Monday, December 20, 2010

Shooting yourself, and living to tell the tale

UTAH017
Earlier in 2010 I travelled to Utah in the US for a feature that is currently on the shelves, in the January 2011 issue of MBR.
As I was travelling alone, I had to shoot all my own photos, which meant shooting myself as the riding model. This could have been a nightmare, but in reality, it actually proved quite easy thanks to one small piece of equipment.
A remote shutter plugs into your camera's side and allows you to trigger the shutter by holding down a button on the transmitter. With my 7D on a tripod and set to 8fps, and with the lens switched to manual focus so as not to have it hunting, I was able to hold the trigger under my bars — out of sight — and snap away.
I got some really good shots this way, some of them look a little staged if you look closely, but most of them came out really good. Have a look below and see what you think.
UTAH008
UTAH063
TorrreyRiding 097
UTAH084
UTAH015
Give it a go. I picked my remote shutter up on ebay for about £15 and it works faultlessly. The only downside to this style of shooting is that you end up having to do A LOT of editing, especially if your camera can rattle off 8fps.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Top tip Mr Waterman! Is that the model of remote you bought? I have a 7d too.

Andy Waterman said...

They come re-badged from lots of manufacturers but the one I have looks like that, yes. Works great, and from some distance too.

Madengine said...

Slick as ever Mr W, between you and Warhead you annoyingly making me constantly think about expensive camera purchases, maybe i can start with this and move on the the actual camera later :)