Parkour - From the french "Parcourrir" - I need your wisdom here

ScottMcLeod

So, here's the deal. I grabbed a 580EX flash from work, as well as a Sigma 17-35mm 2.8-4 Lens.

The first thing I noticed is that my 300D couldn't expose ANYTHING properly with the sigma, so I was fighting over and underexposure all day. I know that clear sky and sun is the hardest situation to shoot in, but I'd like some tips if you had any.

The second problem is that when I was using the 580EX, stuff was turning out better, but the shutterspeed was 1/200th, which isn't enough to capture the moment of a move in "Parkour" (or free-running, as it more may appropriately be called.)

Solutions?

Anyways, Here's my quick Intro. This is the largest North-American Parkour meet that has existed yet. We were calling it the 100-man-meet, but we only ended up with a little shy of that... I guess we'll just have to get it next year!

Parkour is the art of movement through an urban environment. What we were doing wasn't really parkour, but moreso training the individual moves which are used in parkour. (Parkour itself can't really be photographed.)

Without further ado, here's a whackload of photographs. I hope they're not too big... Comment away. I was totally off of my game because of my hardware troubles.







4-Shot sequence of a Backflip








(I wish this one had come out crisper)


(A portrait with my new Tamron 28-75 XR Di)


The light started making it really hard to shoot...


Completely overexposed, but I like the way it turned out with a few tweaks...


Again, exposure was garbage... but I love the... super-man-likeness of it.

I think those are some of my best... There's a few others I may post if people express the interest.

Full criticisms wanted. I need to get better at this whole shutter-buggery.

Ann McRae

This one is good.









as is this one




My suggestion for this one would have been to try it from ground level - shoot across at your subjects rather than down. It might have made a difference to the composition. It has an interesting sense of movement, though.

(I wish this one had come out crisper)



This is very nice.

(A portrait with my new Tamron 28-75 XR Di)



This one has too much clutter, too many background elements that compete with the subject.



So you did not actually tell us your apeture or iso or shutter without flash. (I do not know your reason for using flash anyway?) When I shoot soccer, I leave the lens wide open, and vary shutter and apeture to get the exposure right. And when it is cloudy I struggle changing things all the time. I have learned that it is better to under expose than over expose, if you can't get it right. As well, you didn't mention whether you were using center weighted focusing, AI servo etc (does the 300d have those?). So we may be able to give more tips if we know more of this info. Otherwise, from my experience, good shots come with practice, practice, practice.
ann

ian408

Shooting in areas of extreme dark and light is difficult. Especially when
using "auto" mode. To mitigate this, you might want to shoot in manual
mode. Metering several spots to come up with the "correct" exposure.
The camera's "auto" mode tries to do this but again, areas of extremes
often fool the meter.

Regarding the flash, the camera is only capable of sync'ing flash and shutter
in a given range of shutter speeds. With the camera set in auto, the flash
is detected and the shutter set accordingly.

For higher shutter speeds, you'll need to either open the aperture or
increase the ISO to get them. Maybe a combination of both.

My suggestion would be to use a more manual setting for better control over
your exposure. Realize of course that in a scene like the guy jumping the
fountain, exposing for the group will result in a blown out sky.

No real comments on the lens interaction with the camera though.

Ian

ScottMcLeod

ian408 wrote:

Shooting in areas of extreme dark and light is difficult. Especially when
using "auto" mode...

ian.

Thanks for the tips.

Yeah, I shoot mostly in Aperature priority, with high shutter speeds, varying the ISO to get ~500-1000th with f/11-16 or so.

I guess it was my first time really shooting while carrying a backpack full of lenses & camera gear, so my in-tuneness with the camera was a bit thrown off.

Anne, thanks for reinforcing the note about just shooting with a faster shutter speed rather than a flash.

I usually just shoot with my lenses wide open because I hate depth of field, (or rather, i love narrow DOF), but today I was using more closed apertures trying to get sharper photos overall, it kinda backfired I guess.

Thanks for the kind words about the shots. You're right about shooting from ground when those guys all side-hung off of that pole. I'll try to get the guys to do it again sometime and re-shoot it.

It's all learning, right?

Right! *grabs camera to have fun with 28-75 that didn't nearly get enough use*

coldclimb

Not seeing any pics here... I'm really interested in checking these out, too.

ian408

reload. Or maybe open one in a browser using the properties? Works for me
in IE.

Ian

ScottMcLeod

*laugh* Guys, I finally found out why my photos weren't looking as awesome as they could be.

The program I was using wasn't reading the JPEG's embedded Adobe RGB profile.

I'll re-up these with some enhancements, colour wise.