Timing is Everything! With a little luck...

rsj1 · Jan 13, 2015

I took this last February at old Fort Niagara. The gentleman's name is Ryan. This was the shot I was kinda/sorta hoping to capture, it was the 5th shot of a 7 shot burst. He counted down from three and I started shooting when he said two... 3.9 frames per sec... I was using a 5D MKII w/ 24-70 2.8L II. It was a very overcast day, sleeting, snowing, windy...etc. I knew that in order to capture the muzzle blast in freeze frame I would have to have a relatively high S.S. so I set at 3200, I also wanted a decent DOF so I set at F8 that made ISO fall to 4000. C&C welcome...

Granddad · Jan 13, 2015

Love this! Well done.
It would be interesting to try it from the other side, with the firing pan away from you so that the smoke from that has the chance to be behind (framing) his face instead of obscuring it... though that may just be a theory that won't work in reality.

P.S. since I'm being nit picky, I'm a little disappointed that you didn't manage to get the bullet (ball) in flight about a metre out from the muzzle flash and nicely motion blurred. (KIDDING!! :eyebrows:

)

Usul · Jan 13, 2015

I agree with previous poster about trying to take the picture from other side and maybe I would try a more tight crop from top and bottom.

kanuski · Jan 14, 2015

Great shot! No pun intended. I agree that a tighter crop would be nice. I think it would make the reflection in the window more obvious as well.

rsj1 · Jan 15, 2015

kanuski said:
Great shot! No pun intended. I agree that a tighter crop would be nice. I think it would make the reflection in the window more obvious as well.

Here's a bit tighter of a crop. I kinda didn't really want to show the window too much because you can see my reflection a bit. this shot happened very quickly, I didn't have any time to set the shot up. Because of safety reasons I had to be a bit away from the musket muzzle. I just kinda happened upon the scene when he was just about ready to shoot. The 7 shots took less then 3 seconds.

rsj1 · Jan 15, 2015

Granddad said:
Love this! Well done.
It would be interesting to try it from the other side, with the firing pan away from you so that the smoke from that has the chance to be behind (framing) his face instead of obscuring it... though that may just be a theory that won't work in reality.

P.S. since I'm being nit picky, I'm a little disappointed that you didn't manage to get the bullet (ball) in flight about a metre out from the muzzle flash and nicely motion blurred. (KIDDING!! )

Thanks! I didn't have any say as to where he stood during the demonstration of the musket. And the musket wasn't loaded with a LIVE musket ball!

Granddad · Jan 15, 2015

rsj1 said:
Thanks! I didn't have any say as to where he stood during the demonstration of the musket. And the musket wasn't loaded with a LIVE musket ball!

Of course not... but wouldn't it be uber cool if you could set something like that up? Just dreaming.