Cycling Photography

[anonymous-user]

As a keen cyclist I am going up to the first stage of the Tour of Britain in London in September and would like to try and get some good photos of the event and particularly the racing. I am relatively new to having a DSLR as I have only had my 450d for a few months. I have two lenses, the 18-55mm IS Kit lens and a 55-250mm IS.

I'm really after any advice that people could give on getting as good a shots as possible, particularly as I want to try experimenting and not take all my photos in auto mode! I am going to practice a bit before I go (by getting my girlfriend to cycle up and down the road behind my house!) so will have chance to try out a few suggestions before the day itself.

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 11th August 22:26

[ian in lancs]

As a cyclist and a keen amateur photographer I went to the Tour de France in London, Ashford and Provence last year. If it's a time trial then you have time to frame, focus and shoot a predictable rider. Especially if you have a long sight line. However, a group sprint or peleton comes and goes in no time at all. For the latter multiple shots/motordrive is the way to go but at high quality/RAW my buffer filled up quickly and I lost good shots! Position is important - I got near a bend so they slowed down and were banking on the turn to add drama. For a peleton I used a standard zoom, time trial / criterion a tele zoom. For the peleton depth of field and fast enough shutter was a problem; less so in the sun of Provence though. Don't forget the crowd / atmosphere shots in between waiting ages for a cyclist. Or maybe the team cars/area. At least the TdF has the caravan fun.

In essence its harder than we think to get really good shots! Be lucky!

[outnumbered]

Taking pictures of cycling is surprisingly difficult in my experience. Best thing would be to find a local TT or road race and practice. TBH, your girlfriend riding up and down outside your house isn't going to be good practice for photographing the Pros who will be doing 30mph+ ! (Unless your g/f is Nicole Cooke of course ).

I've found the best technique for non-panning shots of individual riders is to pre-focus on a bit of road and wait for the rider to get into the right part of the frame. The autofocus on my 450D plus the 55-250IS lens just isn't fast enough to get a reliably sharp result if I try to focus in real-time. You need to balance shutter speed & aperture carefully to get the balance of sharpness & depth of field.

You can get very good results with panning, but again it's worth practicing.

[anonymous-user]

Cheers for the advice guys, luckily the first stage is a 10 lap race around a circuit from Victoria Embankment up to Tower Hill and back so I will get quite a few chances to nail that perfect shot!

My girlfriend is no pro, but she is a racer so short bursts at 25mph+ won't be a problem....can just see it though, "darling, just one more run so that I can try another ISO setting"..."Dave, you said that two hours ago, do you wan't your dinner burnt?"!