Taking some sports photos

[foodpoison]

Sorry, I don't know if this is the right forum.

I took a few sports photos today, mountain biking to be specific.
It was the first time out with my new camera (EOS 350D) and new lens (Sigma APO 70-300mm) taking mountain biking pictures.

I have to say, I found it quite difficult.
The settings I was using was around 1/25 shutter speed, 5.6 aperture and ISO of 400, and I was using manual focus, because I don't like autofocus.
I think I got those right, I'm a right newbie at this :p

Basically, my problem is, I'm having trouble focusing with my new lens.
Some of the shots are quite sharp, but the ones that I really wanted to be sharp were unfocused.
If you want I'll post a few examples, but I don't know if its necessary.

This is possibly a very stupid question, but do you think its possible I could be doing something wrong/theres something wrong with my setup?
Or is getting focused subjects something that takes practise and a sharp eye?

Thanks for your understanding and help. If you choose to give me any, that is!

[Slapo]

1/25?
That should be between 1/250 - 1/whatever (1/1250 tends to work best for me), unless you're panning. With panning, don't expect every shot to have the main subject quite sharp, that's unlikely.

Post them samples too.

[Joe T]

Fast moving subjects can be difficult to focus on - especially manually. Im sure you will get better with practice.

It might be worth trying AI Servo auto focus to track the subject?

[Ross]

Agreed with autofocus being a lot easier on moving subjects, unless you pre-focus at a specific spot and wait for the subject to pass

[foodpoison]

1/25?
That should be between 1/250 - 1/whatever (1/1250 tends to work best for me), unless you're panning. With panning, don't expect every shot to have the main subject quite sharp, that's unlikely.

Post them samples too.

On the screen, it said 25. So I presumed that it was 1/25.


Fast moving subjects can be difficult to focus on - especially manually. Im sure you will get better with practice.

It might be worth trying AI Servo auto focus to track the subject?

:| Uhm.. AI Servo?
(just had a read up)
Yeah, that sounds good. I'll have a fiddle around see if that helps.


Agreed with autofocus being a lot easier on moving subjects, unless you pre-focus at a specific spot and wait for the subject to pass

Thats what I was doing, getting my mate to stand where they'd be coming, and then I would focus on him, and wait for them to pass.
I'll post them pictures in another post.

[foodpoison]

Here are a couple of the 'good' ones.
Or at least, the ones I would consider good :p

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/1528/img0545xq6.jpg

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/487/tomfortpnn6.jpg

And here are the bad ones.

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7310/img0553ec1.jpg

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/8112/img0558rf7.jpg

[DiddyDave]

That looks like a quick downhill section, so assuming they were doing only 20mph (not very fast for a downhill bit), they'd move towards you are about 4.5 inches in every 1/25th second, so they were unlikely to ever be totally sharp

Added to which, at 1/25th sec on a lens of a focal length more than 25mm, you are likely to be introducing blur yourself as you just can't hold a camera that steady. In all of these shots the ferns on either side aren't sharp at any point either, which is likely to be due to you moving as you press the shutter

Slapo's right, you should have been using at least 1/1000th sec which your indicated ISO & f-stop suggested wasn't possible on the day in that spot - it was simply too dark. A tough part of photography is learning that sometimes the shot you see in your mind's eye, just isn't possible for the camera to reproduce

Switch to tracking autofocus (trust the technology you've paid for), up the ISO to 800 and try again in a sunnier spot - good luck

[foodpoison]

I just switched to 1/1000th sec, 800 ISO and AI Servo focus. Its taken some pretty sharp out-of-the-window shots of cars, but yet to try it on mountain bikes.
Cheers for your advice guys, I'll update you when I get back on my bike.

[Slapo]

You might want to try manual focus if the bikes aren't going around too fast and AF has trouble keeping up because of dim light.

[Iain MacIntosh]

If your shooting head on use a high shutter anything over 1/640, if you are shooting side on, pan with 1/200 to 1/250. When your panning gets better you can drop it down to 1/125 but your hit rate will always be low at these shutter speeds regardless of how good you are. Use AF, way to hit and miss in manual.

[Diego Garcia]

Use AI servo too, this will help massively.

[Ally]

If you get the chance track your subject as they come close to you. Press your focus button and track them moving and then take a few shots after a second or so 1. This will give your Auto focus time to lock onto your subject and 2. you should have a better hit rate :)