4-wheeling shots

nobody

This was done using a canon digital rebel XTi with a 70 - 200 mm f/4L, non IS lense. Since it was late evening hours, I used ISO 800, 1/1600 sec exposure. Autofocus mode was AI Servo with single spot focus. I also had switched to manual mode by the time I got this one, since he had the lights on at times and they had initially caused underexposure. Since he was only jumping a small bump on the trail, he only went a couple of feet into the air.

The more typical sort of photography I do is triathlons, running races, and dance type events that my daughter is involved in. This sort of action is a little more challenging. Suggestions and comments are welcome.

BlueHoseJacket

Let me give this rider a tip....put on a helmet, four-wheelers are dangerous. A friend of mine broke his neck several months ago, going ove the handle bars. Another friend got very lucky last weekend. He only fractured his ankle, he should have been killed. He had no helmet on and the four wheeler flipped over on top of him.

I'll get off my soap box now...nice shot.

2whlrcr

Please post some pictures of riders wearing helmets and protective gear, if you've got them. I could really start ranting about the helmetless four wheeler sub culture. I know there are responsible riders out there. But this is just another example of the Darwin theory in effect.

HockeyFan

No helmet? Two words: Ozzy Osbourne. Nuff said.
Where a helmet. Brain damage isn't cool.
Off soap box now.
The photo seems a little dark, but the stop action is pretty good. I also have an XTi. I would suggest going ahead and running the ISO up to 1600 and see if you can get either a wider aperture, or else maybe a slightly slower shutter speed to brighten things up. Or, if this is taken in Raw, then maybe some post processing will brighten it and bring out some detail.
Overall, focus seems good. It's hard to determine if DOF could be any better or if it even matters.
It looks like a fun time (but I do believe in helmets. My wife is a nurse, and if you only knew how many accidents she's dealt with over the years due to nothing more than no helmet ...).

pastoral

Helmets ??
ABSOLUTELY !! I am a ranger at a motorcycle/quad park in Florida ( Croom ) and I regularly have to respond to anywhere from 2 to 6 accidents a week. Some are relatively minor (collar bones, ankles, arms and legs etc. ) others are more severe (broken backs, head trauma, internal injuries etc. ) Ocassionally we have a death. Hemets are required of all riders in our park but I regularly have to stop someone who is foolish enough to ride without a helmet. When this happens the rider is escorted back to his vehicle to get his helmet and is then educated on the 'why' a helmet is needed. Should this person be caught again riding without his helmet on he is stopped and escorted out of the park.
I say all this to emphasize the importance of safety when riding a motorcycle or quad.
As you can probably tell I am not shy about my feelings in this area.

Alan aka Rangeral
Croom Motorcycle Area
Florida

nobody

Thanks to all for the info. I did try a few in ISO 1600, but with the XTi, I hate doing that because the grain is pretty noticeable. Certainly, 1/1600th of a second was fast enough. The biggest problem with the XTi, in my experience, is that a large number of action shots are just slightly out-of-focus -- not terribly bad, but noticeable at the larger sizes.

As for the protective gear issue, I certainly did not post this photo with the intent of condoning dangerous or illegal behavior (this took place on private property and the photo is not in my public galleries). As far as the photography goes, this was simply a case of me being there with my camera and seeing an opportunity to test my skills and the capabilities of my equipment. On my hard drives, I have probably 10 photos like this, and probably over 10,000 from various 5k's, marathlons, triathlons, etc. Needless to say, I am familiar with the rules and expectations that go with those things, but with motorsports, I am not.

DoctorIt

Motorsports photography, good motorsports photography is hard, and I'll tell you why: your photo, while we know it is of a fast, exciting moment in time, is too frozen. Anyone can take a super fast lens, open it up wide, attach it to one of the latest batch of low-noise high ISO bodies, crank up the shutter and freeze a rider in mid-air. The trick for motorsports is to freeze the pilot (eyes if possible) and body of the vehicle, while still conveying some motion with a bit of motion blur in the wheels. It's all about panning and angle, and it takes lots of practice. Don't ask me how to do it correctly, I just know that I like looking at the results when someone does it well.

nobody

DoctorIt wrote:

Motorsports photography, good motorsports photography is hard, and I'll tell you why: your photo, while we know it is of a fast, exciting moment in time, is too frozen. Anyone can take a super fast lens, open it up wide, attach it to one of the latest batch of low-noise high ISO bodies, crank up the shutter and freeze a rider in mid-air. The trick for motorsports is to freeze the pilot (eyes if possible) and body of the vehicle, while still conveying some motion with a bit of motion blur in the wheels. It's all about panning and angle, and it takes lots of practice. Don't ask me how to do it correctly, I just know that I like looking at the results when someone does it well.

In the case of my equipment, getting the subject perfectly in focus is a challenge as well. But you are certainly right about the exposure time. At the 1/1600 second setting I used, even the tops of the wheels (moving towards me 2x as fast as everything else) were not blurred at all. I could have doubled the exposure time without blurring the rider and vehicle.

And perhaps from a different angle, panning could have been useful as well. The same principles apply even to the race photos I do. For example, the triathlon I photographed this weekend, it was only after the fact that I realized what a great effect it was to catch the athletes while they are still in the shallow water and it is splashing all over the place (a long lense is important here too so you don't get your shot ruined by a drop of water on it). Those shots where people were already completely out of the water just looked like people jogging beside the lake with their wetsuits halfway off. Certainly, every race is different -- some start with people climbing onto a dock out of deep water or some end in a pool, so opportunities like that are not always available.