Motorcycle Racing Team

[TheKingInYellow]

My friends are starting a racing team for a provincial league this year and wanted some moody shots for their website. I went low-key and tried to underexpose the background to black:



Shot at f/7.1, ISO 100, shutter 1/60th, two strobes subject left and high and low camera right. XSi with rented EF 24-70 f/2.8 USM. The background was mostly black, but I had to mask it and kill the BG to clean it up.

Biggest questions I have are: How dark is too dark? How was my cutout work?

Maybe it's my monitor, but this is too dark... you clipped almost all the blacks in the bike and rider.

[TheKingInYellow]

I know I did, but I thought that in low-key shots, that was acceptable or even desirable? Would rim lighting be a better option here then?

edit: I should add that I'm not ungrateful for the advice, and didn't mean to sound that way! I need to learn!

[GadgetRick]

Can't speak for low-key shots but I'd still like to see the bike/rider exposed better as it's tough to really see what's going on there if you know what I mean.

[TheKingInYellow]

Yeah you are right, I'll work on it.

Are you better to slightly over-expose and darken as necessary in this sort of scenario then? Shooting RAW do you have more room to darken or lighten an image in post?

Originally Posted by TheKingInYellow

Yeah you are right, I'll work on it.

Are you better to slightly over-expose and darken as necessary in this sort of scenario then? Shooting RAW do you have more room to darken or lighten an image in post?

Well, it all depends on your intent.

There are good ways of doing low key, but this just looks like you underexposed the ENTIRE thing rather than selectively highlighting certain areas and muting others.

~Eric

[TheKingInYellow]

Originally Posted by maxharvard

Well, it all depends on your intent.

There are good ways of doing low key, but this just looks like you underexposed the ENTIRE thing rather than selectively highlighting certain areas and muting others.

~Eric

That's true, but part of that was the distance I had to work with. I couldn't move the bike far enough away from my backdrop to really lose the background and still frame the whole thing.

I've really discovered that the crop sensor cameras are a pain to do wide angles with.

Thank you for the critique. It gives me something to shoot for next time I work on a shot like this.

[Sterling]

I've really discovered that the crop sensor cameras are a pain to do wide angles with.

That's not a shortcoming of crop sensor cameras. You just didn't have a wide enough lens to do what you wanted to do.

[TheKingInYellow]

Okay that is true... I didn't expect to run out of room to shoot with a 24mm wide end.