BSB, Donington - Qualifying Pictures

Here’s a selection from the ones I got today at Donington Park.

Fab pics as usual Silver! Loving the gixxers Thanks for sharing them.

Great snaps Silver will have to have another look when I wake up, the gixxers look great

Oh and Jay don’t you sleep (Group: Staff - Active: Today @ 02:41)

No DA, always working on the site! Ow, BSB on ITV1 now!

Quality Pics there mate

Silver’s pictures are now online in a gallery:
http://londonbikers.com/galleries/gallery.aspx?uid=e73441ff-6eaa-4333-880b-384b3bd786d3

What are the settings for such a great pics of objects in motion?

Iso, shutter speed etc.

Depends on the corner, weather and how they’re coming out to be honest. Saturday was a bit of awkward because it kept alternating between clear blue skies, overcast and rain.

Generally speaking I’ll keep the ISO as low as possible (whilst still keeping the picture bright). Saturday, they were all taken at ISO 200, 250 or 320. Shutter speeds also vary depending on corner, the effect that you want etc. For head-on shots I’d look to a higher shutter speed (around 1/500s, 1/640s) as you won’t track little variations in the bike/rider’s movement and a lower speed might blur the picture with no benefits even if you get it right.

For side shots (or angled shots) I’ll go lower with the shutter speed, since you know the direction of travel and can anticipate the movement. You can take pictures all day at 1/1000s+ and they’ll come out really sharp. What you won’t get though, is any sense of speed or movement; you’ll be able to see every blade of grass, read the advertising signs in the background and the wheels, chain etc will be frozen in time! I’d say it’s a good place for someone starting out to begin as it gets you used to panning with the bike, but you want to be aiming for much slower speeds. I won’t go any faster than 1/400s and have got some shots down to 1/100s. Obviously the slower the shutter speed the more motion blur you will get from the background, wheels etc. The skill then is to keep everything that should be in focus, in focus.

Bikes are tricky because of all the small writing on them - you can tell instantly if they’re not exactly in focus! Another aspect here is the focal length of the lens; it is much easier to keep something in focus with a short focal length. It’s the same principal with a sniper - a movement of a couple of millimetres at your end will be exaggerated greatly by the time the shot reaches its target. The further the shot, the more chance of it varying. Anyway, on Saturday the side shots were mostly around the 1/200s, 1/250s and 1/320s at between 250mm and 420mm.

Hope that helps. Sorry for the ramble… slow day at work and I’m bored!

Awesome pictures again mate, jealous of your skill with the camera but i can’t be good at everything.

Fab pictures, I need to get up to speed on good photography, I’m just bumbling along trying to make do with the limited time I have available for it. Looking to get a wide-angled lens next, my Sigma is a 28-200mm, would like something 18mm and up or so I think, keep getting caught out.

Annoying isn’t it? It’d be awesome to have a lens for everything, but I guess it’d weigh 10kg and cost £10k! Got my lenses down to three at the moment (18-125 f/3.5-5.6, 70-200mm f/2.8, 120-300mm f/2.8 and a 1.4x converter), but I’d still like a better quality (f/2.8 or f/4) small “walkabout” lens. That’ll be another £800 then…