[monkeydave]

first post in this thread
dont be gentle with me i would appreciate your totally honest view on this shot please
as it is a favorite and would like to improve next time





thanks for looking and await your honest relpys good or not so good

thank you

[skipper954]

OK...here goes.

The subject is so sharp and the background so blurred that it looks like it was taken against a blue wall then the background photoshopped it. In other words, the cyclist and bike just jump out at me too much.

In addition, I think this angle doesn't do justice. It is too forshortened and you don't see enough of the bike or rider, and they seem to run together without much definition.

I am sure this is not an easy shot to get, and so you did quite well.

One thing that you might do is use continuous focus and pan the cycle until he gets closer and you get a better angle, with a smaller aperture so that the bg wouldn't be as blurry. And that way you might get motion blur instead which of course will give the feeling of motion (duh).

skip

[Dave]

Good use of depth of field to isolatethe main subject & the timing is spot on. To catch a rider lent over , on one wheel & still manage to get a sharp enough shot to catch the heat fumes from the exhaust ..... job well done sir

[Charlotte]

This is one super-duper shot Monkeydave

The rider + bike are great, except slightly too saturated IMO.

The BG, however, is quite distracting because of
(a) a lot of noise
(b) there's still too much of it

I would crop further ... off the top down to 1cm from his helmet, + off the RHS to cut out the gap in the hedge, + 1cm off the bottom to put the back wheel on the bottom-right third. Try it, at least, I think you'll like the result

Ref the noise, try blurring just the BG (gaussian or meridian), e.g. either use blur tool to do this manually, or select the rider + bike (it's quite a solid outline, so shouldn't be too difficult), invert the selection (so that BG only is selected) + use the menu blur option.

Just suggestions, others may feel the noise adds to it, but as I can see a lot of red in the noise, I think it'd be worth trying to smooth it.

Hope you find my comments as constructive as they are meant to be

[Sonsey]

This is a great shot Dave, very good catch indeed. While I agree with the others that a tighter crop would work well, I think the amount of space around the rider that you have now works very well as is, with the great DOF finishing it off nicely.

Originally Posted by Charlotte

The rider + bike are great, except slightly too saturated IMO.

I agree with this, the red/orange's on the rider's suit and bike are a little strong, the only real slight on this image for me, and an easy one to fix.

[kristen6877]

Great action shot!

[daveyuk]

Dave,
Firstly you've done very well to capture this image bikes and riders are somewhat faster than cars!!
The far background is nicely OOF, however the near background i.e the closest of the two tyre walls is to sharp there seems to be no suggestion of movement within your image which for me lets this image down, it needs some blurryness to give it the punch, speed and movement.
Cracking capture not easerly done I know I've tried capturing bikes and their riders so maybe next time drop the shutter speed a little.