Category Archives: Gear

Photo of the Week: Brodie Sturm

Posted on March 11, 2013 by | 1 comment

What first caught my eye was the extensive dip of this 360… Pretty crazy style right there. The merit of this photograph comes from the lighting, with that rim light popping him right out of the background (with help from the orange bike). The composition is formally structured and the attention is led directly to the action. Mostly though, it’s just a crazy 360.

“This photo came from my first shoot with Joe Battaglia a few weeks ago. I had just picked up new Promaster flashes and was looking to test them out. I had met Joe a few weeks ago and talked about shooting soon, so I gave him a call and we made our way from the chicago suburbs up to 4Seasons in Milwaukee. After a few hours of shredding we started shooting. We took a couple shots on the frontside of the step up then moved to the backside for the corked three. I choose the angle I did because of strong leading lines coming from the left side that pull your eye into the photo. My first flash is a Promaster FL1 placed to camera right at about 45°, at 1/4 power. This flash provides the main light for the shot. my second flash is a Promaster DSS 6000 studio slave at the face of the jump at camera right, about 145°, and set it to 1/2 power. This flash will provide the rim light that will separate Joe from the background. Both flashes are paired with Promaster receivers with a transmitter on camera. This was shot with a Canon 5D mkII body and Canon 17-35mm f/2.8L lens, exposure f/5.6 @ 1/160sec ISO 400.”

Join the Flickr group to get help with your photographs or just show off your favorite work… You could be next week’s photo!

1 Comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo, Tech

Tagged , ,

“The Playground” by Tasos Kosmatopoulos

Posted on March 8, 2013 by | 1 comment

“This is a personal project that I wanted to do for quite some time. Single location in order to get some directed filming, one rider (Panos Manaras) and an edit to combine regular, slow & fast motion. Four cameras and three filmers participated in this in order to cover the angles we thought were the most interesting. Personally I have been riding this ramp since day one when its was more ghetto than ghetto and now after years of reshaping and getting done better I find it very absolutely fun and beautiful. So we used Canon 5D MK2 for details (at 1080p 30p) with a 50mm, Canon 60D for action (at 720p 60fps) with Tamron 24-70mm, Canon 550D with a Samyang 8mm at 720p 60fps on a ProAim crane and I also used a Sony FS700 as main camera & for the slow motion footage (1080p at 240fps) with Sigma 70-200 2.8 and Canon 17-35mm lens. We also used a dolly called Eazy Dolly which is an amazing tool and very smooth for the majority of our shots. I used a ProAim crane in order to get some shots of the whole ramp from above and some action on the spine (icepick over to over, and some flow riding). Quite a lot of things where also filmed on hand in order to give an edgier look on action. A note from my experience with FS700 is, its unique picture quality, dynamic field and colour depth. We didn’t use any external recorders in order to get even higher quality (through HDMI uncompressed 100MBPs 4:2:2 footage) but even with an SD card 28Mbps and 4:2:0 chroma the footage from that camera is superb. I realized it even more while colour correcting the footage. Everything was shot on neutral-flat picture style (sharpness to -4, saturation -4, contrast -2 and colour tone to 0). I use Adobe Premiere CS5 to edit and this video was edited at 720p and 30fps. I feel that 1080p footage downscaled to 720p is somehow nicer and crisper but this is an unscientific point of view. Although in europe we use PAL system I also wanted those NTSC extra 10 frames to help on slow motion and since its uploaded on the web it doesnt even matter. Editing wise having footage from 4 cameras can get tiring in order to decide the clips to use. Also its quite difficult to make the picture match as all these cameras have different sensors and the lenses were also different, but in the end its a nice experience and you can learn a lot of new stuff to add to your workflow.”

Rider: Panagiotis Manaras
Direction – Photography – Editing by Tasos Kosmatopoulos
Photography by Leonidas Germanopoulos
Photography – Crane operation by Dimitris Katranidis

1 Comment

Posted in Art, BMX, Gear, Tech, Video

AveBMX Shop Commercial

Posted on March 6, 2013 by | 1 comment

http://vimeo.com/61093848

No riding here, but a masterfully produced commercial for the AveBMX Shop in Poland. Reminds me of an Oceans Eleven type montage- keeps the viewer intrigued and watching closely. A good mix of panning and glidecam shots, a variety of lenses and a good story line. All-in-all, the best advertisement for a BMX shop I’ve seen in a long time.

1 Comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Video

Photo of the Week: Ivan Maslarov

Posted on March 4, 2013 by | 1 comment

I chose this photo because of the lighting, composition and colors. The hidden flash behind the wall adds a nice contrast to the scene, the frame is filled but not cluttered and the colors are pleasing and not too loud. Although it’s a digi crop, there are far worse things going on in the digital photography world.

“It was a very cold day but we still decided to venture out to the streets. I’ve been told that one shouldn’t go in this neighborhood unless with a large crew. But the temptation was great as I just got my pocket wizards and the spots had a lot of character. It was windy,wet, it was getting dark and flashes were flying to the floor. This was the last spot for the day and Sve was a little reluctant to ride it as the bank is way steeper then it seems. I shot a few direct ones as I felt a simple composition will work but at the moment I decided to try out to include the other wall I realized that it makes for a very dramatic composition with an interesting intersecting shapes. Big thanks to Stephen for being my intelligent tripod as the light that be was holding was the one that made the picture. Canon430 and metz48 each side, diffused. With them being the main light it must have been some fast speed and slow aperture. EF35,2 on 5d MK2. 1/200th @ f/2.5, ISO 400”

Join the Flickr group and add your images to be next week’s photo.

1 Comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo, Tech

Photo of the Week: Laureano Vallejos

Posted on February 18, 2013 by | 1 comment

I like this photo especially because of the perspective- people don’t usually see things from a vantage point above the subject. It really takes the action out of context and abstracts it. The lighting is great and it’s a nice looking whip.

“Is particularly crazy because a friend was taking this photo with a telephoto lens from the front, when performing his work ended, I put a Pocket Wizard on my camera and take this angle with its setting of flashes. Really just wanted to try that angle because it looks at the difficulty of the trick, I did not bring my equipment with me, just the camera. Matias Aristimuño is a very good friend and stylish rider, is always ready to try one more when the photo was not perfect. Argentina has many spots to ride and take good photos, but always has the same problem, you’re always thinking about the possibility of being robbed more than the picture you will get! It’s a picture acceptable for conditions in which it was taken.

Canon fisheye 15mm, Canon 1Dmk2n, 2 Vivitar 285 HV of my friend and Pocket Wizard-“

More of Laureano’s work can be seen here.

Shoot from above and upload your images to the Flickr group!

1 Comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo, Tech

Tagged , , , ,

Photo of the Week: Marcelo Rios

Posted on February 11, 2013 by | Leave a comment

For this week’s photo, I decided to take it back to the basics- no fancy lenses, no external lighting, just a great composition and a timeless trick. The colors and the symmetry is what really does it for me.

“This is a photo I shot of my brother Dan at Imigrantes park. He was practicing this tabletop so he asked to me to take a picture. Well I took this picture about 5:18pm. It has been a lovely day with good light and beautiful sky! I tried to show everything ramps momentum sky the tabletop. I wanted to show the tabletop on top of the grid. The picture was shot with a Canon 60D with a 50mm. Shutter speed was 1/250th and the aperture was F14 with no flashes.”

Check out more from Marcelo on Flickr, and join the Push It A Stop group to be next week’s photo.

Leave a comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo, Tech

Tagged ,

Photo of the Week: Derek Riggs

Posted on February 5, 2013 by | Leave a comment

This photograph by Derek Riggs hits a few chords for me- at first I was reminded of the square format B&W work of Robert Adams, and with flash, the work of Larry Fink. This photo has a timeless feel to it, at least in my eyes, for those reasons. All varying tones of black and white are present, the composition is clean and the onlooking kids add an element of location and emotion. It’s a pretty stylish invert as well.

“This is a photo I shot of my good friend Joey Calderone, was taken about a good 2 years ago at Chandler bike park out here in AZ. This photo all came together easy, I had just got a Hasselblad 500c and was eager to but it to use and Joey has always been one of my go to guys about shooting anything, mainly cause he’s a dialed as hell rider. Ok so, it all started as just a regular night at the park, then I asked Joey about shooting a lil something, and on this particular hip, from the 8 foot transition to the 6 foot roller hip, he was doing awesome tables. And since I was still getting use to the shutter on the Hasselblad, and it was easy cause he was holding the tables for a split second. Now we got flashes set in place (3) and all the exposures correct, we could fire it out. The kids in the photo we’re just a couple of “Chandler rats” as the kids at the park would say. Normally I’m pretty picky about people being in the back ground, and with this shot I pretty sure I was, I think this looks cool. They look like there thinking like “wow” haha just the expressions on their faces I think make the picture I nice on to look at other than Joey doing another great table. Shot with a Hasselblad 500c, I wanna say Ilford b&w 120 film. Qflash, Nikon sb-28, and a Sunpak 544. All triggered with Pocket Wizard plus II’s. 1/500th @ around 5.6 aperture.”

Add your images to the Flickr group and be next week’s photo!

Leave a comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo, Tech

Tagged , ,

Photo of the Week: Davis James

Posted on January 28, 2013 by | 1 comment

I was first struck by the overwhelming blue in this photo, followed by the colored streaks in the middle of the frame, and then the fact that it’s Cam Wood in a roller rink. It’s definitely a fun photograph which translates nicely.

“This image was shot in Salt Lake City, Utah during the filming of S&M’s video, “Salt Lake Shake.”

Early on in the trip, the team was dealt with some crap weather for a couple days so Cam Wood made a call to his Uncle, owner of “fun-plex,” as I will describe it. A short drive up the road and I was unloading my bike and camera-bag out of the van. Complete with waterslides, a roller rink, an American Gladiator tennis ball cannon, and about 10 moon bounces; this place was an amazing photo location.

We rode around for a bit and I noticed a couple of the guys setting up the launch ramp/trashcan in the middle of the rink. My immediate thought was that I wanted to get the blue glow off the rink surface to come through in the shot, and considering the size of the setup, that I would shoot it Fisheye.

I setup 2 strobes: 1 out of frame left, slightly behind me and another out of frame right, just slightly out of the way of Cam’s approach. To get the saturation of the blue glow coming from the black lights I slowed the shutter and panned the camera with the action to freeze the rider. In addition, I adjusted one strobe to point up slightly, and set the other to Zoom. This was to keep from washing out the floor.

Camera: Nikon D300s, 10.5mm
Settings: 1/15 @ f/5, ISO 320

Strobes: 1 SB800 left @ 1/8 power- 8 ft away from subject
1 Sunpak 555 right @ 1/4 power- 14 ft from subject”

Join the Flickr group and add your best photos today!

1 Comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo, Tech

Photo of the Week: Simon Cassol

Posted on January 21, 2013 by | 1 comment


Maxime Bonfil by Simon Cassol

The colors in this photo slapped me in the face at first sight. Almost every hue is represented in the image. It is a very dynamic composition and the action is well-described. It’s a fun photo that touches a special place in my heart for skatepark gaps into grass.

“As many photos, this one wasn’t planned at all. It was just a quiet afternoon, riding and relaxing from last night. During the session, Max had this idea of whipping over a bench next to a bank, I wasn’t into taking photos this day, but he motivated me to try some and he was right ! So that’s about it, you never know when you’re going to shoot something cool !

This spot is a small skatepark, real good to ride, mostly street tech, and it’s near Toulouse in the south west of France. (And I’m assuming this was the last photo I shot in 2012, just for the non-sence fact ahah)

Concerning the specs, this was shot using a Canon 40D with a Tokina 10-17 fisheye.
Settings were 1/250s, F4 and ISO 100.
As for the lights, I used a quantum Q flash on the right (maybe at ¼?) and two vivitar 285HV on the left (both at ½ I guess).”

Join the Flickr group and add your most colorful photos today!

1 Comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo

Photo of the Week: Sam Adams

Posted on January 14, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Obviously the first thing that attracted me to this photo was Sam’s use of a color temperature filter on his flash, making the rider stick out amazingly. The angle is optimal and the frame contains a good amount of symmetry. It’s sharp and demands the viewers attention. I can vaguely remember seeing this photo on the older skateboard photography message board galleries, and it still strikes me just as much as the first time.

“The photo is of Alex Gonzales and was shot in January of 2007 at the Los Altos Skatepark in Albuquerque, NM. It was in the middle of winter, and the days were cold and short which influenced how I made this image.

The short, cold days meant that it got dark earlier, and the evenings had this cool, blue feeling to it. In order to accentuate this cool, blue color and make the rider “pop out” more I used a technique that involves changing the camera’s white balance and using a flash with a gel.

In order to make this technique work the camera needs to have its white balance set to Tungesten (3700K), and flash needs to be gelled with a CTO. A CTO gel is a orange filter that goes over the front of a flash and changes the color temperature of the light coming from the flash. Setting the camera’s WB to Tungesten makes everything lit by ambient light (aka natural light) a blueish color, and then by using the CTO gel on the flash I am lighting the rider and warming up the color on just him. With out the CTO gel the flash would still illuminate the rider, but it wouldn’t provide the warm, contrasting light that the CTO provides.

The image was shot with a Canon 1D with a 15mm fisheye. Shutter speed was 1/500th and the aperture was F3.5. I used a Canon 580ex flash with a CTO gel as mentioned. The flash was placed around 75 degrees camera left.”

Join the Flickr group and upload your most technical photographs to be next week’s photo.

Leave a comment

Posted in BMX, Gear, Photo