Thursday, March 13, 2008

Creative photography at the Skatepark

I've been taking my son Sawyer to the skatepark so he can ride his scooter (much better activity than playing on the computer)... but the skatepark can be boring for me (I've tried skateboarding and it's not for me). So, I always bring my camera so I have something to do. Now, I've taken like 1000 photos of Sawyer riding his scooter - so I decided the other day to try some creative effects, here are some of my best results:

Canon 5D, Canon 24mm f2.8 lens (the wider the lens, the closer to the subject you must be and the more motion blur you create), Shooting mode of Shutter Priority, Shutter-speed of 1/10 of a second (slow shutter-speed creates motion blue), Aperture of f22 (choosen by camera), ISO 100, auto white balance, Flash is on (external 420ex), flash exposure compensation of - 1/3 (so the subject isn't 'blown away' by the flash.) The flash 'freezes' a portion of the photo bringing more form to the photo.

Canon 5D, Canon 200mm f2.8 lens, Shooting mode of Aperture Priority, Aperture f3.5 (I wanted blurry background), Shutter-speed of 1/2000 of a second (selected by the camera), ISO 400 (to ensure I got a really fast shutter-speed to freeze the subject), white balance is cloudy, focus mode is AI servo (so I could track the subject). (I used the telephoto lens ensures 100% of the background is the 'bowl'.)


Sidebar: If you have a Rebel XT or 10D, the AI-servo is 'not so good' on these bodies.

3 comments:

swimlappy said...

These are great shots. I especially like the "in air" second one, very cool!

Unknown said...

I'm glad you mentioned servo on XT. I have XTI now and I usually shoot at one shot focus which is where I had best results with XT. I went to a kids party with my 10 year old and had great results with AI Servo. Do you think this is a good mode when taking pictures of kids since they are always moving. Can you explain AI Focus. I'm not sure what this is good for but I know in the green mode the camera uses this.
Thanks,
Bob

Clint Bogard said...

Bob: In AI-Servo focus mode the camera locks onto the subject under the focus point selected and adjusts focus as the subject moves. In addition, AI-Servo predicts where the subject will be when the shutter is released. AI-Servo puts a priority on taking he picture when you press the shutter (whether it's in focus or not.) Ideally AI-Servo should be used in conjunction with continuous shooting as not every frame may be in focus. One-shot auto-focus puts a priority on ensuring you're 100% focused--when focus is critical and your subject is not moving, one-shot AF is best. Your 'high precision' cross-type AF sensors are best for AI-servo (center focus point on XTi, 20D, 30D, 5D and most XX0D, X0D models.) For shooting 'kids in action' I used AI-servo. If the kids are more static I use one-shot AF.