# Motorcycles on backroads



## CNCO (May 2, 2011)

Went out and took a few photos of my buddies riding yesterday, let me know what you think. It was a beautiful sunny day out. Most of these shots were taking 1/4000th at f2.8. Only the last shot is my attempt at panning. Its weird how n why some pics came out crisp n others were blurry.




DSC_0075 by CNCO1




DSC_0079 by CNCO1




DSC_0136 by CNCO1




DSC_0159 by CNCO1




DSC_0199 by CNCO1




DSC_0253 by CNCO1,


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## Snyder (May 2, 2011)

1. Uninteresting angles, get your camera on the ground or way up high show me something different than normal eye level.
2. The bikes are too loose get closer to the subject or crop in.
3. Control your background they are distracting.
4. Why did you even post DSC_0199 its out of focus.

Keep shooting thats the best way to improve.


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## CNCO (May 2, 2011)

i agree that i need to get tighter with my shots. i posted for cc, how would it have been out of focus? i had the camera on afc and auto focus.


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## Josh66 (May 2, 2011)

CNCO said:


> i agree that i need to get tighter with my shots. i posted for cc, how would it have been out of focus? i had the camera on afc and auto focus.


 Look at it.

The trees are focused nicely, but it would have been much more interesting if the bike was in focus.


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## imagemaker46 (May 3, 2011)

The shot of the rider coming at you is the best one, the pan shot is too loose and the one that is out of focus should never have seen the light of day, why would you post an image that is so far out of focus? All it shows is that you are guessing at what is good and what isn't. The other shots you may as well have just had the bikes on stands. How can you go from having one really nice shot of the rider coming at you and then going to very average snap shots, if you had of just just posted the one photo, people would have said you know what you're doing, posting all of them just says don't.

Like everything people remember good when it's surrounded by bad.


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## RockstarPhotography (May 3, 2011)

1.  Dont put your subject in the center of the frame
2. the rider is riding out of the frame, you want the riding into the frame
3. uninteresting picture of a riders back
4.the best one
5.  out of focus
6. too much distraction.  needs a tighter crop.


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## Kiwi_gav (May 3, 2011)

No.4 is a nice shot, always helps that its a mint looking Ducati!


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## CNCO (May 3, 2011)

guys i know its out of focus, im wondering how/why it would have been out of focus. was it me? lens? camera? i shot 1/4000th at f2.8 which is very fast. i had the camera to center dot metering and it was set on af-c. what went wrong is what im asking about the wheelie pic. i didnt attempt any panning at all except the last shot, i wanted crisp still shots. that was my intention, no action.


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## CNCO (May 3, 2011)

i have a lot more shots of the guys coming at me very similar to the ducati shot, at work flickr is blocked so i can't get the bbc code.


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## Trever1t (May 3, 2011)

I agree #4 is the best but still needs improvement. I'd look at cropping a bit to put the rider slightly more on the right side of the frame. As far as the out of focus, it looks like your focus was on the background and that's why it didn't keep the rider focused


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## imagemaker46 (May 3, 2011)

Auto focus just doesn't always work, and the shutter speed doesn't make a difference, what happens is that it just pops in an out, in the case of the photo it just focused well past the central subject.  It's happened to me on many occations. It's not something that you can blame yourself for, it's just the technology.


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## CNCO (May 3, 2011)

would you suggest manual focus? i can't manually focus fast enough, i only have one shot at these guys coming around. when i shoot at a track if i miss them on lap 1, ill adjust for lap 2 n so on.


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## imagemaker46 (May 3, 2011)

Being able to manually focus is always an asset, but for the most part if you haven't done alot of it, it takes a lot of practice to get good at it, changing the way you shoot, or at least how to focus changes, instead of follow focus you can spot focus, picking a spot on the track where you figure the riders will be and start shooting just before they hit that spot, it's an easy way using manual focus. We used to do that with skiing, picking a spot on a blind jump, and hoping the skier crosses that point.  Autofocus  is still the best and easiest way to shoot motorsports. I would still practice manual.


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## Josh66 (May 3, 2011)

CNCO said:


> guys i know its out of focus, im wondering how/why it would have been out of focus. was it me? lens? camera? i shot 1/4000th at f2.8 which is very fast. i had the camera to center dot metering and it was *set on af-c*. what went wrong is what im asking about the wheelie pic. i didnt attempt any panning at all except the last shot, i wanted crisp still shots. that was my intention, no action.


 I suspect this is what went wrong.  AF-C is continuous, right (I shoot Canon)?  Normally there's nothing wrong with that, and that's what I use most of the time.

What happened was, the selected AF point was covering the background, not the rider.  Think back and try to remember how that happened.  Which AF point were you using?  Did you try to focus and recompose without stopping the AF?

There are a few ways you could have still got the shot.
-You could have selected a more appropriate AF point (pick the one closest to where you're going to put the rider in the frame, then just follow him, keeping the AF point on him the whole time)
-You could have focused then recomposed (you will have to enable 'back-button focusing' to do this with a continuous AF mode)
-You could have focused manually (does that lens allow you to focus manually while it's switched to AF?)


Also, something like this, you _should_ be panning to follow the subject.  With shutter speeds as fast as you were using, you wouldn't get much background blur, if that's what you were going for.

Panning to follow the subject might have also saved #5 by keeping the AF point on the rider as you were focusing.


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## memento (May 3, 2011)

cool pics.
your boys ride some nice bikes!


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## Snyder (May 3, 2011)

CNCO said:


> guys i know its out of focus, im wondering how/why it would have been out of focus. was it me? lens? camera? i shot 1/4000th at f2.8 which is very fast. i had the camera to center dot metering and it was set on af-c. what went wrong is what im asking about the wheelie pic. i didnt attempt any panning at all except the last shot, i wanted crisp still shots. that was my intention, no action.



Definately user error... im sure you didnt have the auto focus point on the subject and it re-focused on the background then you took the shot.


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## CNCO (May 3, 2011)

i am not good enough to manually focus and manually zoom in/out when i pan. the distance obviously changes as you decrease your distance then increase your distance to the car. im pissed because a really nice lambo went by and i missed it. 

i went back out tonight and tried some panning. down the road from my house there is a straight away in which i went to practice. i could not do it. nothing came out crisp. the subject was always partially blurred not enough motion blur etc.... ill do some more research on technique and see what happens.

when i shoot on sport mode everything is crisp. that is what i want.


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## Josh66 (May 3, 2011)

CNCO said:


> when i shoot on sport mode everything is crisp. that is what i want.


 What settings is sport mode using?


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## CNCO (May 5, 2011)

not sure, just looked at all images in adobe bridge and they either said auto or manual. if you want to know the settings try it at various places in a 25mph zone and a 55mph zone n see the difference. there are a lot of variables.


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