Shooting at the skate park...help!

Dizzle

My little brother and his friends want me to take some pics of them at the skate park. Never really thought about it.

We will be shooting both day and night shots. The park is very well lit at night.

What do I need here? My only sports shooting with the XT/XTI has been some random stuff at my sons basebll games, nothing major.

Any help is appreciated. They would like to get some shots they can print in a nice poster size for their walls.

Thanks!

banbro

TNicole wrote:

My little brother and his friends want me to take some pics of them at the skate park. Never really thought about it.

We will be shooting both day and night shots. The park is very well lit at night.

What do I need here? My only sports shooting with the XT/XTI has been some random stuff at my sons basebll games, nothing major.

Any help is appreciated. They would like to get some shots they can print in a nice poster size for their walls.

Thanks!

The night shots, I feel, will be your biggest challenge and to get really good shots I would suggest using off camera flash and/or some fast glass. If you are not set up for off camera try shooting with available light in the background of your shot and then just enough flash to illuminate the action. I would also recommend shooting in RAW so that you can have a little more freedom for adjustment in post.

Skateboarding, like all action sports, is fast moving and you generally get one chance to capture "Thee Shot". Definately plan on spending a good amount of time with them and get familiar with their abilities and when they reach peak height or the apex of a trick.

The cool thing with shooting in a skate park is that you have a number of angles to work from you can be down low in a bowl shooting up, on the rim shooting down and everywhere in between.

Good Luck!

TylerW

Most typical skateboard photography really flies in the face of typical sports photography conventions. A lot of wide glass gets used, especially fisheyes. The thought here is that the terrain being skated is as important to the photograph as is the skater itself. Fisheyes have the added benefit of actually expanding the space, rather than compressing it the way telephotos tend to. What this adds up to is that to get these kind of shots, you may have to get a lot closer to the action than you may be comfortable with. But that's if you want to do what is traditional for skate photography - its your eye, go use it and mix things up!

Dizzle

Thanks guys, appreciate the advice. For now what I have is my nifty fifty and the wide end of my walk around.

We will see how it goes and if it's somethign I might get in to then I will look at wider lens offerings.

As far as the night shoot...this place is lit up like you wouldn't believe. It's a city run park so they keep it going through the curfew hours with tons of lights and security.

May go over tonight and try to do some test shots to see how they come out.

SitterS

As far as the night shoot...this place is lit up like you wouldn't believe. It's a city run park so they keep it going through the curfew hours with tons of lights and security.

Are you speaking of Wheel Park?

Shane

pnphoto

I think that the wide end of the lenses you have (accordng to your signature) should work for daytime. My skate shooting in daylight the best stuff is from up close and down low with my 17-55 at the wide end on my 1.6 crop factor D2Xs.

For night, it should work if you are close and wide and can use the f/2.8 aperture. I always find it surprising how well I think something is lit versus how well it is lit according to the light meter. Watch out for backlight (although it may produce a nice effect if used properly).

Dizzle

SitterS wrote:

As far as the night shoot...this place is lit up like you wouldn't believe. It's a city run park so they keep it going through the curfew hours with tons of lights and security.

Are you speaking of Wheel Park?

Shane

No, Denver Skatepark. My class ran an hour over tonight so I didn't have a chance to head over afterward.

May just wait until Saturday...

beetle8

It aint' easy
fast glass, wide angle, get close, flash at rear sync for the night shots has a cool effect.
Keith

[Deleted User]

While I cant comment on the actual skill of taking the picture, the end result the skateboarders are looking for is close-up. As they hit a ramp\jump they want you positioned very close to the landing zone, getting pictures of the underside of the board while they are holding it, or maybe you are at the end of the rail as they slide towards you??

A sequence of shots of the skateboarder, starting just as the hit the jump, flying through the air and landing (I know you need a fair bit of camera to take those types of shot). Close up and personal, in your face sort of thing.

To do this you have to have complete faith in what the skater is going to do because if his landing is a foot or so off that could be you and your camera in trouble not to mention the skater.

Get the skater to do a couple of test jumps, see where he lands, decide between you where you are going to stand, then get him to do the same jump again, tell the skater to do it exactly the way as he did it last time, no extra effort to make it better as that is when it goes wrong.

I have only once taken pics of skateboarders and that was along while ago point and shoot styley. But I take a lot of Kite Land Boarding and Kite Buggy Jumping and either having the guy fly over your head or approach you at 40mph (no brakes) both parties need to have trust in each other.

Now if I could only take a decent picture...........................................

Tim