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Stroboscopic Action Image

Lesson 12 from: Digital Sports Photography

Dustin Snipes

Stroboscopic Action Image

Lesson 12 from: Digital Sports Photography

Dustin Snipes

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Lesson Info

12. Stroboscopic Action Image

Lesson Info

Stroboscopic Action Image

So, now we're gonna try an in-camera multiple exposure shot. I'm really excited for this. You could do multiple exposures and/or stroboscopic in a number of different ways. You could do it with lights, or you can do it in camera. We chose to do it in camera because we have a little bit more ambient light than we'd hope for. The way I was gonna do it was with using in lighting, like, we can go and set a sequence up, so we can put 10, 20 pops in a certain amount of time. And usually I would ask an athlete how long would it take to get from here to here? And then we would take that time, and set the flashes and then catch him with a slow shutter, and each one of those pops would make it a still frame. But another way to do it is in-camera. So, all new cameras basically have this function. You can go in there and do a multiple-exposure. It looks really, really cool for some kind of action, especially a lateral movement like this. It's gonna look really cool. I'm gonna go talk to Miles, and...

we're gonna communicate together to find out a start point and an end point and try to fit in there what we need exactly and how many frames we're gonna try to capture with it. Miles, right now we're gonna do a multiple-exposure shot, like you may have heard. We're gonna give you a start point, and then we're gonna give you an end point. And basically, or mostly I wanna see where you would start and where you would finish. Okay. So, I need something like a starting position. So, how you would start and then I need some sort of action into the middle, and then, at the end I need some sort of finish move. So, what would you think of when, what would come to mind if I asked you to do that? Probably just like an advance and a jump and a lunge. An advance? So... I don't have to be in the air, right? I can be... Yeah, you don't have to be in the air, but definitely on these shots it looks cool when you separate from that, because we're catching the shots, and they're kind of overlapping each other. You don't have to be in the air, but it kind of gives that explosive, this is the shot right here at the end. So, we'll want me in the air? (laughs) Yeah, but we can also do something else where, like if you have a move that you do particularly, we don't wanna share any secrets, but something that you're known for then we can also capture that. Like a technique that you use specifically, and these are the steps you use in order to make that technique happen. Okay. So, if I say you had five, like if I popped like five flashes along the way or gave you five seconds, how far do you travel in that time? I can go home, them come back. Like to there, to the middle. Yeah, let me give you some points really quick. So, let me look at my camera, see where we're at. Scoot over just a little bit to your left. Let's get you in frame. So, the start point, a little bit more. Come in just a little bit more. That is it right there. So, let's get a little mark for him. If anybody has a piece of tape or something else we can grab and put down on the track right there, that'd be great. Coming. Great, thanks. Just right where his foot is. So, that's gonna be your start point. So then, our middle point is gonna be straight in front of me. So take a step over there. Let's mark the middle point. Keep on truckin'. There we go; keep goin' a little bit more. Right there. So, that's his middle point; let's mark that. Great. It looks kind of similar to the other one. We can go either way too. We can switch ways if we like one way or another. So we'll switch it up depending on how it looks. We'll just sort of map out where we're gonna go and then work on what's gonna be inside later. So keep going further now, we're gonna give you an endpoint. And that is. Put out your foil. Because we don't want to cut that off. So your foils getting cut off so I would take a half step back. And right about there. I can open up just a little wider. Just to make sure I don't lose that foil. Because sometimes, you wanna make sure that you don't have to make an athlete do something over and over and over again. Specially if its a long day. So you want to try to minimize it as much as possible. And sometimes actually, specially if they're in training, or something else, they've already a complete training session that day. And we don't want to tire them out too much. Or a match even later, or tomorrow, or something. Luckily, I don't think there's any matches right now, right? Luckily it's the off season. Yeah, great. So those are your marks right now. We're going to be moving from that point to the other point over here. This is your midpoint. So if we have this space, how long would it take, and what can we do in this situation to get from point A to point B. Jump, and then... Where's our other mark? Right there? Then another flunge type of thing. Cool, that sounds great. And I want you in full gear. We'll see how it looks. So right now we're side lighting him from the back. We want to keep the light off the background as much as possible because when we're popping multiple frames, the light will keep building up over and over. We want to keep him moving, because if he overlaps, it's just gonna be bright, bright, bright, and brighter. So every place he moves is gonna be a new frame within that multiple frame exposure. Same thing on the other side. We using across lighting. No front light, because again, keeping it all off there. They're 45 degree dishes. And a really hard throw. That's gonna look really cool on this very bright outfit here. I'm gonna jump back behind the camera. And we're gonna take a few shots. Currently my exposure is, if I can see it, it's 250th of a second, F5, and we are at 250 ISO. And no high speed sync or anything. So I'm gonna pre-focus on your first spot. Then, since we're moving in a lateral way, I'm going to take my focus. I can't even see, where's the ending point. Oh shoot, do we need a harder... It's just the light, but I'm good. Okay. Alright, so this is a test one, because I'm not sure on your speed. I'm just gonna try to... So, I'm just gonna run. Fast. Let me see it fast. If possible. Because I'm gonna be firing pretty quickly. We could slow it down depending on if we want to slow down your speed or not too. So, whenever you're ready. I will start capturing you. Ready? Yep. (shutter clicking) Good. Let me check. So let me focus again. Make sure our focus is right on. You're gonna stay in that line. Scoot up just a little bit more. Good, I slowed down our shutter, just a little bit. I'm gonna take a few frames off right now. I have the number of shots set to 10, for my exposure. But I think I'm gonna bump it down to about six, and see how that looks instead. There's a couple of other settings in your multiple exposure that you can change. They have an overlay mode. In this situation, we want things to get brighter. We don't want it to get darker. Because, if he's dark over every spot then the black will show through and make his wight not pop out. So I have the overlay mode set to light. And I have the number of shots set to six. We're gonna try that. In a slower style. Whenever your ready Miles. Ready? Yep. (camera clicking) A little too fast on my end. I'm gonna go even slower. I'm gonna just try and single shot it. And do it on my own pace. So now that I know your timing a little bit better. Can I have you do it one more time, and I'm gonna physically count it, without looking through the camera. I'll say go, then I'll count to my self. I'm ready. Okay. Go. So it's about four and a half seconds I counted. I will try to capture that as you go. Jump back to your start position. How are you feeling? Good. Good. Let me know if you need a break or anything. Because, obviously, putting you through a lot of stuff here. I wanna make sure that the athlete is always taken care of, and that they know they're taken care of. Okay, one sec. Let me pre-focus. Take a half-step in. There you go. Pump back there. Alright. I'm gonna take one shot, then I want you to get going. Once you see it flash, get going. (camera clicking) Okay. Let's check that one out. It's gonna take a second for it to pickup. Yeah, there we go. So I fired five times on that last one instead of six. I'm actually bump it down to that instead of six on my number of shots. Just so I can maintain that same thing as what I had before. Jump over to your left a little bit more. Once I fire get going, okay. Ready. (camera clicking) Okay, cool. Let's check that. We're gonna wait. Miles you wanna come over here and check this with me? It's really fun looking up at your American flag face. I'm not taking it off. You're not taking it off, keep it. These new fucking straps are so annoying. So this is what it looks like right now. Oh, shit. I think I actually want to do it the same way we did before. To kind of open you up again. And I think also, I wanna take this light and whatever's facing on him and get it a little bit more forward. So we're not so back lit. Let's go back to this again. Students, you can come check it out, real quick, too. We have a start point. I think I even want a little bit more separation in there. I can even maybe go down to three instead. Maybe even if you had a start point, You had a deeper lunge maybe that I can catch. And we could even do it slower if you'd like. And that way we can really pinpoint the exact spots we want. So if we had more of a shape, from going up to down to up. That would be just killer for me. Okay. Does that work? Yep. Cool. So if we had three positions on this instead of five. We do the start, and then we go into the lunge, maybe. And then we do the flunge. That sound good? And we can start the opposite way as well. Let's try. Okay, cool. Let's try it. Alright. So, I'm gonna move it down to three frames instead of five. So we don't have as much overlap. Gonna go into the multiple exposure window, and knock this down to three instead of five frames. We're still on the same exact shutter, which is 250th at F5, and the ISO is still the same at 250th of a second. Take a half step in there. Perfect, I'm gonna get my focus set. One more step in, sorry. There you go. Actually since we closed it up, go up to that green line a little more. There you go. Right there, perfect. Great, start position. Will do the first frame. Again, we're not gonna do this fast. We're gonna methodically take each one of these shots. First frame, very strong start stance. Good, we'll move into the next frame. Once he's in there, I'm gonna take it again. Now we're gonna move into the third frame. Ready. One, two, three. I think I got you a little late. Was that good? That was good though. I think we could even start further on now. Or actually Miles can you come here. I can bring you the camera. No, I'll come. Yeah, come on over here. And then I'll tilt it up a little maybe too. I think I want a couple more frames in there. And then I can tighten you up, maybe the frame can be there. What do you think? That's pretty sick. That's cool, you like it? That's very, very realistic. Cool, so now we're gonna try it again. We've moved up to five frames instead of the three. We're gonna do a couple of in between moves. And still stretching out. So, here we go. Get ready in a strong starting. One. Two. Three. And what's four. That's four, or is...? This is three. Okay, this is three. I guess I'd have to do it twice in a row really fast, right? Because we'd have to get the lift. And the next one would be. Okay do it. Do the last one now? Yep, Last one. Okay, ready? Yep. I think I could've waited a little bit later. But, that actually looks pretty cool. I like it. Here, you wanna come check it out? Let's do it again. Let's do one more time and then you'll take a look at both of those and tell me what you think. Do full speed this time. Take a half-step in again. I'm just gonna get a pre-focus. Right there. Good, once I fire, get going. And good. (camera clicking) I lost it, okay. I can do seven frames then on this one, I think. We're gonna bump up the exposure, or the number of shots. Seven. And I'm gonna slow down on the first half and really fire on the end. So, same thing we just did, same spots. Whenever you're ready, sir. Alright. Ready. Yep. Dang it. One second. Ooh, this is looking cool though. I'm moving back up to 10 frames. Good, now go ahead. (camera clicking) Dammit. Keep missing that last part. I keep thinking it's gonna go in there, but it's not. It's a little too fast. I'm gonna slow down my shutter one more time. Rely on my own speed as opposed to the camera speed. And we're gonna lower it back down to eight instead of 10. This is why I did this before. Okay, let's try again. How you feeling, you got a couple more in you? Yeah, a couple more. Okay, cool. Let me know. Keep me updated with that. We want to make sure we don't injure you. Okay, let's see here. Pre-focus is set. I'm gonna take a shot. Then we're gonna get moving. Three, two. Ready. Yep. Jump out of the frame real quick. Or step back over this way. I'm gonna take two more shots without you in it. Because I only got through five but I wanna not have you... Take one more half step over to your left. That way, sorry. (camera clicking) Okay, those are just basically filler ones because it's just overlapping them anyway. Check this out really quick. Come over here. I think that looks kind of cool. I think even more, I could catch more of the dip on the first move. But, let's go up here. Right now we have the start. I don't know, we could maybe even, do you think it would look better without this middle position so we have more of a separation between them? Yeah, the middle doesn't This one doesn't matter right? Yeah, doesn't make sense, but ready and there and that. So we want to go from this one to this one, right? And into the lunge and to this one. Do you have the one before that? That was before the lunge, I didn't catch ending on either of those. You mean the one from earlier, right? That was the one where we placed how we did it really slow. So you could see it's a little bit more, I feet like, robotic. I liked when you're actually moving quickly. This is the one where we did the first time, where we just did the three. That's the most realistic. Yeah, I think so. And it looks nice when it doesn't have those butting up on each other. And we can bring it back down to three again. And I can just zoom in a little bit more and get you really in there. Do you like moving this way or do you think you'd look better going the opposite way? I think opening up, still, is always the best way to show. I agree, yeah. Let's try it again. I'm gonna do the three shot again. So basically, I'm gonna do the stance, the dip, and then the jump. Okay. So, we're moving around a lot on all of our multiple exposures. Again, this is not an exact science for these. This is an in-camera multiple exposure technique. I would usually use strobes to do this exact same thing. This is a lot of trial and error. But luckily, Miles is game for it. Because he sees that it's a pretty cool shot. And I think it's a little different. It's worth trying. It's looking good. I think we just need to, we're just working it out, and trying to find the exact positions that look the best, and most authentic to the sport. Let's do the start position one more time. Once I fire that, I'm gonna get the middle position when you're down and then the third position when you're up in the air. We're only firing three frames this time. All the rest of my exposures are exactly the same. 250th of a second, F5, and 250 ISO. So, first position. Nice strong stance. Good. And then go to second to third and I'll get them. Good. And now. Ready? Yep. (camera clicking) Good. Let's do one more, if that's okay? Yep. You know what, we can even cheat this a little bit. Do your first position, take a step, do middle position, take a step, do the flunge. That way we separate it all out. It maybe not super realistic, but it could be a very good illustration of the sport. So, let's try that. I'm gonna take the first shot. Take a half step in. Yep, right there perfect Miles. Okay, this is the one, I can feel it. Three. Two. One. Middle position, take a step in. Go in even more. I want to see you right in the middle for this one. Okay, I'll finish there. Okay, so whenever you're ready. (camera clicking) Good. I think I caught you a little early on that. But, oop. And I ruined it. I'm trigger happy sometimes. Miles, that was completely my fault. We're a team. We are a team. You know what, a good teammate holds the other teammate up. And that's what Miles is doing right now. He's really carrying the weight for both of us here. I appreciate that. Final one, ready? Yep, I am pre-focused on you. Let me double check, make sure. Good. First shot, really strong. Good, get to the middle position. Ready? Yep. Good, Let's do the end position. Remember to take a little bit more of a step. We want to get you really far over there. So whenever you're ready. There we go. How does this look? You get hot in there right? Let me show you what I was thinking. I'll show you the last two. The one we didn't separate as much. So this is the one were we started out with right? I like it. And this is the one where we separated a little bit more. Does that feel weird? No that's much better. I think so too. So, I would say let's do it even more. Can we do it like, just really separate each other? Lets just use those marks and those are gonna be our three positions. Alright. Good, that's a great start position for our mark. I'm gonna take the shot. Three, two, one. Is that your arm position, or is it supposed to be up? Nope this is the position. Great, cool, I just wanted to make sure. Okay, three, two, one. Good, Second position, right in the middle. Like right on that middle line there if you can. What do you mean, here? Yeah, that's where I want you to end up at. Even further away from than we had before. Just to get that nice separation. Okay, whenever you're ready. Great. Would you like it when I catch you right at that deep part of the lunge? Or where I'm catching you, you think it looks pretty good right now? It looks good all right Okay cool. And then get a little bit further over and again, I want you to really get travel a decent amount, to that left side. And whenever your ready. I think I need to widen up. Yeah, So that's a good separation, That was perfect. Perfect in terms of what you did. My camera was a little tight still. So I lost your foil at the end. I'm just gonna take it off the tripod. And just hand hold it on the ground. I'm just gonna take this tripod mount off really quick. (metal clanging) There we go. Let me know when you're ready. Yep, no problem. I'm gonna make sure I'm still set in multiple exposure mode. Yep, three frames still. And. First frame. Good. Second Frame. One sec. Yep. No, that's good. Tell me when you're ready. Okay, go. Nice I really like that one. You got that one, huh. I know I got down low. I saw a little reflection there. That's pretty sick. So I thought that was cool. So how do you like that one? I love that one too. You feel good about that one? I think that one's good. The form on that's good. Yeah, I like the floor in this. It adds a little extra element. So I saw that a little bit and I was like I gotta get down low. That's pretty sick.

Ratings and Reviews

awynterphotos
 

Loved all the ideas and why he's positioned his athletes the way he did, and positioned the lighting. I met Dustin a few years ago at and NPAC conference. It's nice to see him doing these teaching videos. His work is very inspiring to me.

a Creativelive Student
 

Less talk and all action.. This is the best no mumbo jumbo talks and straight to practical work..

Alexandra Schaede
 

I really enjoyed the multiple exposure video, the pity is that they are no videos to talk about the post processing of this image.

Student Work

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