Running Round the Track

As some of you may know, I take many of the images seen on Rogue Running’s Blog. The folks at Rogue have a nascent elite training team that need more exposure. (<--- photog joke).

Today we are going to talk about how light a subject like Raul, in the above image, to give some dramatic light to fast moving subject.

Going into to this photoshoot I knew that I wanted to add edge lights. With my wireless triggers, the excellent AlienBee CyberSyncs, my max shutter speed is going to be 1/250th of a second. Faster would be better, but then the lights start doing funny things, so 1/250 it was.

To set my aperture, I just kept upping the dial until I got an f-stop that was making my ambient go somewhat underexposed. It was between f11 and f14 depending on cloud cover. My plan was then to build the subjects up with flash, making them the brightest object in the frame. I setup the flashes at the transition area from straightaway to curve on the track. This gave me the opportunity to shoot the runners straightaway, profile and everywhere in between. The sun is coming in at about a 45 degree angle to the runner.

I setup 3 flashes, one from behind and 2 in front of the subject.

Hopefully, my crude photoshopping will illustrate this setup. The flashes were at 1/2 power, to get me some recycle time. The low flash in front is aimed at the shoes to help freeze the motion in the lower leg and foot area, since this is the part of the body traveling with the most speed. Part of the issue with shooting at 1/250th is that you can get some motion blur in heavy ambient, I was ok with a little but that one flash done low really helped out.

I used the finish line as a marker and general guideline. When I saw a foot or body pass by this position I took a frame. I use this technique in races a lot where I have my triangular zone lighting setup. My flashes are generally out of view, so I use a rock, or stump or whatever I can scrounge as a key to where the exposure will be best.

The second part of the track workout, I wanted to give the new 85 1.8 a spin, to see how it would do in fast moving conditions. Used f2 and underexposed by a stop or so, and then brought down even more in post. I got some images like this one:

No lights were used in these because I was getting f2 and 1/6400 at iso 100. Radiopoppers would be nice, but alas.

You will be seeing more from this group in the future once the Team gets settled and in town.

-JB