Roller Derby All Access!

I have a friend who has been doing roller derby for a few years, and I asked her to get me a media pass for one of her bouts this year.  I've shot a roller derby event before, and it's a lot of fun.  This time, I didn't just bring my dSLR cameras, but stuck a GoPro on the helmet of one of the skaters.

The Quad Squad is a team on the Madison Mad Rollin' Dolls roller derby league, and they asked me to follow them around before the event and capture their routine.  The GoPro HD Hero 3 footage was easy, as that was recording almost non stop for the entire day.  I knew that I'd be putting together an Animoto video of the images, video, and time lapse sequences, so I always reminded myself to get as many different angles as possible.  Here is the result:

Still Images:

Derby women are creative in their uniforms and style, so capturing their persona is key for good images.  

Motion:

Skaters are almost always in motion.  You can set your ISO high and try to get a crisp shot with high shutter speed.  I tend to experiment and get the girls in motion.   You don't always get a clean shot, but the ones that come out really give that sense of speed.

Action!

Having a long lens on a cropped sensor is also important to get great actions shots.  There is a lot of rough action in Roller Derby and they can be pretty intense.