Im begining to like the photos of the rider in the air and the background being dark whilst the riders lit up.  Am i correct in my understanding that a flash gun has been set up underneath the rider and the set off when they're in the right place?  And the camera is to have a small aperture and long exposure setting. Really interested in learning how to do this any help is appreciated.
Cheers,
Tom.

Closest I colud find was http://forum.southerndownhill.com/index.php?topic=77157.0 the first one.  But others I have seen where it is very dark.

By the pictures there could be two things you mean, e.g. what Ady said above where all the light comes form the flash so yeah you would use a fast shutter e.g. 1/1000 and whatever aperture required for the flash.

Ady also mentions the sync speed - important with film cameras but on some digital cameras the shutter is actually just the CCD turning on and off for the shutter speed and not shutter curtains. e.g. I have never had the problem of half the photo lit with flash and the other half not.


The other effect you could mean is having the rider lit with flash, but none of the surrounding scenery, and this can only really be done with some kind of off camera flash as in the photo's posted?

I think the sync speed for that camera is either 1/90 or 1/125 so you would need quite dark conditions or a powerful flash to get the dark background, lit rider effect.

If the camera has a standard flash sync socket then you can buy a sync cable and plug it into a flashgun that has the standard sync connection.

If your camera doesn't have a sync socket then you can buy an adapter for about

Yeah 35mm, 3ooD and 350D are the digital versions.  I got it in the U.S. 'cause it was a tad cheaper.  The otehr version was the XS but that had an in built flash.

canons are about 250 max sync... but you can use high speed sync on flash if you like all that does is allow you to use a higher shutter speed with flash by altering the output timing - the result is that the flash cant output full power and your range drops...

eg:

if you want to sync above 250 - say 500th of a sec the flash will fire over a smaller time than it is possible for it to output full power at its maximum guide number (or range) so it will lose some range so you will possibly need to move closer to subject - this is used to allow a dark subject against a bright background to be exposed correctly by illuminating the subject to the same level as the bright background. you can imagine if you were shooting a dark subject against the sky the difference in light would be large and it would take a powerful flash to illuminate the subject to the same level as the sky so they both exposed the same in the picture.

thus if you are far away from a dark subject and are shooting against a bright background you either need a really high guide number or remote flashes triggered very close to the subject....

I hope this helps but im sure ive just complicated a simple subject :s

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