Motocross photography light test

While I was out in Cali I shot a bunch of motocross shots one night. They have a HUGE outdoor motocross park with I believe 8 tracks all lit up with stadium lighting. It's absolutely awesome. I would love to ride there but every time I go I have my camera and no bike.






Having my bike with me when I go out is usually my problem. I want to ride until they come around telling us their closed we need to pack up. Then I usually go "Damn, I didn't take any photos"!!!






Well, a couple weekends ago, I finally got out the camera and lights and tried a single light set up. Of course it was off camera as I'm a lighting nut like that. (No jail house photos from me). I had to try out my modified light stand leg...






Light stands have three legs, these provide stability which is good.... most of the time. But what do you do when it's not most of the time?








I read on Strobist quite sometime ago about a guy doing this and after my frustrations in Cali at the track with trying to get my light where I wanted it I decided it was time to MOD-out my light stand.





It's a pretty simple idea you drill out the rivet on one leg and then drill holes every two inches up and down that leg. Then if you are on uneven ground you can still have a light stand pointing straight up.




It worked great and allowed me to get the above shots. You can just nearly see it above the "n" on the watermark. Next time I'll take a better picture of the light stand.

Oh yeah and what do you do when your dirt bike doesn't have a kick stand?





That's right, use the monopod! And here's a reference shot for all you photo nerds.






All these were taken with a single SB-26 on a stand to the right of the jump.(left side of this image) Shot on my Nikon D3 with a PocketWizard radio trigger. Watkins motocross track in Watkins, CO.