Hare Scramble Race Shot on 7D
 

I rented the 7D this past weekend to try out. There was a hare scramble motocross race not far from me so I thought that would be a good place to play around.



Let me know what you think. Any feedback on editing and thoughts about what I could have ton differently would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

That was really well done. I'm a fan of the sport and used to go to the HS races all the time. For those of you who have never seen one in real life, there parts of the track that are so narrow that the top guys cut their bars down so they can make it thorough at speed and some sections of the track that you will hit 80 mph. The only thing I would have like to see as some cut-aways was some of the parts that are always knocked off in the woods. You can usually find all sorts of broken break and clutch levers.

footage looks great. a few ideas for the future...

too many static tripod shots. I know handheld is tough but on a shoulder mount, DSLRs work great. I want to see more following the bikes to get a sense of the path they travel...not a scene they travel through.
There was one section with several jump cuts. try cross fading those so the bikes appear on top of each other for a bit.
Zooms are tough on a DSLR too but I really miss that. It would add to the "chaos" of the bikes.

In general there's not enough camera movement for my tastes. That plus faster cutting (maybe shortening the whole piece) would add to the excitement.

With a DSLR, the coolest feature is the ability to change lenses so try getting a super wide like a Tokina 11-16 for some shots, and a 70-200 or 100-400 to zoom in and really get close. Also a follow focus would be cool to shift emphasis within a shot.

Just a bit of background, I did a documentary on Marty Smith (3-time AMA motocross champion) a couple years ago. We had almost 3 hours of old 8mm film taken by his father as he was growing up and rising through the ranks. Of course it was all handheld, no image stabilization, and really rough zooms but that footage really captures the mayhem of riding a dirt bike to it's limits. My favorite trick was to go from real-time to 50% slow-mo in a shot to show the suspension working and then back to real-time to have it zoom off. Check out the "samples 2" page of my web site for a sample of the documentary.

Your footage looks great...these are my thoughts to take it and the end product up a notch. :)

I thought your exposure was spot on, nice crisp clean images.

What lenses and what was your shutter speed?

Robert makes some good points, another great tool for moving around an event like this is a Monopod. Not something I used to use a lot in the past but with the 7D they work great.

I realize you were renting but if your cinsidering a DSLR for HD then its worth checking out http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/618351-REG/Manfrotto_561BHDV_561BHDV_Video_Monopod_with.html it is a great monopod.

I will disagree with Robert on one thing - I hate zooms. The human eye doesn't work that way so to me zooms look unnatural. But that's just my own narrow minded opinion.

I liked what you shot, good job.