ESPN.com 2012 Winter in Review Feature Story

I just got asked to work with ESPN.com to give a retrospective look back on my Winter of 2012. Check out the full gallery and story HERE. I'm incredibly honored to have my work profiled in such a manner, especially as we get ready for another Winter. Enjoy!

Ian Coble signs with Sally Bjornsen Reps

I'm happy to announce that I just signed with Photography Rep Sally Bjornsen for North American Representation. Sally is an amazingly talented rep and I look forward to working with her in the future. To see more about this deal, you can visit her website HERE.

MSR Shoot

Just got back from an awesome shoot for MSR a couple weeks ago. Amazing locations for the shoot. While I can't yet share the photos from the campaign, I can share a couple shots from where we were to give you an idea. Enjoy!

Click on the images if you'd like to see them larger for more detail

Mountain Bike Shoot

I just got back from an awesome mountain biking shoot last week with pro bikers Bryn Atkinson and Jill Kintner. We headed up Highway 410 outside Mt Rainier National Park to shoot for the day. Came back with some great shots from a few hours of shooting in the late afternoon. Amazing light and location never hurt either.

 

Shooting Action with Strobes Using Hyper-Synch

Lars Sternberg at Stevens Pass. Shot at 1/3200th of a second

This post is going to be super heavy on camera nerdy tech jargon.  If you're not a dorky photographer, this might not make a lot of sense... but please keep reading and enjoy!

That disclaimer aside, I started working with Pocket Wizards to trigger my off camera strobes roughly 5 years ago. Last year, I was fortunate enough to get contacted by them to help in the Beta testing of their Flex TT5 and Mini TT1 units. I was super excited to start testing these as they promised the new ability to synch strobes above the normal 1/250th of a second shutter speed. For action shooters, this is a dream come true. The previous limitations of technology prevented photographers from shooting above 1/250th of a second. Instead, we had to rely on the flash duration of our strobes to freeze the action. Beyond just the ability to freeze action, it also prevented you from under exposing a scene to achieve a heavy dramatic look.



Although I've been working with the Flex and Mini units for over a year now, I was still having trouble achieving a proper hyper-synch. Occasionally they would work at speeds over 1/250th, but it wasn't always reliable. Fast forward though to last week and the game changed. With the release of Firmware Version 3.110, any issues I had previously had with the units disappeared. (There are some adjustments that need to be made in the Pocketwizard Utility in order to achieve accurate hyper synch. Below is a screen shot of how mine are set up for use with Elinchrom Ranger RX's).

I went out and shot with pro mountain biker, Lars Sternberg last week to put the Flex and Mini units to the test. The results were astounding! Shooting with a Nikon D800 and two Elinchrom Ranger RX packs (utilizing the S heads, NOT the A heads), I was able to get full synch at 1/1250th. A HUGE jump from 1/250th.

However, I was able to continue pushing synch speed higher with hardly any clipping. At 1/1600th I had very slight clipping at the base of the frame... and I mean hardly noticeable. As shutter speed was pushed higher, the clipping gradually grew, but very minimally. Even at 1/8000th of a second, the clipping was still very minimal (see reference files below).



I know some will look at the above and say that there is a bit of darkness at the tops of the frames that could be construed as shutter lag. However, it's affect is so minimal compared to normal shutter lag, that it can easily be compensated for by increasing the strobe's power or camera's f-stop by +1/2 a stop.

Additionally, with the huge file sizes being output by the D800 (36.2MP), the tiny clipping seen even at the fastest shutter speeds can easily be cropped out without losing the detail or size of the file.

A big thanks to the people at Pocket Wizard for working with me on the beta testing of these units. I'm excited to see the new possibilities that this will open for action shooters utilizing strobes. Hope this article helps some of you. Good luck and happy shooting.

1/3200th with no cropping of shutter lag at bottom of frame

Mountain Biking

Just dusted off the mountain bike after a long winter of rusting in the garage. Great to be back on the trails again. Here's a few shots from last weekend's ride over in Leavenworth, Wa.

We've got plans to a lot more bike shooting over the summer, so keep checking the blog to the latest work. Thanks for looking!

Cascade Designs

Just had the chance to do some work for the Seattle based company Cascade Designs. We were shooting for their ThermARest division to showcase their new backcountry cot line. Check out a couple of the photos from the shoot and the some of the resulting tears. Enjoy!