photographing bikes

I have the Canon Powershot A40 (the model superseded by the A70) and ****
all

Im a bit luckier I guess and can "lock" a focus distance in without having
to hold the shutter halfway, or set it myself (which I wouldnt try! lol) in
any mode excepting auto.

Im curious as to how your photos turned out in full auto mode though? as
our 2 cameras are pretty similar in most respects, Im guessing the camera
would of picked a really high shutter speed?

 

Not much in the way of blur except that caused by the operator.
You can see them online...
Beginning at http://www.thisstupidurl.com/superbike2003/imagepages/image43.htm

Nev..
'02 CBR1100XX #2

 

Hi Daniel,

Turn 2 is a good place to take snaps from, as most riders slow right down at
that point - makes panning easier. Those that don't are good candidates for
'action' shots, if you know what I mean. Panning down the straight is damn
hard work and you end up with half the bike missing.

Here are a couple of shots I took a couple of months ago at EC. Those were
taken in the middle of the day when the sun was high, so they are very
contrasty. If you're going in the morning, go to turn 2 as the sun will be
behind you and it will be the best time to get good shots.

http://enix.com.au/photos/DSC_1275.jpg
http://enix.com.au/photos/DSC_1313.jpg

When is that ride day on?

Cheers,
Eric

 

It could be the type that fits in your shoe, and you could use your toe

 

Hi Daniel,

I've had the great fortune to work for Procar shooting the Procar series at
Oran Park recently, including the Porsche Cup, the Nations Cup, V8 Utes etc.
Here are a few things for you that may be of help to you... they should
apply to bikes as they do cars.

- your position is critical. Try to find a spot that will complement the
type of shot you are after. Some tips:

- pick spots where the bikes will be in direct light if you can. Shooting
the shaded side of a vehicle isn't the best option. This will obviously
change during the day.

- find spots where bikes are likely to leave the track (yes... I'm a cruel
bastard) - close-ups of vehicles exiting a track at speed look great if you
can get in close and freeze the debris - try 1/1000th on shutter priority if
you are fast enough! Some photographers set up their gear for this type of
shot (turn 1, turn 9 etc.) on the early laps when tyres are colder, riders
aren't yet into the groove etc. Morbid but potentially cool!

- shoot directly into the bikes at their greatest lean on a tight corner and
see if you can shoot from track level - you may need to find a lower vantage
point. Also try this shot up their dates. Nice fast shutter speeds are
good here as you really have to freeze the bikes and don't need wheel blur -
try about 1/1000th. A faster shutter speed will also give you a wider
aperture and blur out the background, even though you aren't panning. These
shots are better pin sharp. If your camera is not a fast focusser,
pre-focus to a spot equal in distance to where the bike will be and switch
to manual. (Remember to do this every time you change spots... and also
remember to switch to autofocus when finished!)

- for me with cars, pan shooting the vehicle at about 240 km/h from roughly
30m requires a shutter speed of around 1/340th to get a sharp car with wheel
motion. I can't see a reason for this to be different with bikes. If you
are finding panning difficult, you can get better shots with a slower
shutter speed on warm-up laps or at slower points of the track (this is
called cheating!).

- don't always pan shoot with the camera parallel to the ground. I
sometimes introduce the "Dutch Tilt" - an angle of somewhere between 20 and
30 deg to the horizontal. Muck about and see what you like. Get in close
for the best results.

- if you're shooting digital you can afford to blow a lot of shots. You
will be limited by storage. I shoot RAW files - about 10Mb each and in 3
days recently, I shot 20Gb using 2 x 1Gb Compact Flash cards and a portable
60Gb storage device (Nixvue). If you are shooting film, might I recommend
Velvia 100F or Provia 400F and someone else to bankroll your day!

- if you have a short lens - even a 20mm will do, see if you can get very
close to the track and do some very high speed pan shooting. This will
likely only be possible on the main straight, but won't really work unless
you are only a few meters max from the bike. Expect this to take some
practice. At Oran Park, I stood on the wall on the main straight and
pan-shot with my 15mm lens. Most of the drivers - especially Brocky - drove
along the wall whenever I had the camera up. I think Peter also scraped his
mirror (at about 200 km/h). I was literally 1m from and above the cars at
great speed and pan shooting. The shots I nailed are amazing - but expect
that you won't have a high hit rate (unless you are some kind of panning
freak). 1/1000 is good. Very exciting indeed.

These are a few things that I've come up with and hopefully they may
contribute to a successful day for you.

Finally, I am lucky enough to work with the great Dirk Klynsmith - who is
not only one of the country's top motorsport photographers but a bloody
great guy - even though he constantly bags me for using Nikon gear.
Hopefully I'll be able to take up his offer to shoot the F1 with him in
Melbourne. An unlimited media pass is a beautiful thing!

Cheers and you can get me at
if you have any questions!

Dave ZZR600 => ST2 (stolen) => '03 XX

 

<snip expert advice.>

Pffft! Bloody experts.....what do they know!?

 

Because it's only an open day - see if you are allowed a bit closer to
the track. Have a few practices at panning with the bikes as they go
past, set up to 125th to 250th (luckily in digital we can use 180th
which is perfect), then fire away.

http://www.bwmedia.com.au/gallery/index.php?album=2003_Aug17_MCRCWA_Motorbikes_Rd3/&pic=Img_2379.jpg

Either way, have fun!!!!

Cheers,

Brian

 

Hey - it's the Dutch Tilt! Nice one Brian.

I'm looking forward to shooting bikes. Cars are great (see my post below in
this thread) but for bikes I'd probably have to buy a new 600mm 2.8
(Nikkor). That could potentially dent the relationship with my lovely wife
I think!

Cheers,
Dave ZZR600 => ST2 (stolen) => '03 XX

 

Thanks heaps, Dave. I'd be very interested in the name of the book - I've
yet to venture into a decent (or even indecent!) bookshop looking yet, still
mostly prowling the net to find info. Which mostly seems devoted to either
developing a photographic 'eye' - not really a problem here - or digital or
more automatic cameras. I did find one or two that were great, but I'd like
to find something like "use this lens to do this, set the aperture to this
for these light conditions, and use a shutter speed of x to get this effect"
thing. Stuff that experience can teach. And that was the whole idea - to
learn more. I've had a little APS camera for a while, and it takes great
shots, particularly the panoramic landscapes, but it is so limited - no
control, no zoom [1], and one thing that really ticks me is that the
viewfinder and the lens are not looking at the same thing (and decapitation,
even in photos, is still pretty ugly). The old Praktica at least has that
covered!

[1] We were right on the tyre wall at PI for the superbikes, and all the
shots the bikes are so flamin' tiny we may as well have been a mile away...
and I got otherwise great shots of Frankie and Troy waving at us too. The
Sheene memorial ride you can hardly see the damn bike...

 

Do you have a light meter? If not, keep the guide printed on the inside of
the film box - and don't forget to reset the camera and/or slip of cardboard
if you change the film speed!

Try the suburban markets and garage sales (maybe even CC).

Not *too* close with that 135...

Gary

 

The camera has one, be damned if I can find where the battery goes though.
Guesswork at the moment... so far I've played it safe with 400 film. I'm
getting rather good at overexposing shots, I suspect too much aperture
rather than slow shutter speed. Oh well, that's why I'm practicing before
we get to the track.

Found a couple of bits'n'pieces - CC and ebay. 35mm x 2 (both work very
differently), 2x and 3x teleconvertors.

Close enough... ;-) on the tyre wall.

Thanks for the tips!

 

Is the camera more than 20 years old? It could be a photovoltaic cell which
produces electricity to power the meter directly from the light...

Gary

 

Yeah, I've got an old 35mm which works that way. And it's got a
tiny (round) sliderule thingummy, so you adjust the wossname until
the doover is over the light-meter needle, and then the thingummy
reads as a table of F-stop vs. shutter speed. Nifty.

-----sharks

 

Yeah, it's 36 years old. If it has a photovoltaic cell it doesn't work -
the needle doesn't move, no matter what I do to it. It does have a ring
under the rewind that has ASA speeds on it, it sits on a ring with more
numbers on it, that doesn't move. Can't work out where to reference the
film speed though. Oh well, guesswork is fun...

 

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 06:45:20 UTC, "Julie and Deb"

} Yeah, it's 36 years old. If it has a photovoltaic cell it doesn't work -
} the needle doesn't move, no matter what I do to it. It does have a ring
} under the rewind that has ASA speeds on it, it sits on a ring with more
} numbers on it, that doesn't move. Can't work out where to reference the
} film speed though. Oh well, guesswork is fun...

OK, what make and model is it?

--
// Rik Steenwinkel '85 R80ST Skippy bike
// Enschede '91 R100GS/PD The Great Unwashed
// Netherlands ('76 Honda CB250G Bouwpakketje)
// "Far away is only far away '90 K75C Kommutabike
// if you don't go there" '81 MZ TS250/1+LSW Badkuip

 

It's a Praktica Nova 1. I gave it and the lenses a good clean yesterday,
fiddled with a few knobs (down, Clem!) and now the light meter needle
moves - to invisible when the film is wound on.

Julie

 

On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 22:13:37 UTC, "Julie and Deb"

} } >
} > OK, what make and model is it?
} >
}
} It's a Praktica Nova 1. I gave it and the lenses a good clean yesterday,
} fiddled with a few knobs (down, Clem!) and now the light meter needle
} moves - to invisible when the film is wound on.

The Nova 1 doesn't have a light meter, so it's an 1b. The meter runs
off a photovoltaic selenium cell, and so doesn't need a battery. The
cell is the purplish-black rectangle with the honeycomb pattern on the
front of the pentaprism.

Basically, the meter needle should deflect with the amount of light
hitting the cell, and you adjust the time and aperture settings so
that the follower needle (with the ring) is over the meter needle.
Both the exposure time setting and the aperture dial/film speed dial
under the rewind crank move the follower needle; after you match the
needles you transfer the aperture number to the aperture ring on the
lens.

If, as you say, the meter needle moves away when the film is wound,
then there's something amiss.

--
// Rik Steenwinkel '85 R80ST Skippy bike
// Enschede '91 R100GS/PD The Great Unwashed
// Netherlands ('76 Honda CB250G Bouwpakketje)
// "Far away is only far away '90 K75C Kommutabike
// if you don't go there" '81 MZ TS250/1+LSW Badkuip

 

Mine is a Zenit brand, sounds absolutely identical so it's probably
a rip-off of said Praktica.

-----sharks

 

} Mine is a Zenit brand, sounds absolutely identical so it's probably
} a rip-off of said Praktica.

No, not a rip-off. A successfull cooperation of the glorious worker
collectives in East-Germany and the Union of Socialist Sovjet
Republics, to bring you the best in technology, furthering world peace
and global understanding, and undercutting the despicable Western
reactionary capitalist lackeys in price.

Or something.

--
// Rik Steenwinkel '85 R80ST Skippy bike
// Enschede '91 R100GS/PD The Great Unwashed
// Netherlands ('76 Honda CB250G Bouwpakketje)
// "Far away is only far away '90 K75C Kommutabike
// if you don't go there" '81 MZ TS250/1+LSW Badkuip

 

hmmmm... maybe the thing I'm assuming is the light meter (a red needle in
the LHS of the view finder) is actually just a "you haven't wound the film
on yet, stupid!" indicator. And maybe I need to go to remedial camera
school..............

Thanks Rik.

Julie (confused, but willing to give it a go. I've got a list of
'suggested' f/stops for most light conditions tucked in with the spare film)