Photos Get on ye bike

Go out riding a fair bit with my mates and snap some photos of em pretty regularly.
But only just started using my external flash, and using it properly

Couple of snaps I took Thursday





And tips and CC?

 

Leave the flash out of the image.

Other than that I like last image the best, you should try to get the hole dude in the image as well.

 

clone stamp tool Cheesecake!

 

From what I've heard fill in flash is a good thing, unless the comments I received was only targeted at skating

 

pic 2, bottom right. flash unit. i don't want to see the equipment you use in the picture.

BTW, too much sharpening? Doesn't look right, his hands and handlebars seem sharpened too much

 

Yeah could try and edit it out. But it would leave too big an empty space in my opinon, and it kindof makes a triangle with the rider, and from what I've heard having shapes in your picture is a good thing.

Next to no editing has been done on the picture, only the contrast and brightness raised slightly.

 

No, that really just looks like you were being careless. Fill flash is a good thing when used correctly, but unless your flash is actually part of your subject (and unless you're posting to the strobist flickr pool, it almost certainly isn't), it should NOT be in the frame.

You have good concepts here, but they could be improved a lot by learning how to use the equipment more effectively. On the first one for example, the sky is blowing out near the horizon line. You should try exposing for the background (meter without the subject in the shot until that looks right, then lock in those exposure settings in manual mode) and then use the fill flash to illuminate the subject as necessary. In your case, going... I'd guess about 1 1/3 to 2 stops faster on the shutter speed would be effective, provided the flash can sync at that speed.

The exposure in the second one looks far more natural, but the cropping is pretty bad between having the top of the guy's head chopped off and the flash in the shot. I'd have also moved the flash closer to center and put some sort of diffuser on it, as some detail is lost in the shadows cast by the subject's arm.

Also, photoshop out the glare from the flash on the helmet, or at least tone it way down. It looks very unnatural. If you're really using the fill flash effectively, people won't know it's being used (or it won't be too obvious anyways) - which means that glare, reflections, and shadows in the scene should only appear as they would naturally be cast by the sun or other light sources in the scene, and the shadows clearly indicate that the sun wasn't anywhere near the same direction as the flash so the glare looks very out of place.

Of course that sounds a lot harsher than it's really intended to be - I'm probably exaggerating these issues to a degree.

 

Much appreciated.
It's stuff like this that I need to get better.
Being that it's all my dads equipment and I'm just borrowing it,
I have no where near the experience that most people doing the same have.
Probably should read some of the books he has about lighting.
Only real thing I use photoshop for is cropping,
But I'll be sure to look into it more.
Any tips as to where I should look for some good tuts?
Thanks in advance.

 

Ohhhh, my bad, didn't even see that.