*first post ever* I need some help and knowledge.

[cjmcluen]

Heyo! I have a few questions and such that I hope someone can answer for me. A few weeks ago I went to my local skateboard park with my Olympus E-500 and took alot of nice shots of my friends. My friends sponsor asked for me to be the team photographer so I accepted. I have been taking photos for about two weeks now and I decided to upgrade my camera and buy some slave flashes. I want to invest in a Nikon d300 for the 6.5fps and a few features that I think would be useful. Now what I really need help with is the external flashes. If you look at professional skateboard photography they all have external flashes on tripods lighting the shot. I am absolutely clueless on how to even begin looking into flashes. Are there flashes that are better for sequence shooting? Stronger flash? Faster timing? Longer battery life? Anything I should know? I just need a little info on what I should be looking at.. Price, Tech and Brand wise...... Any help would be soo much appreciated :hail:

Sincerely,
Chris

 

[Stranger]

SB-800 is the top hotshoe flash for Nikon... I would start there

 

[Big Mike]

Welcome to the forum.

If you go with a Nikon flash, look at either the SB800 or the SB600. With a D300, you should be able to control the off camera flashes wirelessly. I'm not sure how well that would work in bright daylight though. A lot of pro photographers perfer to use radio remote flash triggers like Pocket Wizards. This would mean manual flash control and metering...but virtually no firing problems.

6.5 fps is good for sports etc....but you probably won't find a flash that will keep up with that. When using flash for sports, it's more about timing your shot than firing like a machine gun.

 

[cjmcluen]

Thanks for the info on the flashes What are the price range for those? I am a marksman when it comes to timing the shot. I want to put together sequence shots like the ones in magazines.

 

[cjmcluen]

Also where are good places to buy camera equipment?

 

[phox]

adorama.com

 

[cjmcluen]

You guys rule!

 

[nikonkev]

If you plan to use CLS wirelessly with your D300, take advantage of the camera-as-commander, flash-as-remote option. This setup will fail you sometimes though. If this is the way to go, a few SB-600s would be good, as you won't need the commander mode (that the SB-600 doesn't have).

Otherwise, I'd recommend you drop a bit more dough and go for the SB-800s, used as commanders and remotes, with PocketWizards as the triggerer (yah, I made that up - triggerer).

Like Big Mike says, it'll be nearly impossible to keep up with the fps that quick, especially if you're needing a high burst of power from your Speedlight.

 

[D-50]

If your using the D300 check to make sure the on camera flash can act as a commander (I believe it does). Buy a couple SB600s the 800 is better but costs $300 while the 600s are around $200. The CLS system works well it just takes some getting adjusted to, once you get your flashes set your camera to manual, not aperature or shutter and use CLS. I have found I get much better results using CLS in M oppossed to A or S.

Flashes are very useful and a great investment but you may also want to look into portable lighting systems. Set up continuous lighting on the spots where you want to take shots, that way you'll be able to use continuous shooting and not worry about flashes not keeping up.

 

[JIP]

I have seen a link here to a forum that is part technical skate photography. I am not sure of the url as it is on my home computer and I am currently away from home but it did have excellent discussions on all aspects of lighting skateboarding and lots of samples of images and how they were taken. If anyone has it it would be an excellent resource for you used to do alot of skate photography back in the stone age and this would have been an excellent resource for me at the time but as I said this was in the stone age before even the web. O.k. soI did a quick search and found it pretty quickly here it is http://forums.skateperception.com/ . And another resource might be http://strobist.blogspot.com/ .

 

[cjmcluen]

To Nikonkev.. Thanks for the help!!. But what does CLS, camera as commander and flash as remote? I literally dont have any knowledge of flashes what so ever so I hope you can help a little and whats a pocketwizard. Thanks so much


To D-50.. Awesome help on prices my friend What exactly is a Portable Lighting System? The name kind says it but like can you give me some details?


To JIP.. Thanks for the links!! I have been on skateperception but I havent gotten as much help from them as I have here. But that blogspot url is going to help me!



I really appreciate the help from all of you! <3

 

[JIP]

I have to say I wish I had had something like Skateperception back in the '80s when that was my thing. At that time I pretty much had to stumble atround in the darkness on lighting and multiple flashes and gear it would have been a great resource for all of the gear that I wish I aould have afforded then.​

 

[schuylercat]

I shot some skaters back in the early '90's whan I was covering motorsports. It was far, far more challenging than capturing a car at 200mph, and I found it was just as dangerous too - I got knocked on my ass a few times when I wasn't watching what was happening.

Big Mike is dead right - 6.5FPS is going to be handy, but it's not going to get the money shots even if the flash could keep up. Panning techniques took on a whole new meaning to me, given the three dimensional nature of skating, tricks, and air: I was panning, raising, and rotating all at once. Yoga photography.

There's so many variables, including capturing facial expressions and slow-shutter techniques and second curtain lighting - you're going to have a lot of fun learning it all. My stuff was mostly outdoors daytime, but I shot at night a few times, and I just hung a big fat TTL-matched flash off a frame and fired away - I didn't get what I wanted until I read up on second curtain tricks. Fire a flash at a skater in mid-air and it looks...like a skater in mid-air. He could be hanging from a wire. Sports photography is to a degree about balancing light and movement. Get that movement in there with a slower shutter after a flash pop and it's going to get fun.

I talk too much. Good luck!

 

[D-50]

When I say portable lighting system I mean you could buy some type of power generator and then buy some strong lights to hook up to it. Set the lighting where you are going to shoot, next to a jump for example, and aim the lights where you think the action will be. The light will be continuous, more or less you are just putting high powered lights outside powerd y a generator. They sell things like this specifically for photography, however they are expensive, if you have a bit of handyman in you, you could build a system on your own for much cheaper, its not going to look "professional" but all you need is lighting for a shot to create an inmoressive photograph, you are not trying to create an impressive looking lighting set-up. This may be a bit of work so going with Nikons CLS system is probably eaiser. If you are shooting close to a power source and do not need a portable generator you could use a couple 500watt halogen work lights. These will provide enough light and are not expensive.

 

[kundalini]

I have seen a link here to a forum that is part technical skate photography. I am not sure of the url as it is on my home computer and I am currently away from home but it did have excellent discussions on all aspects of lighting skateboarding and lots of samples of images and how they were taken.

Hey JIP, when you get the chance, could you pass on that URL? I have a chance session this weekend.