BMX Pump Track Pics

On sunday I headed to the new BMX pump track in Stockwood (Bristol). Good setup and great to see the council building things like this. i was fortunate enough to meet up with a couple of guys (Alex and Chris) that were pretty handy on a BMX. i was also fortunate that they didn't mind me taking a few snaps.

The plan was to try and get to grips with off camera flash (OCF) for fast moving subjects. the sun light was low and very strong with clear blue skys. Unfortunately i didn't quite get to grips with it!
What i seemed to struggle with was getting the timing of the subject in position and getting the shutter and flash to fire at the right moment. Without using flash you can set a fast shutter speed and hold down the shutter button in burst mode, the hit and hope method. Basically I was getting trigger happy and clicking the shutter before the subject was in position, triggering the flash so when i clicked at the right moment the flash had already fired and not re-charged. I think with OCF one has to be more selective to trigger everything at the right moment unless there is a very fast re-charge on the flash. If anyone has any further advice on this point it would be appreciated!

I think also i needed to stop down the ambient light to put more emphasis on the flash. The flash should also then help to freeze the action. thanks to Andy for this tip, http://nelsonimages.co.uk/blog/!

Results below and more on the Flickr page http://www.flickr.com/photos/fstopimages/