skiing action shots

[forestgnome]

I'm a novice at the action shot. I was up in Tuckerman Ravine last Sunday on a perfect day and I tried a few action shots of people skiing. I tried to get them doing their thing and capturing the "place" in the image. Dave Metsky is quite good at this. C&C on these images, please.

Here, I wanted to get a few skiiers in a distant type of look. I wanted a sillouette type of look to the skiiers.

My thought process on the action shots was to meter/focus on a spot, then wait for a skiier to enter the spot. How would you do this?

 

[forestgnome]

Also, how do avoid overdoing the polarizer?

 

[DougPaul]

There was an earlier thread that might be of interest: http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16209

Also, how do avoid overdoing the polarizer?

One can turn it to a non-optimum angle to reduce the effect.

Doug

 

[MichaelJ]

I think the thing that makes a skiing action shot is a sense of motion. Often it comes from a spray of snow off the back of the skies or board, or perhaps the skier/rider leaned down at an angle that they couldn't be at unless they were moving.

So for me, the picture of the snowboarder looks like he isn't even moving, but just standing there leaning the board up off the snow a bit. The scenery is great, I even like the framing and the light, but the action isn't there.

 

[David Metsky]

Here are some shots that I've taken in the past few weeks:

 

[skiguy]

I think the thing that makes a skiing action shot is a sense of motion. Often it comes from a spray of snow off the back of the skies or board, or perhaps the skier/rider leaned down at an angle that they couldn't be at unless they were moving.

So for me, the picture of the snowboarder looks like he isn't even moving, but just standing there leaning the board up off the snow a bit. The scenery is great, I even like the framing and the light, but the action isn't there.

Along with spray to give a sense of movement you can try two things. If you look at Dave's first shot he shows a great example of the subject having a place to go within the photo. Giving the skier some lead space gives a sense he is still moving. Secound advice to create a sense of movement is to pan your camera with the subject. This will blur your background again creating a sense of movement. Third you can always slow your Shutter speed....that is three

 

[nartreb]

The main problem with your action shots is that they're shot on relatively flat ground. A couple of your subjects are just walking through.

Your silhouette shot works well except that one wonders why they're hiking sideways - look at all that snow up in the Bowl! If possible, try to show the slope they're aiming to climb.

Metsky's second and fourth shots are fantastic examples of panning with the subject to blur the background. This is not easy as too long an exposure will cause parts of the subject (eg, hands) to blur too, and camera shake must also be avoided (I suspect Dave used an IS lens in Mode 1, and/or a tripod).

Sports photographers talk about getting the "peak" of the action, the point where the subject has reached some extreme (eg, the top of a jump). This often provides both a dramatic pose and a slight pause in movement. Getting the timing right is almost impossible, so I set the shutter to burst mode and try to anticipate such a moment (eg, a skier making a turn). A good zoom lens will give you several tries before the subject moves past you. You still have to have good light, steady hands, perfect focus, and a good background for the subject to "pop" out nice and crisp.

Another thing that Metsky's shots do very well is show the skiers looking toward some downhill goal - head down, shoulders hunched: these guys are obviously moving, not posing.

shutter too slow / pan too unskilled / incorrect focus

probably my best ski shot - a position that's only possible with dynamic balance, but a little background blur would have helped to convey direction. He could possibly just be in the middle of falling backwards.

 

[David Metsky]

Some others from the past that I think were somewhat successful at conveying motion and speed. I highly recommend that your subject wears bright colors.

 

[forestgnome]

Thanks for all C&C so far. I really appreciate Dave's first image because of the place. The forest scene is incredible, then added is a great element of action. It stands alone as a beautiful scene had there been no skiier. The comp is fantastic, IMO.

In my shots from Tuckerman Ravine, the place was central to the comp. Panning is not an option because it would blur the background. There was no loose snow on the floor of the bowl so there was no flying snow. What I saw was beautiful so that's what I tried to capture. A telephoto was definately not an option, since even my 28mm was bigger than I really wanted because I wanted to capture the whole bowl. The place was very important to the composition.

I guess my question is not how to generically capture action, but how to approach this situation. How would you set your exposure and how would you deal with focus, etc., in this type of situation, when the background is an important part of the compostition?

 

[David Metsky]

Here are some shots from Tucks:

And some from Gulf of Slides:

 

[NewHampshire]

I guess my question is not how to generically capture action, but how to approach this situation. How would you set your exposure and how would you deal with focus, etc., in this type of situation, when the background is an important part of the compostition?

Well, thats a toughie. To keep the background in a static state but reproduce some means of action to the subjects...........well, I guess your only real good option would have been to go with a tripod and go with as small an aperture and shutter speed as you can get. This way your background stays static, but you get bluring of the person to give a sense of motion. Not really sure how well this would work, but it seems like your best option. Unfortunately I don't think you can win on both your desires. Keeping a sharp background and still keeping an interesting foreground subject, the skiers, is going to be impossible to produce a good photo.

Brian

 

[Grumpy]

Forestgnome:

None of yours are true action photos, in my estimation. They lack a sense of motion and dynamism. I like the fourth one best, but as a scene setter.

To answer the question you asked in post #9, take time to study what Dame M did with the first two photos in post #10. The third is worth a close look, too. Lighting that puts texture into the snow is important in the 2nd and 3rd shots. The first one does a nice job of depicting the steepness of the terrain; the plume of snow following the skier is essential to creating a sense of action and motion in the second and third.

I don’t especially like the harsh contrast in the last of Dave’s photos in post #10. But the skier’s posture and skewed angle of the photo give it the dynamic character that’s necessary to make it an action shot.

Dave M:

The sense of action, and especially the lighting in the third photo in post #5 are wonderful. You might wish to crop a tad off the top, just to tighten the composition a bit.

Photo #2 in post #5 is compositionally interesting, with the primary subject skiing out of the frame. Pleasantly unorthodox. The figures in the background, upper left, help a great deal in making this work.

The panned action in the fourth of the post #5 series is nice. I need to see at least part of the ski for it to become a skiing photo, though.

Body posture is what gives us the sense your skier is moving in the fourth shot of your post #8. In the third of that series I really enjoy looking at the snow coming off the skis – the difference between left and right skis.

G.

 

[MichaelJ]

Question - for the follow-the-skier-but-blur-the-background shots, do you use stabilization, turn it off outright, or use (if you have it) a horizontal-panning vertical-stabilizing mode (which I've seen on Canon L lenses)?

 

[skiguy]

I guess my question is not how to generically capture action, but how to approach this situation. How would you set your exposure and how would you deal with focus, etc., in this type of situation, when the background is an important part of the compostition?

Simple...you already have good photograhic skills...donot over analyze. Go with your intuiative sense and let the camera roll...get a fast capture camera and shoot shoot shoot...you might be surprised what you get

 

[rocket21]

One recommendation, if you wanted to keep roughly the same background from the same location, would be to get down low and have the skier pass closer to in front of you. The larger than life-like shot of the skier would actually complement the background. While I'm a terrible action photographer, I have made this effect work a few times - I don't have any examples handy, however.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

How about if you set up to photograph the bowl itself, as is your desire, and then caught someone 1/3 of the way down, leaving a nice trail behind them? You'd still have the bowl as your primary subject, but there would be some action. Given the size of the bowl, however, the skier(s) will be very small, but if you have an S turn trail behind and nothing in front then you'd have some sense of motion, would you not?

Tim

 

[David Metsky]

Shooting in the Bowl is tough, because it's hard to "attach" a skier in the foreground to the terrain in the background. You can capture the "scene" but it's hard to get any skiing action shots that pop.

For that, you either need to pick out a skier coming down and frame the shot in such a way to show a piece of the terrain, or climb up on the runs and get close to the skiers.

 

[forestgnome]

Great stuff, Dave! Thanks to all for comments. I've gotten a few ideas.

NH, thanks for the link!

happy trails

 

[NewHampshire]

NH, thanks for the link!

I stumbled upon it in my random YouTube wanderings and thought you might like it .

Brian

 

[bikehikeskifish]

Go to http://www.waterville.com/winter/index.asp -- There is a flash loop animation showing some nice shots. Look for the 4th ski shot (5th frame -- first is an ad for Toots and the Mayhals) -- A boarder catching big air, framed in the col between Osceola and East Osceola -- A very cool action shot with a nice background.

Tim