Bike photography for dumb dummies

I searched the BBS for picture taking skills; they were helpful but a bit over my head.

I'm going back to Laguna MotoGP this year and would like to get some decent 'in-motion' shots. I tried the advice from the camera shop last year and most of the pics looked blury, bad color, etc. Still shots turn out good.

I have a Nikon D50 with DX SWM ED 55-200mm lens. Do I just need a better lens? Do I move the camera with the bike, or keep it still; point & shoot?

Just want some basic tips; or maybe its not that easy. Thanks!

Dave

 

Move the camera with the bike. Slow down the "shutter" speed to blur the background to give a sense of motion. Digitals (except for the real high end) require that you "lead" the bike a bit to make up for shutter lag. Keep panning with the bike after you depress the shutter release.

 

(perceived) shutter lag is directly related to how much you're asking the camera to do when you press the release. full auto can feel downright pokey when you press the shutter release. the more manual your camera setting, the quicker your exposure will happen.

 

processing time, eh?

 

more or less... think about all the stuff these things do when you press the shutter release:

autofocus
meter
determine/set iso
determine/set shutter speed
determine/set aperture
autofocus again (if needed)

 

:wow: Golly gee whiz! I didn't know that...

 

At least I didn't; I could probably do better with a Kodak click-n-toss.

Thanks for the tips; I'll practice before I go this time.

 

my point was that instead of leading your subject and hoping to get an acceptable shot, you can set your camera to eliminate, or at least minimize, the "lag."

 

At this stage, does knowing the "why" make knowing the "is" more important?

 

if you have a go-kart track or something close by, they're great for practicing your panning technique.

set your camera for Shutter priority and start with a shutter speed of 1/125sec. work on picking up your subject early and following through after taking the shot. also experiment with slower shutter speeds to see how it affects the shot.

 

My recipe is to:

Set shutter speed to be 1/bikespeed. So if you think they are doing 120, set to 1/125, doing 60, 1/60. Set to shutter priority, let aperture go where ever it wants, with the pan DOF is almost meaningless. (One thing if you are shooting at F12+ make sure that you have cleaned your sensor before you go, as the small apetures make dust really show up).

Pick a point on the bike and put it in the center of your focus point in the center of the camera (like a frame slider or a sticker/etc). You want to do the pan so that when you start the point is in the center hit the release and keep tracking when the viewfinder opens back up you want that point to still be in the focus point.. When you get good, you can track so that happens more often. Works best to try to keep the bike as close to a fixed distance away on the pan, so don't be standing at the bottom of the corkscrew trying to track a bike coming towards you instead stand and shoot at what would be an apex point.

It takes tons of practice to get good. Take lots of cards, you might end up with 5 good shots each 100 you take when you start out, and those might be accidental

 

i have about a 80% keeper rate (im picky) at 1/320.. i dont go any lower than that.

straight on corner shots, 1/800th works for me

 

noted. :up:

 

Yeah straight on corner shots the bike is almost still as far as the photo taking is concerned. With my digital cam I can press the button like half way and I get a green light then when I press the rest of the way it take the photo when I press the button with out any lag. Its just a kodak but it works if you use it correctly.

 

These are great tips. I don't know what the guy at the camera store was trying to tell me, but it was almost the opposite of what you guys are suggesting. No wonder they turned out bad, and I was ready to go out and buy a Cannon near the track half way through the weekend.

Thanks again :up:

 

+1 on that. With a lens closed down enough you could also get away with pre-focusing on a particular point at the track where you want your shot to be and just tracking the bike and hitting shutter release at that pre-focused spot. My experience was that some camera/lens combinations aren't particularly good at following the bike in continuous focus mode, so I had better success with ghetto manual focus style.

You might also want to experiment with how you want to manage white balance, my experience so far has been just setting it to manual and pre-setting on just about anything remotely gray yields better color than tying to use pre-set balance, but YMMV. If it's turning from overcast to sunny and back often it might be a bear to remember to keep tabs on WB with all the action going on.

Another tip is to frame the bike such that there's space in the front of the bike to get a better feeling of motion.

 

I have that same lens and if you need to go over 150mm the shots will suck. Also, the autofocus is really slow. It's my least used lens that I own because my cheaper Tamron's give me a better keeper rate.

One thing that I found helps is to set the camera to center focus instead of area focus, and then use the wide focus point as well.

Shooting hand held at 1/60th on a moving subject is extremely hard to get all the stickers on the bike to turn out clear. For the most part, I stick with 1/125 and above. Also, since if you're mainly interested in Laguna, why not rent a quality lens for the week, will probably cost you $150 but well worth it if you don't have normal photographer access and you plan on having any keepers from the event.

 

Good idea

 

http://www.lensrentals.com/for-nikon

 

Just a heads up if you get a big zoom lens your going to need to learn to hold the camera real still or you will get blurry crap photos. Zoom lenses will zoom your mistakes as well as your image.