How do you do this?

[mike_swardson]

<p>I was looking at this photographers website and I thought it was pretty cool. I am honestly just courious as to how he might have taken some of these shots. <a href="http://www.gilsmith.com/">http://www.gilsmith.com/</a> Under his sports gallery there are some really nice closeups, and some stuff thats like wow how did he get that. Anybody got any ideas? Maybe a telephoto, and just got in there really tight?</p>

[william l. palminteri]

<blockquote>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5805910"><em>Mike Swardson</em></a><em> </em><a href="../member-status-icons"></a><em>, Dec 12, 2009; 05:49 p.m.</em><br>

<em>I was looking at this photographers website and I thought it was pretty cool. I am honestly just courious as to how he might have taken some of these shots.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Which shots, Mike ?<br>

The stuff I saw was all heavily manipulated with 'shop.</p>

<p>Bill P.<em></em></p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Some of those sports shots are with long lenses, and some are with a very wide (fisheye) lens, where he obviously coordinated with his snowboarding subjects on a safe way to work with them. He's only a couple of feet from those guys on some of the action shots. Takes careful planning and a certain amount of risk taking and trust.</p>

[mike_swardson]

<p>William I was mainly looking at the first 4 shots when you go under the sports gallery. The snowboarders, and the dirt bike in the air like that. I think the dirt bike can be done from and equal height from far away with a tele. For example a dirt mound. I think I may be overthinking it though. Matt you may be right on with the fisheye lens. I know you can somewhat create a fisheye look in shop, but I say somewhat because nothing replaces the lens.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>There's an entire sub-genre of sports shooters who specialize in this style. I think that people who shoot skateboarders and snow sports may account for 80% of all fisheye lens sales. Of course I just made that number up out of whole cloth, but you get the idea. </p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>How about motion detector trigger or some kind of laser tripwire? Like a deertrack cam from Wal-Mart, but with a DSLR instead. Set up the trap, have the athlete hot dog through the trigger, and have the camera set itself off. If the exposure and focus were set right, there would be no need for a person to stand right there. </p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Too much trouble, John. This is what helmets are for!</p>

[pjmeade]

<p>A fair level of PS, a wide angle and a slow shutter speed with some panning on some well planned routine.<br>

I think the panning suggests that those are not from remotely triggered cameras, but from the photographer being (very) close to the well set up action. The important aspect is to focus an element of the composition that's going to be central or stable throughout the exposure<br>

I've tried this kind of thing with polo, but when you get too close you lose all sense of what's going on. From far enough away, you get a good impression of speed, but loose the immediacy of that close proximity. Next season, I'll have to try photographing polo (probably chukkas) from the back of a horse.<br>

<a title="Polo by Peter Meade, on Flickr" href=" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3167/2581025293_a765ae4e30.jpg" alt="Polo" width="500" height="333" /></a></p>

[joshuasigar]

<p>Oh, wow, the angle and proximity. This got to be coordinated/planned shots.</p>

[philipward]

<p>Just google "Snowboard camera mount".Even BH has one for $30 and the cost goes way up from there.Use a little bit of imagination and you can modify these systems for any application.Then all you have to do is crop or Photoshop any visable parts or shadows.Check his images for cropped boards etc.Look at the background motion blur,these cameras are fixed to the athlethes equipment.Shoot at high FPS with a remote shutter release.So all you need is lots of money,access to top athlethes.Oh and lots of experience!.</p>