Motorbike racing - tips and advice

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clarkeg

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Clarke
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Hi all,

I need some advice to help me get some good shots of an upcoming motorbike race. I have a Nikon D40 with standard body lens and tripod. It is road racing but it goes past my parents house so I can sit in the garden and be about 2 mtrs from the road where the bikes are going past. I want to get some nice shots of sharp images of bikes and blurred backgrounds, etc (they become airborne when going past me). The bikes will be doing up to and over 100mph where I will be.

Any help/advice/tips would be great.

Thanks
Clarke
 
Wow, lucky person.

Well at that speed it's all about panning technique if you want blurred backgrounds. I'd start with a fairly high shutter speed to make sure you get the shot and then work downwards as you get good at it (but I'm guessing at 2m and 100mph it'll be very hard).

If you know you're going to take a shot when the bike is at a specific point, then you could manually focus on that spot before hand, so that the camera isn't struggling to autofocus, and the possibility of misfocussing.

It may be better to get slight head on shots?
 
My recommendation is not to photograph them from your parents house, at those speeds unless you can see them coming from a long way away you will really struggle to get sharp shots. 100mph at 2-3m is IMO pushing what is possible especially for your first go.

Instead have a look along the route where you can see them on a corner and still have a good view.
 
set up a video camera to get a film from the garden, then stand further away for the still. I took the kids to Gullivers world and couldn't pan successfully when they where on the ladybirds, so 100mph from 2 metres will be going some.
 
clarkeg said:
It is road racing but it goes past my parents house so I can sit in the garden and be about 2 mtrs from the road where the bikes are going past. I want to get some nice shots of sharp images of bikes and blurred backgrounds, etc (they become airborne when going past me). The bikes will be doing up to and over 100mph where I will be.
Click to expand...

Wow, could only dream of being that close :thumbs:

Practice your panning and select a fast shutter speed, probably also select continuous shooting so you can have a series of shots and choose the good ones - get rid of the bad ones (where you kind of miss 1/2 the bike :lol::lol:) - I was at Outlon Park last week and was trying to photo some F3 cars at full speed approx 3 metres away - managed to get a few photos after some practice :thumbs: And I think one other bit of advice is just enjoy it :clap::clap:

Good luck
 
Forget the tripod, if you have space to 'Lock on' start with the centre focus point, try 'TV' or shutter priority whatever it is on a Nikon, so I reckon start with TV at about 1/320 and wind it up faster or slower dependent on results !
 
Cheers for all the replies guys. Flem it's actually the Tandragee 100 which is in the 1st Saturday in May. I do have a good line of sight to see the bikes approaching so I can easly see when they are going to come into shot. Thanks for all the tips/help hopefully after a few hundred shots i'll get one or two worth looking at :)

Clarke
 
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