moving night shots

jaybe1

Hey all have a Nikon D70s and I'm trying to take shots of a mate that does motorbike stunts. It's mostly in the evening when the light is getting low and can't get any good shots. Shutter speed too fast too dark, slow and it's blurred. Flash looks awful !! So any tips have the camera a few years but never really got to use it at night so want to improve my photography. Lenses I have are 18-70 standard lens and nikon 55-200 Vr. Thanks in advance.

dirtyghettokid

have you thought about using off camera flash? placed in a way that it won't be as harsh as flash on your hot shoe


something to look like this

Geo by renan4, on Flickr

jaybe1

Thanks for the reply. I don't have an off camera flash but I do have a top mount flash would that do ? Probably not !!

Promac

Get a big flashlight from a hardware shop and stick a sheet of photocopier paper over the front of it. Shine it at your fella on the the bike from a different angle than you're shooting from and robert's your mother's brother. You might need to muck around with the white balance but that's easy.

Be careful not to set fire to the paper

jaybe1

Promac wrote: »

Get a big flashlight from a hardware shop and stick a sheet of photocopier paper over the front of it. Shine it at your fella on the the bike from a different angle than you're shooting from and robert's your mother's brother. You might need to muck around with the white balance but that's easy.

Be careful not to set fire to the paper

I'll try not to !! a candle with a sheet of paper over it would hardly do no :eek:

af_thefragile

Flash light is a good cheap idea.

But if it doesn't work and you wanna be doing it often, you might wanna invest in a couple of camera flash lights with remote sync and such so you can set the flash wherever you need to close to the biker and then when you press the shutter button on your camera, the flash you place will fire illuminating the biker...

They can be pricey though... But in the long term it'll be more handy if you're gonna be doing lots of such pics and taking portrait photography and such.

jaybe1

af_thefragile wrote: »

Flash light is a good cheap idea.

But if it doesn't work and you wanna be doing it often, you might wanna invest in a couple of camera flash lights with remote sync and such so you can set the flash wherever you need to close to the biker and then when you press the shutter button on your camera, the flash you place will fire illuminating the biker...

They can be pricey though... But in the long term it'll be more handy if you're gonna be doing lots of such pics and taking portrait photography and such.

Cheers what kinda money we talking ? Probably not worth it for me though I don't get to take the camera out too often these days.

af_thefragile

I'm not very good at flash photography as I only mostly take landscape pics, so I can't give you any accurate figures but I'ld say you're looking for around 300-400eur for a flashgun + wireless transmitter.
You could probably get it for much cheaper if you go with one of them e-bay brands...

dirtyghettokid

i have a yongnuo YN560 which is pretty good. it was only €60 on ebay.
it's not as good as my SB's but you can't fault the YN for that price really. i read alot of reviews from good photographers before buying. triggers can be got cheap on ebay also.
don't forget, people are always selling second hand flashguns on adverts!
and anyways you could always use the CLS on your nikon to trigger a flashgun!

jaybe1

Cheers guys must keep an eye out on adverts for an SB or something similar there a handy piece of kit. Don't know much about cls but it's a nice feature and would like to try it out if I got an SB.

dmg1982

Definitely worth looking into off-camera flash, start with something cheap like the Yongnuo models (I've a few YN560's and haven't had any major issues with them). You can trigger them with your pop-up flash on the camera.

Check out the 'lighting 101' lessons on Strobist to get started. I just reviewed an ebook on my site that you might find helpful too (here).

Also try panning the camera with slower shutter speeds to show the motion of the bike stunts - results can be interesting.