Beginner SBK Free Practice

Captain Caveman

Captain Caveman

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153
Name
Simon
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Took the bike to see some bigger bikes :thinking: This is my first time shooting bikes and I have to say its ALOT harder than cars, my 200mm lens feels even shorter pointing at these.

Im not very pleased with these but here goes...
#1
SBK by Simon Cave, on Flickr
#2
SBK_1 by Simon Cave, on Flickr
#3
SBK_2 by Simon Cave, on Flickr
#4
SBK_4 by Simon Cave, on Flickr
#5
SBK_5 by Simon Cave, on Flickr
#6
SBK_6 by Simon Cave, on Flickr

any tips (apart from get a longer lens lol) welcome
 
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What gear and setup did you use here Simon?
 
Captain Caveman said:
so beginer stuff
Click to expand...
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Irrelevant, your on Nikon so I can maybe help you.

Your panning looks good so your problem is focus…
tell me about your settings, exposure and focus wise, please.
 
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I don't know if your camera model can do these
but I would suggest you:

ISO: min 800
SS: min 1/100
ƒ: 2.8 ~ 8
Back button focus
central point (51 zones)
continuous AF​
High firing rate.​
 
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My advice is ISO on auto, f8 or thereabouts, shutter of 1/200 for panning, continuous af. Use single point AF and practice getting it on their heads and pan with them. For head on shots use 1/1000. If shooting through a fence you want to right up to it and wide open aperture. Keep practising
 
All the on track stuff is a bit soft chap, sorry, #1 you've got the Yamaha behind in sharper focus than the guy you wanted. You'd need to be using servo focus and I'd advise single point selection - sorry I tried to look at your Flickr Exif but photoshop adds loads of tags and I cant see what modes you were using for looking :) 200mm is difficult to work with for bikes especially at Donington (I've only been once so my track knowledge probably shouldn't be trusted). Its always tough shooting in the bright sun too and that invariably effects AF performance which might account for some your issues.

Without wishing to contradict other peoples advice too much image quality is much better at lower ISO so lock that in at low levels (I can see you did that), as above if you're up against the fence use a wide aperture (the widest you can) - if this produces a shutter speed thats too high for what you want to do, get an ND filter. Shutter speeds arent so key for bikes you can easily go up to 1/800 so long as the bikes are leaning to imply a lot of movement - panning 1/200 might be a bit aggressive with the riders moving about a lot in anything but constant radius turns, its certainly more than possible but for a beginner id suggest a little faster.

Focus is your main problem with these, but its not due to shutter speed as much as it is down to the camera (by the look of it anyway) or manual selection if you were using that. I do quite like #4 its probably been done to death but its the first time ive seen that angle I actually said to my self 'I didnt know that was there' :D

Last paddock shot is ok too , just a shame you clipped the wheels at the bottom and on the left.

Hope that helps :)
 
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have to say well done on these. I often shoot at Donington park and it is a very tricky track to get right because of the high fences and the way the track changes. I like your shot in the paddock of the demo bikes and the shot at the Melbourne loop of Leon Camier is good. a shame about the fence but probably because of the lens.

All in all a great set in my view for someone who hasn't shot bikes before.
 
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