Monday Night Ride...

In the last blog I said I had some interesting stuff coming down the pipe, and I'm now here to prove that statement to be true. Despite the fact that I'm on vacation right now, as usual someone manages to find something to get me interested in bringing the camera with me. This trip was no different as apparently a good friend of mine bought brand new Ducati.

(Nikon D3s, 3200ISO, Nikon 28-70F2.8@28mm. 1/2500th@F9. 2 Nikon SB900's and a single Nikon SB800 superclamped toa light stand held by Andy, set to fire via SU-800 Commander unit attached to the camera via SC-28 off camera cable. All speedlights were set to fire at +1.7EV and were zoomed to 105mm)

Honestly that shot wasn't what I was intending to start out with, in fact it was a test shot for the action shot lower on this page. Simple lighting scheme, which was all hard light. 3 Nikon Speedlights all super-clamped to a light stand and held by my buddy Andy as illustrated here:


I set up the lights like that because Andy had a very very important job. Well a few important jobs maybe as his first job was to make sure the lights were pointed at Biker Mike, and to yank me out of the way if somehow I got in said way... Luckily, only once did the bike brush through my hair on the way past, which I suppose is par for the course that I play on when it comes to Photography. In case you're wondering, no that shot didn't make the cut. I'm sure Ducati would have loved that itw as almost just a frame of their logo and the riders left hand pumping the clutch, but this one seemed much cooler...

(Nikon D3s, 2500ISO, Nikon 28-70F2.8@28mm. 1/2000th@F9. 2 Nikon SB900's and a single Nikon SB800 superclamped to a light stand held by Andy, set to fire via SU-800 Commander unit attached to the camera via SC-28 off camera cable. All speedlights were set to fire at +1.7EV and were zoomed to 105mm)

That's one of the final shots there. Originally I wanted to have a much nicer bluer sky, with potentially a bit of a sun flair in the frame. This sky is what I got, and honestly I can't say I'm terribly upset about it. I feel as though it gives it a good bit of dramatic effect, especially since the sun was giving the clouds that orange burst while it started to set. Surprisingly we weren't out there for very long, I figured it would take quite a few more attempts at this, and really I'm very intrigued about doing it again having learned a few things on this attempt. Who knows, I may have to pull a Redo on this one. The action shots at least, the few portraits I shot I was relatively pleased with. More Soon.

(Nikon D3s, 200ISO, Nikon 85mmF1.4. 1/1250@F2. Single Nikon SB900 zoomed to 70mm attached to the end of a light stand held above Biker Mike by Andy, set to fire at iTTL +-0EV from a Nikon SU-800 Commander Unit from on camera.)