After I went to the heath on sunrise I was happy with the results. Yet it was another shoot with “only” a bike and not the rider. I decided to visit the same heath on sunset and include myself as a model in the shots.

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I was alone, so my job was riding the bike, setting everything up, lighting, triggering the camera and modelling. All that in full riding gear and a 26°C ambient temperature. Don’t forget to bring enough water on such a shoot !

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The two images above were made without flash as the setting sun behind the camera illuminated the scene perfectly. The camera was triggered with a set of Yongnuo RF-603N wireless triggers. Those are usually for triggering a flash, but by means of a connector cable it can also trigger the camera (With this setup it is also possible trigger flashes as well).

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Then I moved to another location and shot against the setting sun, thus requiring artificial light.

I carried two tripods, one for the camera (a MeFoto Backpacker Travel Tripod) and a no-name cheap aluminium tripod for the flash. The flash is positioned off-camera to the right. I manually balanced the flash power, so that the bike and the rider were illuminated well but the flash was not dominant in the image.

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The while shoot was (positive) stress in its purst form. I had to position the bike, set up the camera, compose the shot, place the flash, balance the flash power, take test images, review the images, make corrections… I constantly moved between the bike and the camera, making me sweat like a pig. Setup shot:

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Third location, this time covering the setting sun in the frame. Same procedure as described above – position bike, set up camera etc. etc. Modelling was an interesting experience. It is actually not a god-given skill to pose in such a way that you don’t look like a total dork. There were many images I had to reject because the way I stood or sat on the bike looked awkward. Here is the setup shot:

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And here are the results:

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As a final bonus I repositioned camera and flash for a driveby-picture. I made several test shots to see which are the flash would illuminat. Then I started the bike, drove on and triggered the camera when I passed the area I had identified.

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Again the whole shoot was a lot of fun, although I nearly lost a litre due to sweating.

Bottom line:
A fun shoot, altough it was very strennous. Such a shoot won’t produce tons of different compositions as it is a lot of work moving and re-aligning everything. But the effort was worth it and I am happy with the results.