Tour of California Prologue, Palo Alto.

CatOne

Gave me a chance to give the trigger a good squeeze.

Stuart O'Grady:



Zavid Zabriskie (US national TT champion, Tour de France prologue winner) -- Nice mustache!



Ben Jacques-Maynes (used to ride with him a couple times/week on our morning rides):



Chris Horner:



Mario Cipollini (?!!!!):



Henk Vogels:



Oscar Freire:



Tom Boonen:



David Millar:



Paolo Bettini:



Fabien Cancellara:



George Hincapie:



Levi Leipheimer:



Tough to get the shutter speed right and sufficient DOF to get the folks in the background out, due to location. I may try to catch the race on Wednesday as well, going up Mt. Hamilton or Sierra Grade.

aktse

CatOne wrote:

Tough to get the shutter speed right and sufficient DOF to get the folks in the background out, due to location. I may try to catch the race on Wednesday as well, going up Mt. Hamilton or Sierra Grade.

First of all, first rate job on all of them! clap

May I ask what exposure settings you were using? This was my first time shooting cyclists and I was having a very tough time with shutter speed and DOF. I think my problem was that I was trying my luck at panning and wasn't having much successful (should have moved to a shorter lens). I was also surprised to see the number of people walking around with dSLRs along the course and most didn't seem to know what they were doing when I asked questions.

Well done!

CatOne

aktse wrote:

First of all, first rate job on all of them! clap

May I ask what exposure settings you were using? This was my first time shooting cyclists and I was having a very tough time with shutter speed and DOF. I think my problem was that I was trying my luck at panning and wasn't having much successful (should have moved to a shorter lens). I was also surprised to see the number of people walking around with dSLRs along the course and most didn't seem to know what they were doing when I asked questions.

Well done!

I set the camera on Tv with a shutter speed of 1/250 second. Enough to get a little motion blur but not fast enough to risk subjects that weren't sharp.

I had a 70-200 f2.8L lens as well so I had the IS set to type 2 (panning). It worked out pretty well. I might have liked a bit less DOF because there were people in the background in many of the shots that are too close to focus.

I shot with an ISO of 200 as well as it gave me a little smaller aperture for better DOF. Looking at the pictures in hindsight, maybe I should have gone to ISO 100 to get that smaller DOF. Ah well

chuckice

Nice shots! Good to see Cipo one more time...

MichaelKirk

Nice work
Nice job and your fortunate to have suce a high profile race in your area - I get nothing around here until the Triple Crown in June (Philadelphia)

I would have liked to see some tighter crops or shots like the one with Oscar Freire - but that's just my personal taste.

Michael

chuckice

MichaelKirk wrote:

Nice job and your fortunate to have suce a high profile race in your area - I get nothing around here until the Triple Crown in June (Philadelphia)

I would have liked to see some tighter crops or shots like the one with Oscar Freire - but that's just my personal taste.

Michael

That week of the Triple Crown is great racing tho!

CatOne

MichaelKirk wrote:

Nice job and your fortunate to have suce a high profile race in your area - I get nothing around here until the Triple Crown in June (Philadelphia)

I would have liked to see some tighter crops or shots like the one with Oscar Freire - but that's just my personal taste.

Michael

I have the ability to do tighter crops on a number of them (and also have a number of shots which are more zoomed in)... part of me needs to be able to "let go" and resist the temptation to get the entire bike and rider and helmet in there. When I see a number of PJ shots of bike racers they do that, but as a rider and photographer it's tough for *me* to do it. I'll try a few tighter crops and work with the other shots and post 'em here over the next few days.

MichaelKirk

Time Trials....
Shooting Time Trials I "try" to get a sequence of 3 shots per rider - often it will be only 2 though - this is not all that difficult since you will usually have 30 sec to a minute between riders (in general).

1st shot is a full body and bike shot with some background included
2nd shit will be a tigher shot - generally showing the rider and around 3/4 of the bike
3rd shot will ge a very tight close up of the riders top and a bit of the bars.


Here is a gallery of a local TT I shot last year:
http://mlkimages.smugmug.com/gallery/3283060_tzZoM


Michael

CatOne wrote:

I have the ability to do tighter crops on a number of them (and also have a number of shots which are more zoomed in)... part of me needs to be able to "let go" and resist the temptation to get the entire bike and rider and helmet in there. When I see a number of PJ shots of bike racers they do that, but as a rider and photographer it's tough for *me* to do it. I'll try a few tighter crops and work with the other shots and post 'em here over the next few days.

KED

Unbelievable!
You have absolutely frozen forearm hairs on a couple of these shots. I ride (alone, never where I could be compared with anyone else!), have never tried shooting riding, but you are a panner extraordinaire! At 250 especially, that is just amazing.