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Shoot: Action Shot with Strobes

Lesson 23 from: Action Sport Photography with Red Bull Photographer Corey Rich

Corey Rich

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Lesson Info

23. Shoot: Action Shot with Strobes

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

14:35
2

What Makes A Great Action Photo

1:14:37
3

Conceptualize the Shoot

08:52
4

Research Location / Wardrobe / Props for Action Shoot

17:01
5

Safety Tips for Action Photographers

05:35
6

What Gear Do I Need? Packing and Prep

31:42
7

Workflow and Asset Management

31:45
8

Ingesting and Organizing Files

42:00
9

Editing Down Your Selects

15:34
10

Post Processing Overview

08:15
11

Working with Clients to Select Finals

21:36
12

Retouching & Post Processing: Image 1

23:59
13

Retouching & Post Processing: Image 2

07:06
14

Retouching & Post Processing: Image 3

09:15
15

Final Client Delivery

07:41
16

Introduction to Snow Athletes

05:28
17

Setting up the Shot: Using Natural Light

12:36
18

Getting that First Action Shot: Snow Park

15:30
19

Scouting Location for Action Shot: Snow Park

16:45
20

Capturing Variation of Snow Park Action Shot

07:52
21

Refining the Snow Park Action Shot

13:16
22

Action Shot with Strobes Overview

02:51
23

Shoot: Action Shot with Strobes

06:50
24

How to Light Using Strobes

08:12
25

Action Shoot: Snow Park with Strobes

13:59
26

Refining the Snow Park Action Shoot: Using Strobes

09:31
27

Capturing Variation with Snow Park Athletes

32:03
28

Capturing Portraits: Snowboarder

24:05
29

Capturing Portrait: Skier

38:36
30

Shoot: Feature Jump Action Shot Afternoon Natural Light

10:11
31

Introduction to Today's Shoot

04:09
32

Building a Rapport with the Athlete: BMX Rider

04:03
33

Scouting Location for Action Shot: Indoor BMX Park & Natural Light

06:50
34

Getting the First Action Shot: BMX

06:40
35

Conceptualizing the Action Shot: BMX

11:02
36

Prepping Gear & Refining the Action Shot: BMX

06:04
37

Action Shoot: BMX Athlete with Natural Light

04:37
38

Setting up Remote Cameras

24:27
39

Capturing BMX Action Shots: Remote Cameras

16:53
40

Conceptualizing the Shot: Using Strobes in Indoor BMX Park

13:25
41

Lighting with Strobes: Indoor BMX Park

10:57
42

Action Shoot: BMX Athlete with Strobes

19:38
43

Capturing Variations of BMX Athlete

09:20
44

Shoot High Angle Action Shot: BMX Rider

22:34
45

Directing an Athlete Portrait: Indoors

11:18
46

Lighting a Portrait: Indoor BMX Athlete

17:04
47

Portrait Demo: Indoors BMX Athlete

21:30
48

Portrait Demo: Adding Atmosphere

13:13
49

Transmitting Live from the Field

12:26
50

Panel Q&A

49:41

Lesson Info

Shoot: Action Shot with Strobes

You're on cloudy white balance with burst. Okay, perfect, perfect. Okay, so I'm on, I'm on the Nikon D and I have the Profoto Air System on top if you're wondering what this is. This is so that we can communicate with the heads. But we're not doing that now. I'm just leaving it on the camera because it makes it a little bit easier. Now because I'm shooting natural light I'm gonna go ahead and put it in continuous high so that I can shoot a bunch of frames as the athletes slide down the rail. I am on cloudy white balance. I'm 100 ISO, f5 at 1600th of a second. Now I'm in auto-focus but I'm actually gonna pre-focus on the rail. I'm so wide on a 16 to 35 that it virtually makes no difference whether I'm at 5, 5.6, f8, f4.5 I have plenty of depth of field when their 15 to 30 feet away from me. So I'm not so concerned about auto-focus. This is less about tracking and it's much more about composing my shot and figuring out what I want in the frame, I'm pressing the shutter. And let's see w...

hat we can do actually with a 16 to 35 natural light. So of course before they get out there, and actually Bret I'm gonna go ahead and pop this off, maybe I'll let you do that. One of the things that I try to do, and the reason I just took that off is I wanna keep my ball cap on a little longer, it's keeping my head warm. And so I can get it underneath my hat if I don't have the remote on. As soon as I put on the remote of course I need to turn my hat around. Okay, so let me check my exposure. And I forgot we're tethered. Okay, by the way, one other important note anyone that just tuned in, this is not how I typically shoot outdoors. I do not bring a folding table and a laptop and a generator to shoot. But we're doing this so that you can see at home the pictures that I'm shooting. So this is called shooting tethered. I have a cable plugged into the camera, we're shooting into Capture One on a MacBook Pro. And I'm gonna need to walk over here occasionally. That looks like we're actually pretty decent. I could actually open up. Why not go to 1600? Why don't I, let me shoot a frame at 1600th of a second. Okay how's that lookin'? Seems a little better for available light. Alright. Okay, so one other thing I wanna point out is I have some strobes set up, we're not using them right now, this is really about just figuring out what this image is gonna look like, what the action is gonna be as the athletes move through the frame. Hey Cody! Let's do it. (camera shutter rapidly clicks) Okay, so did a burst of frames. I bet we got 10 frames as Cody moves through the air. And right away I can see a few issues occurring. I can see, and you know we touched on this this morning, but it's worth pointing out, the rail looks great, it's branded Northstar, you can see the snowflake, it's yellow, but that black flag sticking up in the background, pretty tough. It's just an object sticking out of Cody's back. So, I'm gonna ask, is there any chance that we could actually pop the, take the black flag down? Perfect, perfect. And myaybe even just hide it behind that far rail, would be great. So, you know, I'm organizing the frame. That's kind of the first step. I'm trying to figure out what's happening in this photograph. What's working, what's happening in this photograph that's not working. Now, as you see this at home, what you're seeing is this is not the most, you know this is not an incredible composition. But I'm pretending I'm shooting this for sort of what we call the endemic world, which is in the snow sports park world, people like to see the entire feature. So you know, where they're starting, where they're coming from, and where they're ending, exiting the rail. So, Cody looks good, of course that's no surprise. Cody always looks good as he's skiing. I can also see that, one of the issues is Cody's wearing a green sweatshirt. And while it's kinda bright when you're looking at it on snow, as soon as we see it against these dark trees, and I decided to shoot in this direction because there are actually, there's a dark background. And so I can see that there's a bit of a challenge and by adding light we might be able to make Cody pop a little bit if we can just create some fill. So, I wanna do the same thing, we've removed the flag. Now I wanna shoot that same picture with Dylan on the snowboard. Dylan's in a slightly brighter top. He has kind of a reddish-orange flannel, same flannel that he was wearing this morning. So, let's try that, let's see how that looks with available light and then we'll decide to progress into adding some strobes. Okay. And let's, okay Dylan let's do it! Okay our exposure just changed. (camera shutter rapidly clicks) Okay. So, one thing that happened there is just as Dylan started heading down the hill our exposure changed so that he's in the clouds, we're in the shade, so that's a fail, right? I'm still exposed for the highlights because I have to be we still have bright clouds above our heads. And so this is a great moment where adding strobes makes a difference. Somehow we need to make Dylan's exposure on the rail equal or greater than the exposure of that background. So, this is kind of the nature of shooting in outdoor environments. We have no control over what Mother Nature's gonna dish out. We started out with bluebird sky, now we have partly cloudy. And partly cloudy I'll take any day, over bluebird sky, because it's more dramatic, it gives us something to work with in terms of elements in the sky. However, it makes it tricky because the light just keeps on changing on us. So, Cody is gonna take another pass here. I'm sort of always paying attention to what he's doing. Alright, that looked cool.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Action Sport Photography Gear List

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

If you're looking to learn from one of the greats of action photography who also happens to be an incredible instructor, look no further! Corey Rich and his fantastic team will show you every facet of being a great action photographer and they share all of their insights from A to Z. Their instruction is heartfelt and they laid it all out there for everyone's benefit. A huge thank you to Creative Live and Red Bull Photography for bringing this to the world. This is a must have class in your library!

Zoe Heimdal
 

I really enjoyed this class! I am not an "action sports photographer" -- just an avid photo enthusiast, and I found this class highly informative/interesting. Corey has a very down-to-earth quality in the way he presents information... a regular guy, who knows a ton, and is sharing his wisdom. Clearly many topics/tips were off-the-cuff as he ran into situations during his shoots -- it just felt very "real" -- like I was there with him, getting a private lesson. There was quite a bit of info dealing with camera cards/photos/apps that was ubiquitous to any photographer. And then it was interesting to hear about his travel bags and what he brings to shoots (a ridiculous amount of gear, but everything with a purpose). There are hours of on-site filming for an outdoor ski and an indoor bmx shot... with Cory trying/failing/succeeding in many attempts at things -- just like a real photo shoot would happen. His advice for capturing a good/workable shot from the get-go and then spending the time on the riskier/more-creative shots, was solid -- as far as keeping your clients happy no matter what. I was genuinely surprised at how interesting/useful I found this class (being that I rarely take action shots) -- and I'd encourage any photo enthusiast, or person in the earlier stages of any professional photography career, to check out this class. My one piece of constructive criticism for Cory/CreativeLive -- try to represent women? This class only had the briefest of inclusion of females, and left me with the impression (I'm hoping incorrectly), that the world of action sports photography, is a man's world.

Student Work

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