[Summerleft]

Well heres some from today, to be honest the 1/2 decent ones were few and far between and its obvious i need more practice on fast things lol

Any help appreciated and if anyone is Mallory or nearby bound can i tag along for tips?



I liked this although not great for the guys expression



Liked the grouping here but not the blurred biker on the right



He had the right idea it was scorching, so hot the sweat (urgh) was blurring my vision



we were laughing at this blackbird sat here








Bit fed up they didnt come out better but the practice will help of course

[Whipspeed]

sports photography is not easy, it's taken me a bit of time to get fairly proficient at bike shots! Well actually a couple of years & I still could improve a bit. One of the best bits of advice I was given was to set the focus point to where the head will be in the image so you get the face clear. I usually shoot in apeture priority mode, setting the ISO as low as I can dependant on the weather, an apeture of around f4 - F7 and then see what your shutter speed looks like and for motorsport you need fast! But not so fast that the wheels look static, you need to show that they are moving round, so it's a bit tricky, but again, this is where focusing on the face as the main point will help. Try to find somewhere on the course where the angle looks good and the background is uncluttered. finally when you process the shots, sharpen them and adjust the curves, levels and or saturation to make them pop. Obviously the bikes I shoot are pedal powered, but on some of the dual carriageway courses they can be up to 35-40mph on downhill sections, so the technique is pretty similar. Anyway, have a look at some of my shots if you want & if you want any more advice, just pm me.

When I first started with the digital cycling shots, I probably only had 10% usable shots and even now I probably only keep one shot of each rider. I will take 5/6 shots per rider and pick the best, more of them are good shots now, but you end up getting really picky with yourself and I now go through them in this order, is it in focus, is the expression good and are the pedals in a good position (believe me it makes a difference) so a sharp shot with any of the other things wrong will not make it onto the website. Only ever show your best work.

[Rob Barron]

Many of your shots are almost head on and that is making life hard for you. The thing is, when you take a side on shot, the motorbike's distance remains relatively static and so you can keep the image sharply focused by panning. When it is moving towards you the focus is changing all the time so panning is impossible and it is very hard to capture a really sharp image unless you can use a narrow aperture and still get a fast shutter speed to allow enough depth of field and the chance of freezing the image in the shot.

So all this is really saying is maybe you should focus on the shots that are from a position where the line of movement is parallel to your focal plane rather than towards or away from it.

Having said all that, you have done a very passable job here so well done and keep at it :o)

Cheers,
Rob

[Whipspeed]

If you are interested in motorbike photography, check out Paul Carvill's website at Point 7 Photography - Paul Carvill Motorsports Photographer His stuff is really good. I know him from another site & he's given me some good advice as well. He also photographs cycles.

[gsgary]

I'm sorry but none of them do much for me, they look very static. I'm not very good at explaining in words but if i'm heading for Malory i'll give you a shout, take a look at my Cadwell shots i'm not great at shooting bikes but it may give you some ideas
What were your camera settings ?

[Summerleft]

To be honest they were mixed, it was my first ever track day so Id gone along for some practice (postponed from a few weeks ago) i played with manual focus and ISO settings, the bright sunlight proved a challenge, but one thing it did give me an idea of what its like for future events, although i dont really want to concentrate on motorsport it was good expereince.