Snowboarding

[bmxorr]

Any tips for shooting snowboarding? It'll be my first time shooting on the slopes with my D100 (always have used my N90s for sports). Any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Bobby Digital]

I read in Digital Photography magazine where a guy rigged a camera to his
chest and took picture using a remote with his mouth. This way he could ski behind people and get great action shots. Other then that get a snowboard magazine and see the angels used. I would also recommend waterproofing it-garbage bag and carry extra batteries since they drain quickly in the cold.

Hope this helps a little.

[skagitswimmer]

I know nothing about snowboards but have some ski shots. You can try some of these ideas. I would ski down to a point that would give the background and subject lighting that I wanted, and stick a snowball on the snow to mark the spot. I would then retreat to my shooting position and prefocus etc on that spot and signal the skier. By prior arrangement the skier would execute a maneuver on the chosen spot, kicking snow left or right as previously discussed. Chose a shutter speed appropriate to what you want - fast if you want frozen action, somewhat slower (down to 1/60 depending on lens) if you want to pan and get blurred background.

Another technique if you are working with cooperative boarders that you TRUST is to work with a very wide angle lens and get the subject to execute the maneuver very close to you or even right over you.

[django]

I've been snowboarding for years and most of the times when your watching riders, it's a pretty uneventful looking sport. sure, when you do it it's a blast, but take a picture out of context and it's hard to demonstrate all the action really involved.

I took some photos last year and after looking at them in the lcd after a hundred or so I quickly realized my mistakes. Numer 1, i was no where close enough to the action, so i switched to a wide angle and got right next to/under the subject. next, i realized you need a fast shutter to get the action at the APEX of it's movement. that means if someones jumping get them at the highpoint etc...

If they are the only one on the hill, then you can get far back to show the landscape, but on a crowded place it won't work, they will just blend in with all the others in ski hats.

The above post was dead on in that you should go grab a snowboar dmag, flip through, you'll see tons of good ideas.

Other ideas are the events involved snowboarding, get a picture while riding the lift, in the lodge etc...there's lots of fun n the mountain, you just need to find it.

hope this helps