more perspective with it. I would like to light him with two speedlights using a pocketwizard setup in manual mode. Probably gel the front one with orange and the backlight with blue for some contrast.

I did some experimenting outside tonight, but i think it's too dark for it. I set my camera for second curtain sync with the flash. Shutter was 1 second and aperture was f/8. What i ended up getting was a semi transparent shape of the runner (which in this case was me so i don't waste his time). So i'm thinking it was just too dark outside.

I also tried putting the flash in multi mode and firing off six bursts during the second the shutter was open...but i just got six transparent runners there and no blur.

Do you think this would be best done in broad daylight with a slow shutter? I will probably try some tomorrow but i would really appreciate any suggestions. Thanks in advance.

- Diddy

 

[fotograf biel]

Hi,
you definitely need more daylight to have the wall well blurred without having a ghost runner in front. Also don't use a to long shutterspeed, a 1/4s will be enough (depending how fast you move the camera).

 

[gsgary]

Are you after this effect ? Flash on camera second curtain 1/30 F11
http://gsgary.smugmug.com/Sports/Rutland-CC-Midsummer-Road-Race/Image00045/319796423_ByqE2-L.jpg

 

[KmH]

A brickwall? :scratch:

 

[Diddy2theJJ]

That is cool too. Actually what i was thinking was more about having a blurred trail of the runner, and then a crisp image of him at the end of that blurred trail.

The wall would be crisp, so i wouldn't be moving the camera, only the runner would be moving.

But that brings up a really good point about having the background blurred as i follow him running with the camera.

KmH, for some reason I saw a brick wall....like a wide shot with a street light up top shining down the wall and him running in front of it.

If you have other suggestions I am open to other ideas.

I appreciate the input.