I decided to post last weeks’ movie (to be seen here) without audio commentary because I liked the atmosphere it projected. Since a lot of you guys posted questions in the comments I decided to write an article to clarify all the technical stuff in the video & maybe shed some light on the “wedding photographer approach to snowboard photography” :p
I’ve been snowboarding for 3 years now I think and I can honestly say I fell in love with the sport. The culture that surrounds it, the very relaxed atmosphere, the snow, the outdoors, it just calms me down.
After a very, very busy 2008 I really needed to rekindle my passion for photography by shooting for myself. I decided that snowboard photography was a nice challenge & above all a perfect combination of the 2 things I love : snowboarding & photography.
As I discovered this was no easy sport to shoot : hardly any light control, it’s very very very fast paced, you need perfect timing to nail that one shot, you need good riders (snowboarders) that are willing to work with you and you need good knowledge of the tricks they are executing in order to be able to take a good photo of it. A truck load of challenges, just the way I like it 
.
I still have a long way to go, that’s for sure, but it’s a nice change from wedding photography and it keeps my creative juices flowing !
I’ll gather the questions I got in the comments and try and answer them here :
Bram : Did you continuously burst when they jumped or just one-click shot?
When I’m using strobes it’s a one-click shot, but this gives you a lot of misses. The shot might look cool to us, but the trick might not be captured at the exact right time so this generates a lot of misses, but I found out it get’s better fast with practice . When I’m not using strobes I’m shooting continuously and JPEG. Using AI servo you just need to practice following your moving subject at the exact pace it’s going and afterwards you select the shot(s) that best show the trick & style of the rider.
Jason : How did you go with the Camera gear in the snow, Did you take any special measures to protect it.
I take care of my camera gear but I’m not afraid to really put it to the test. My gear was in my Lowepro Pro Trekker AWII backpack which offers perfect protection against the cold & snow. When I put my camera down in the snow (as you can see in the video) to remotely trigger it, I place a plastic bag underneath it to protect it from the snow underneath it, but you can be sure of it that it will get snowed in after a while, not much you can do about it … I’m using the 1D Mark IIn and 1D Mark III which are weather sealed so I’m not really scared of some snow. I would even place my 5D there if I had to (which isn’t weather sealed). Most camera gear can endure a lot more than you would give it credit for.
Last weekend I had an indoor snowboard shoot of a contest and I put a flash with pocket wizard down in the snow. At the end of the day both where completely covered in snow and they are still functioning
Stijn : -How did you handle the light (sunlight and flashes)
-How did you set up the sunbounce correctly (a few test jumps?)
-Some examples of the exif information (fast shutter speed, mid level aperture, low iso?)
-How did you handle white balance (auto, standard camera presets, manual or did you play around with the RAW file afterwards?)
-(as was asked before) did you take a single shot per jump or burst?
-Did you need to do alot of post processing?
I didn’t use any flashed because it was impossible to overpower the sun on that particular day using a 580EX. The snow provides a nice fill since it reflects the sunlight really hard. I decided to shoot against the sun because I liked the effect (I love some flare now and then) and the snow provided the fill light on the riders.
Positioning the sunbounce was pretty straight forward : you aim for the top of the kicker (so far you can still see it’s effect) and then you just aim a bit higher so that you reflect just over it. There’s a chance you miss your target, but using the Sunbounce Pro we didn’t have any problems with it. I wouldn’t use a smaller sunbounce though, because that would be to difficult since the light source is a lot smaller and you can’t ask a rider to hang still in the air over the kicker in order to aim
All photos where shot in JPEG and auto white balance, no correction afterwards. I do check the back of my camera from time to time to make sure it’s more or less correct, but most of the time (if not always) the camera chooses the right white balance.
I didn’t do a lot of post-processing on most pics, just the usual : some contrast, some vibrance to get the colors to really pop and in some cases a little dodging/burning.
FD-pictures : I would love to see more photos taken with 70-200mm. (i prefer telelenses when taking images of a kicker)
It’s no secret that I have a passionate love affair with my 70-200mm but in this case I wanted a bit more wide angle so I used my fish eye most of the time. I also used my 70-200mm but I didn’t really like those shots as much. We’ll have to meet up someday Fabian so you can show me your skills with the 70-200 (and go for some fresh pow afterwards ! )
Stijn : Got another question: Polariser, yes or no? I think I saw a filter on the camera but i guess it’s a UV/protection filter.
It was indeed a UV/protection filter. I don’t have a polariser filter, so I can’t really tell if it’s worth using, but I didn’t encounter problems so it’s perfectly doable without one.
Pepin : Were you using your 5D? Didn’t the low fps limit you? At what focusing mode were you using? (AI Servo?)
No, I didn’t use my 5D because of it’s lower frame rate. I like the focusing on the Canon 1D series, especially with fast moving objects. The shots I shot using the camera in my hand where all with AI Servo, otherwise you would have to many misses when shooting such fast paced action. Just turn the AI Servo on, track the object as best as you can & keep pressing that shutter button
The shots I made with the fish eye at the bottom of the kicker where on manual focus. I had a guy stick up his snowboard in order for me to get something high enough up in the air to focus on. I auto-focused on it, turned of the auto focus and then just like that. Of course using F10 gives you a lot more room to keep things in focus, at F2.8 I’m sure I would have had a lot more misses.
some other problems I encountered :
Looking for new & different angles
I wanted 2 angles on every shot (one shot from the camera, hand held, and one from the camera down in the snow or on a tripod) so I needed to find a way to trigger 2 cameras at once.
My friend Bert was kind enough to borrow me his cable to connect a camera to a Pocket Wizard (you see, you don’t need to own every piece of equipment, just use your network Thanks btw Bert ! )
Using a Pocket Wizard to remote trigger a camera also allowed me to shoot from certain angles that would otherwise be impossible or to dangerous to shoot from. I can assure you that you don’t want to get hit by a snowboard . You just put the camera down, pre-focus and move a safe distance away. If your camera is on burst mode it just keeps firing until you release the button on your Pocket Wizard.
When setting up the shot with the 3 riders jumping all at the same time with the other 4 of us lying down underneath the kicker almost got me killed … One guy ignored us and jumped the kicker with me lying down on the landing focusing the camera … Imagine you lying there and a guy landing on top of you : it can get you both killed … We had some pretty close calls with guys just barely jumping over the camera but I prefer my camera getting smashed instead of me !
Finding people to pose for you
I made some friends that are very good snowboarders so this part was pretty easy, but I found out that a lot of people want a nice photo of themselves. In other words, if you want to give it a try just get out there on the slopes, get into the fun park & talk to some good riders. They’ll be stoked to get some nice shots and they will be more than willing to jump a couple of times for you if you promise to send them the photos afterwards ! I’ve gotten to know a lot of new people while we where up there shooting so don’t let that hold you back !
I hope this article answered most of your questions, if you should have some more drop them in the comments and I’ll make sure I’ll answer them !
Pieter
