This was the first time I had ever tried shooting something like this, but the 40D did amazing! ISO 1600 is nothing for this camera. Any feedback would be great.

Nice to see you got some shots of Shaun White.

Awesome...which lenses?

All were shot with the 85mm 1.8 except #4, which was shot with the 17-40 f/4. Most were either at ISO 1250 or 1600, with no noise reduction applied.

I would crop all of these down a lot (except for #3 and the last one, obviously). There's just too much dead space all over these picture. I would also level your horizons in some of them based on making the light tower's vertical.

#1 is my favorite

I disagree completely with Chris on these. Only 5 and 7 need to be cropped further.

2 could be cropped a bit to show less on the right.

In general keep xtreme sports shots very loose.

Check out some shots at Wheels and Wax for examples.

That said, there is is room for tight extremes sports shooting. 1 and 8 are good examples.

Here's six (hope you don't mind - just wanted to see what it looked like myself). He's too centered the way he is now, so cropping out the top leaves him right in the sweet spot (I think). Obviously its smaller because I don't have the original, but compositionally wise that's my vote.


Edited by cm0rris0n on Jan 29, 2008 at 07:34 PM GMT

I'm up for any suggestions anyone might have. I shoot 99% landscapes and do everything in my power to compose my pictures so that I don't have to crop, so it's definitely something I don't do a lot. For action like this though, I think having some open areas gives a frame of reference as to where they are in relation to everything else. #5 is definitely in need of cropping, but like #4 I wouldn't crop because you get a better sense of just how high up he is. Anyway, thanks for the input so far.

Those guys need to learn how to ride a snowboard!

Great Shots!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my $1400 setup was kicking everyones ass with those $7000 setups. Now I just need to convince the guy that let me borrow the 85mm that I lost it...

as i rider and photographer i speak for this sport
pictures where there is not context mean nothing to me as a rider of photographer. they could be 2 feet out of the pipe or 20 feet. when i ski i can get two feet out of the pipe, and i'm not in the x games for that very reason. so show why these riders are so good

i don't even understand number 2
3 is out of focus on the face, too bad you missed by half a foot

4 is pretty close, because we can see the other side of the pipe it makes more sense, but the vertical is off, so double check that


i'm sorry that i'm not bowing down to your images, but i'm not one for flowery ways around the subject. and you asked for feedback
but way to be out there and keep shooting

Thanks for the feedback. I don't really know where I asked that anyone bow down to them, I stated pretty clearly in my first post I had never done this before.

I'm not sure what there would be to understand about #2. He's coming down the pipe.

I didn't realize the face had to be in focus as far as #3 went. I was shooting at f1.8, so it's a pretty thin DOF considering he came out of the pipe about 6 feet from me.

I'll go back through and straighten the images where it's obvious they're slanted. Thanks again.

Nice shots...I won't offer any more criticism than has already been offered since I am not an expert at this genre.

I was at the Winter X Games and hauled my 40D to the midway point on the halfpipe, turned it on, and was reminded that I didn't put my CF card back in!!! DOH!!! Well no pictures of the halfpipe!

I came back the next morning with my 1D AND a CF card and shot the Snowmobile Freestyle practice. If I get a chance to process and upload the images, I'll share them!

Thomas, I've done the same thing. I went to an assignment twice with no cards. I had to borrow a P&S for the shot. Horrible quality and it was a front page shot too.

Caleb Williams wrote:
Thomas, I've done the same thing. I went to an assignment twice with no cards. I had to borrow a P&S for the shot. Horrible quality and it was a front page shot too.

Luckily I wasn't on assignment and was only shooting for myself. Pretty unprofessional huh!!

Damn, that sucks! We made it up pretty high as you can tell. I took my 5D and 40D, both did really well. I loaded up on the CF cards. I took 18 gigs with me. I didn't need that many though because I just ended up shooting in JPEG. We tried to shoot the freestyle finals Sunday night, but the snow was so heavy it kept focusing on that. It was still an awesome time though.

Roberto your pictures are quite good, 4 and 5 are my favourites.
I've read many things about 'how a snow photo should look like', but I don't agree with that, I prefer to innovate or show something different than the rest. That's what can make you special as photographer.

Thanks Lobo. Moving around was limited, so I was limited on my angles. I'd love to get the chance to take some shots like you posted last week, those were amazing.

As Reuben said... these are some of the best boarders in the world. Your goal as a photographer is to show us why these guys get paid to play. If I had to compare it to a genre of photography that was more familiar to people here... it would be like a wedding photographer taking photos of just the groom during the kiss. Why would you do that? Thats not creative style... thats just poor photography. Shooting a "guy in the sky" for boardsports is no different. The jump is the bride to the crazy groom 16 feet up... you need to show them both!

Theres an album on the Transworld website website covering the event... not that these photos are the perfect examples of banger shots, but they give you a good sense of what people are talking about when we say "show the feature in the photo." (I actually think some are too loose... oh well. The best shots wont show up online til after they're published, anyway...)