More bikes

[James]

Morning all, I went to the local race circuit yesterday for the first time and had a look at the track bikes in the British Superbike race series. It was only qualifying but it was all very open and friendly. Oscar (my 3 year old son) even got to sit on an actual race bike between sessions!

Here are a few of my favourite shots of the day:







If anyone is interested the whole set is here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamestux/s ... 035224798/

[Stany Buyle]

Wow! Great shots... What camera, what lens, exif info please...
Thanks for sharing these.

[James]

Sorry Stany!

It's my NIkon D300 with the 70-300VR lens - ISO was at 200, mainly in shutterspeed priority and either at 1/250 or 1/500 to try to get some motion blur on the wheels and background. Believe or not is was so sunny in the UK yesterday that even set that way the camera was choosing apertures towards f22! I think those were f13 - f16 though. (Keeping the aperture down was why I was going as quick as 1/500 at times).

specifically for those 3 it was as follows:

1) ISO 200, 1/400s, f10 I set the exposure bias in camera to +1 to lengthen the shutterspeed / open the aperture and then undid this in lightroom later

2) ISO 200, 1/500s f9

3) ISO 200, 1/250s f7.1 - did the +1/-1 trick here too

Thanks for the feed back, it was fun taking them - they were all taken from normal spectator areas and I wasn't pushing other people out of the way to get the best spots or anything. What I did discover though is that having a 3 year old on your shoulders stops you being able to pan as easily!!

EDIT Quick question for you why does feed back as one word appear as * when I type it?

[Guy Van Hooveld]

my vote goes to #3

[James]

Thank you Guy!

[RudyDusslier]

Very nice action pictures. Congratulations.
Greetings,
Rudy

[Stany Buyle]

EDIT Quick question for you why does feed back as one word appear as * when I type it?

It has to do with my word blocking list, have to check it out... Answering me here will give a * again, please mail it to me, I'll ajust in my settings.
Thanks for mentioning this.

[James]

Thank you very much Rudy

and for Stany here it is, feedback

:oD

[Stany Buyle]

Thanks for mentioning, I unlocked "f*ck" now... So you can write "feedback"... Sorry for this...

[DavidLake]

Great captures, the colors are perfectly vivid - just like any superbike should be :)

You know the lo-1 (iso100) setting works fine to get the shutter speed down (for blur) or aperture open (for less diffraction). I have used it a few time in the AZ sun while trying to sync fill flash (max at 1/250) for wedding work. I tested both iso200 at 1/8000 and iso100 (lo-1) at 1/4000 into the sun and other highlight ferocity and found the tiny highlights that might be blown at is100 were easily recovered (I shoot RAW) and not visually noticeable. Many others have tested to find it be useful also. It's not perfect, but it's useable.

[James]

Thanks for the tip David - I generally take a couple of hundred shots an event so always shoot in jpeg which leaves less headroom - I'll give it a go next time though! I suppose it's the same kind of thing as my overexposing and reducing the exposure in lightroom though thinking about it...

[DavidLake]

I suppose it's the same kind of thing as my overexposing and reducing the exposure in lightroom though thinking about it...

Exactly! I have found that the camera - especially in JPEG - does a better job of handling this procedure than doing it yourself. They probably use the RAW data to compensate in camera and you would not be able to do that once you have created the JPEG. I have found even shooting RAW (which I do 95% of the time, actually RAW+JPEG to separate card) that the camera does an equal or better job than I can do by over-exposing and then pulling. Plus you will have less PP if you let the Expeed ship work for you :)

[Vincent De Vos]

Very nice action shots. Congratulations.

[James]

Thank you Vincent :)