Shooting movement part II……

Yesterday we talked a bit about preparing the shoot and taking care of the model, today some more tips.

Jumping higher or not
For some people a jump is only a jump when it’s high. And although I agree that high jumps are often spectacular I also have to add that the more subtle movement (sometimes not even a jump) is something that can REALLY spice up an other wise standard fashion shot, for example see the next two example of subtle movement (not a real power jump) but it really does change the look of the image.

Trampoline ?
Some models love to use a trampoline and some hate it.
I always use a very small one and in fact it’s more there to soften the landing than to make the models go really high. When shooting in a large room a large trampoline can be great for some real spectacular airtime 🙂

Longer lens
Now this one can be very handy.
When shooting against a seamless background we very quickly run out of space, meaning you can see the background end. What you can do to stop this is to move further back and use a longer lens, this way you limit your field of view and you will find out that a model can fit on the same paper much easier and can now jump more wide poses.

Outside
Inside we can use the stopping power of the strobes and we shouldn’t care about the shutter time, however outside the story chances very quickly. Now we have to compete with the sun, and if we want to make a striking image we will need A LOT of strobe power and this will often make it harder to shoot with a standard DSLR, especially because the sunlight will blur out the movement, so in the case of outside freezing motion shots we actually have to shoot “harder” than the sunlight.

This is where the medium format cameras shine, with their leaf shutter lenses it’s possible to shoot up to 1/1600 with my system (at this moment in time) but there are systems that can go even higher, do remember that not all triggers and strobe units support these speeds. Are DSLRs not usable… well no. When you invest in the Pocketwizard series with Hypersync you can in fact sync higher than 1/125th with studio strobes, BUT… the main problem is that at this moment this works best on the slower strobe units and not for example on the Rangers, so although you can sync on for example 1/500th you’re strobe cannot freeze the action enough. But I’m pretty sure that this won’t take long to get solved, if we for example move to the mirror less cameras this problem is one of the past.

Some closing thoughts
With motion photography getting the perfect shot is very difficult, but do remember that the perfect shot doesn’t exist anyway so it’s useless to go after that one. That doesn’t mean of course that you should just settle for something mediocre of course, but don’t push it too far.

When you want some really cool moves you could consider contacting your local dance school, they are ALWAYS interested in some nice shots and this way you score two points at once, you have some really good shots for your portfolio and you do something nice for the dance school which will always in the end pay back in some form or another.

Also do remember to watch out for what the model is wearing.
For example, don’t let her jump in high heels (yeah some really want to try it)
If you shoot low angles make sure the model is wearing jeans and not a skirt… (I don’t have to into details right ?)

Remember that when a model jumps the clothing and hair will also move, so a little planning is a wise decision, choose clothing that is fit for jumping, or…. choose clothing that isn’t and get a nice special effect (but intentional), and if it’s not intentional say it was intentional and don’t be considered a bad photographer 🙂

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.