How was this Simone Biles vault sequence image created?
Asked 11/2/2018
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I saw a composite image of Simone Biles during a vault at the FIG Gymnastics World Championships and want to understand how it was made. What shooting technique and camera setup would be used to create this kind of multi-position action image, and what post-processing is involved?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
17
John Cheng here. Just found this so here it goes:
This illustration was shot with Nikon D5. I was position probably 30 degrees off to the side of the vault, pre-focused on the vault table with a 24-70 and just let her ripped before Simone hit the board. I don't exactly remember how many frames were used but I cut out each Simone and kept the vault table as a reference point to accurately preserve each body position in the air, then layered each image to create this illustration. I kept the background from one of the last frames (you can see the judges are all focused on the landed Simone). The key to make this work is to keep the camera still and not pan with the subject.
It was a little side fun project I did while I was in Doha when I had some downtime from shooting gymnastics. I'm really happy how it came out.
Hope this helps!
-John Cheng
Originally by user98689. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user98689
5y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
According to photographer John K. Cheng, this was a photo illustration made from multiple frames, not a single exposure. He shot it on a Nikon D5 with a 24-70mm lens, positioned about 30° to the side of the vault. The camera was pre-focused on the vault table, then he fired a burst just before Simone hit the board.
To make the final image, he cut out each frame showing Simone in a different position and layered them together, using the vault table as the alignment reference so each body position stayed accurate in space. He kept the background from one of the later frames. A key part of making this work is keeping the camera completely still and not panning with the athlete.
Additional editing may include contrast/tone/detail enhancement, but the core effect comes from compositing a burst sequence into one image.
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