MX Pics

PixNW · November 17, 2008

These are some pics from the final races of a MX series. C&C appreciated.

NorthernHorse · November 17, 2008

They look great for detail and focus!

Have you ever shot in vertical? Some of the pictures might have turned out better if you had rotated the camera. The last two scream "shoot vertical" to me.

PixNW · November 17, 2008

Thanks Lara. I shot quite a bit vertical over the weekend. The problem I had was that I didn't have a backup battery for the IIN yet, and I knew I would be shooting close to a couple thousand images per day. Because of the speed of the riders and how close I was to the action, I was ending up with more in focus shots with shorter series when shooting horizontal. I also wanted to get some of the roost coming off of the bikes in a couple of these. I'm just starting to go through the images and will post some of the vertical ones. Some of the shooting locations lent themselves to shooting vertical more than other.

You live in my old neck of the woods. I graduated from North Pole High School in 81.

mercphoto · November 17, 2008

PixNW wrote:

These are some pics from the final races of a MX series. C&C appreciated.

Numbers on the photos would help in that.

First two shots have under-exposed riders, and that is a problem because they are the subject of the photo. :O Either you were shooting from the wrong direction (i.e. shadow-side), or you need to use a flash to add some light. One or two other photos, interestingly, are over-exposed and too bright on the rider. So my first two critiques would be to pay attention to lighting and get your exposure more consistent. The last C&C is that you are often cropping off parts of the bike and rider. Get everything in the frame. With MX a lot of the interest is in what the rider is doing with their feet. Don't chop them off, and don't chop off where the bottom of the tire meets the dirt.

PixNW · November 17, 2008

Thanks mercphoto. I agree about the exposure on the first couple of shots. I need to spend a little time in PP and I think they can be made better. I don't feel that the others have over exposed riders though, but I could certainly be wrong. Looking at them in lightroom there aren't any of the highlight areas being blown out.

None of these were cropped, but based on a history of what sells, I have to disagree with the comment on the framing. I shot these images for the contracted series photographer because he couldn't make the final event. I looked at his galleries and sales history, and those styles of photos are very big sellers. Though they seem to loose something here for some reason, when looking at them in CS3 or Lightroom on my calibrated monitor you can see the riders eyes much better. I looked through quite a few issues of Racer X and other dirtbike magazines, and for whatever reason, those types of image framing seem pretty popular. Unless there is roost or something coming off of the tires they often aren't very interesting.

Thanks for the comments. I'm going to tweak a couple of the images a bit more in PP.

I should also mention that these shots were all taken with a Canon 1D Mark IIN and a Canon 70-200 2.8L IS lens.

PixNW · November 17, 2008

Here are a couple of the shots SOOC with no PP at all. Better? I think I overdid it in PP.

mercphoto · November 17, 2008

PixNW wrote:

Here are a couple of the shots SOOC with no PP at all. Better? I think I overdid it in PP.

When you PP'd the above shot you lost all detail in the dirt. The shot does need some PP to help with the colors, but you definitely went too far when you lost any detail in the dirt.

Much better detail in the rider, but I agree the shot needs some PP. Just don't forget, the subject is the rider, make sure you don't lose detail in the rider. Don't worry about detail in the sky at the sacrifice of detail in the bike.

Erbeman · November 17, 2008

I would have to agree with Bill that you might try to work on your lighting a bit. Of course we don't know what the weather was like that day, but for the most part, they do look a tad underexposed with one overexposed. It looks like you were too far away from the riders for a flash to be of much help. I'm still leanring myself, but my last set of pics were definately my best and that is because I tried to always shoot with the sun at my back. This made a big difference in my pics. Other than that, I think they are pretty good sir

Keep em coming! I love to see MX pics.

Ann McRae · November 17, 2008

Ah, I want to hear about the 1dMkIIN...how did that feel? As good as you expected?

ann

mercphoto · November 17, 2008

Ann McRae wrote:

Ah, I want to hear about the 1dMkIIN...how did that feel? As good as you expected?

If I was still shooting MX I would have not sold my 1DMkII. Its that big a difference. Its especially noticeable when shooting a night race.

PixNW · November 17, 2008

Erbeman wrote:

I would have to agree with Bill that you might try to work on your lighting a bit. Of course we don't know what the weather was like that day, but for the most part, they do look a tad underexposed with one overexposed. It looks like you were too far away from the riders for a flash to be of much help. I'm still leanring myself, but my last set of pics were definately my best and that is because I tried to always shoot with the sun at my back. This made a big difference in my pics. Other than that, I think they are pretty good sir Keep em coming! I love to see MX pics.

Thanks Erbeman. I've seen your stuff, and I'm a HUGE fan.

This was my first time really shooting much with the new to me IIN. I wish I would have had more time to play with exposure compensation and AF points. Unfortunately there were so many motos that had to be run before darkness set in that they were starting one moto just as the previous one was rounding the last section. The fellow I shot for really likes to have pics of most of the riders taking the checkered, so I would literally run from the finish over to catch the action in turns 2&3 as the new moto started. I had my laptop and had every intention of checking out shots during the mid day break, but the mid day break was canceled to make sure all of the motos finished. Distance from the riders wasn't a problem as I had free run of the entire track. I kept the 70-200 on, and had to back away in many areas to be far enough away. I was right on the berms in many of the turns. I got pretty good at getting a shot, and then turning and protecting the camera before the roost spray hit me.

I thought about bringing my 580EX II, but I don't (yet) have the power sources with the changeable battery magazines. I shot about 1,400 images or so each day, so I would have needed a lot of power. The lighting wasn't bad, I just didn't know the camera well enough to take advantage of some of the many tweaks that are available. I tried various exposure compensations and took a look at the LCD, and could tell that it made a difference. I probably didn't go far enough with it though. I also went to the center weighted route so that it would meter mostly the centered rider. I shot the practice on Friday and had things dialed in pretty well, but of course the lighting changed quite a bit over the next two days. With some time and experience I'm sure I'll get it figured out. I'm taking it on a beach trip next week over Thanksgiving and am looking forward to doing some nice, sanely slow, relaxing landscape shooting with it.

Ann, though I didn't do it justice, I am really liking the IIN a lot. The battery amazed me. I ordered an extra battery, but it didn't make it in time for the weekend. The manual says 1,200 shots on average, but I well exceeded that. I put the battery on the refresh/charge mode each night so that it would be full for the next day, and it never showed less than a good charge. The custom functions will take me a while to get figured out, along with the myriad of other adjustments. I took the 350D to do some candid shots on Saturday at the riders meeting and such and it felt really cheap and archaic after a little time with the IIN. I ended up using the SD card for the candids the rest of the weekend, and just put the 24-70 on it for some of them, though I really like the 70-200 for candids too.

I raced MX for a lot of years, but was so accustomed to shooting football that I forgot how much faster the action moves, especially right at the tracks edge. The speed of the AF amazed me. When riders were coming in a string to hit a big tabletop or something I could get one in the air, pan and get the next rider, shoot, and continue on without missing many of them. I ended up with some pretty good shots with multiple riders in the air. I'll post some other images later. On the last day the sun came out for a bit and lit a couple of the turns pretty nicely. Luckily it suited the exposure settings I had and the pics came out pretty well exposed.

Thanks much for all of the feedback. I'm very much enjoying the learning curve.

PixNW · November 17, 2008

Here is a pic I just picked at random from the list, not because it's a terrific pic, but because I think the exposure is about right. This is SOOC:

You can tell from the shadow that the sun was out, and where it was. Does this exposure look about right?

I should have shot in Manual, but not being overly familar with the camera yet I shot in AV. At times I would close it down a bit to get a slower shutter speed to get the sense of motion of the wheels and tires. At times at 2.8 I was getting the flashing 8000, indicating overexposed, though for most shots I wanted to limit the DOF. I almost ran back to my rig to grab my CP, and wish I would have. The lighting conditions varied quite a bit throughout the day and I could have done a much better job of adjusting. I was looking at the LCD from time to time and knew I was a bit under on some, but felt I could get some of that back quickly in PP.

For those of you familiar with the IIN, on the shots where I was underexposed, do you think I could have made up for it by bumping up the exposure compensation some more? I was wanting to get the riders close to right without blowing out the sky too much. I think the widely varied color schemes and brightness levels of the riders gear was making it hard to really nail it with one setting. How do most of you deal with those conditions? Shoot for the middle ground and adjust in PP?

Erbeman · November 17, 2008

PixNW wrote:

Here is a pic I just picked at random from the list, not because it's a terrific pic, but because I think the exposure is about right. This is SOOC:

You can tell from the shadow that the sun was out, and where it was. Does this exposure look about right?

I should have shot in Manual, but not being overly familar with the camera yet I shot in AV. At times I would close it down a bit to get a slower shutter speed to get the sense of motion of the wheels and tires. At times at 2.8 I was getting the flashing 8000, indicating overexposed, though for most shots I wanted to limit the DOF. I almost ran back to my rig to grab my CP, and wish I would have. The lighting conditions varied quite a bit throughout the day and I could have done a much better job of adjusting. I was looking at the LCD from time to time and knew I was a bit under on some, but felt I could get some of that back quickly in PP.

For those of you familiar with the IIN, on the shots where I was underexposed, do you think I could have made up for it by bumping up the exposure compensation some more? I was wanting to get the riders close to right without blowing out the sky too much. I think the widely varied color schemes and brightness levels of the riders gear was making it hard to really nail it with one setting. How do most of you deal with those conditions? Shoot for the middle ground and adjust in PP?

That makes perfect sense to me. I've been in the same predicament and ruined many many pics because I didn't have time to test different setting before the racing started. So, I've learned to get to the track an hour early and go do my testing during practice. That way I can stop mess with setting and recompose and not worry about missing anything. I only shoot manual because it allows me to have complete control of my pics. I'm not hoping they turn out the way I want them to. So definately take the plunge and shoot manual. Once you understand how adjusting one thing will give you the effect you want, you'll never shoot in anything other than manual.

The thing that I picked up on that you didn't experiment with was your ISO settings. ISO speed is definately your friend. Next time you're out try different ISO speeds at the same shutter speed and see the difference in exposure. Then next time you need to make and adjustment on the fly, you'll spend less time experimenting because you'll have an idea of what to expect by changing your ISO.

Another thing I do is I always have my Auto White balance set to Vivid. This makes the colors pop more than usual. That way you have plenty of color to mess with. If it's too much you can always desaturate it a bit in post processing.

That last pic is definately much better as far as exposure goes. Thanks for the compliment and good luck.

PixNW · November 17, 2008

Erbeman wrote:

That makes perfect sense to me. I've been in the same predicament and ruined many many pics because I didn't have time to test different setting before the racing started. So, I've learned to get to the track an hour early and go do my testing during practice. That way I can stop mess with setting and recompose and not worry about missing anything. I only shoot manual because it allows me to have complete control of my pics. I'm not hoping they turn out the way I want them to. So definately take the plunge and shoot manual. Once you understand how adjusting one thing will give you the effect you want, you'll never shoot in anything other than manual.

The thing that I picked up on that you didn't experiment with was your ISO settings. ISO speed is definately your friend. Next time you're out try different ISO speeds at the same shutter speed and see the difference in exposure. Then next time you need to make and adjustment on the fly, you'll spend less time experimenting because you'll have an idea of what to expect by changing your ISO.

Another thing I do is I always have my Auto White balance set to Vivid. This makes the colors pop more than usual. That way you have plenty of color to mess with. If it's too much you can always desaturate it a bit in post processing.

That last pic is definately much better as far as exposure goes. Thanks for the compliment and good luck.

Thanks for the tip on the White Balance, I'll give that a whirl.

I varied the ISO to help get the shutter speed I was looking for too. I shot between 100 & 400 most of the time. I was at the track a couple of hours early, but being in the desert, there was sun and clouds, and the lighting was changing pretty quick. They ran 15 motos each day, starting at about 10:30am and finishing the last one around 3:00. There was one five minute break mid-day, and I had to spend that getting some candids of the kids and their parents getting ready to run in the Teddy Bear Nationals Peewee race. I know it sounds like a bunch of excuses, and I do know that there is a lot of room to improve, but it was really trial by fire. There just wasn't any time to really stop and take a look at what had been shot, other than between pics to take a quick look at the LCD and see if anything was showing as blown out, etc. They were starting the next moto as the last of the previous moto was finishing, and the checkered flag shots were important as they're big sellers and people like to use them on the custom posters. I did have a chance in the evening to take a look, and it helped me improve the next days shots for sure. I'm pretty accustomed to shooting full manual, I just didn't think that this would be a good time with a new to me camera and not a lot of time to look at images and tweak. I'm going to head out to the track on a couple of the practice days just to get things dialed in a bit. I'm thinking of maybe getting one of the wirless transmitters and having images go to my laptop too, if the range is decent. With even a small break I could have a quick look at a bigger picture, or have someone else take a look and let me know how they're coming out.

I thought football could be fast paced and hectic, but it doesn't have anything on MX. If I would have been out there to just shoot a few riders for their sponsors or something it would have been a different kind of fun, and much easier to get things tweaked. Thankfully there is quite a bit of time between now and next MX and Supercross seasons. I'll resubscribe to a bunch of the MX mags and shoot riders every chance I get. Right now I'm really anxious to shoot some landscape and wildlife stuff with the IIN.

Looking here at what others have done with sports, and over at FM is extremely helpful.

Erbeman · November 17, 2008

PixNW wrote:

Thanks for the tip on the White Balance, I'll give that a whirl.

I varied the ISO to help get the shutter speed I was looking for too. I shot between 100 & 400 most of the time. I was at the track a couple of hours early, but being in the desert, there was sun and clouds, and the lighting was changing pretty quick. They ran 15 motos each day, starting at about 10:30am and finishing the last one around 3:00. There was one five minute break mid-day, and I had to spend that getting some candids of the kids and their parents getting ready to run in the Teddy Bear Nationals Peewee race. I know it sounds like a bunch of excuses, and I do know that there is a lot of room to improve, but it was really trial by fire. There just wasn't any time to really stop and take a look at what had been shot, other than between pics to take a quick look at the LCD and see if anything was showing as blown out, etc. They were starting the next moto as the last of the previous moto was finishing, and the checkered flag shots were important as they're big sellers and people like to use them on the custom posters. I did have a chance in the evening to take a look, and it helped me improve the next days shots for sure. I'm pretty accustomed to shooting full manual, I just didn't think that this would be a good time with a new to me camera and not a lot of time to look at images and tweak. I'm going to head out to the track on a couple of the practice days just to get things dialed in a bit. I'm thinking of maybe getting one of the wirless transmitters and having images go to my laptop too, if the range is decent. With even a small break I could have a quick look at a bigger picture, or have someone else take a look and let me know how they're coming out.

I thought football could be fast paced and hectic, but it doesn't have anything on MX. If I would have been out there to just shoot a few riders for their sponsors or something it would have been a different kind of fun, and much easier to get things tweaked. Thankfully there is quite a bit of time between now and next MX and Supercross seasons. I'll resubscribe to a bunch of the MX mags and shoot riders every chance I get. Right now I'm really anxious to shoot some landscape and wildlife stuff with the IIN.

Looking here at what others have done with sports, and over at FM is extremely helpful.

Man I feel ya!!! The last race was the exact same for me. I was there at 9 AM and left at 4 PM and there was no intermission. Crap that was a long day!!! Sounds like you know what you're doing, you just need the races to experiment. I also shoot the football games for Texas Tech and it's not near as fast as MX, well for the good guys anyway. I look forward to seeing your next MX pics. Be sure and post them up for us to check out.

PixNW · November 17, 2008

Erbeman wrote:

Man I feel ya!!! The last race was the exact same for me. I was there at 9 AM and left at 4 PM and there was no intermission. Crap that was a long day!!! Sounds like you know what you're doing, you just need the races to experiment. I also shoot the football games for Texas Tech and it's not near as fast as MX, well for the good guys anyway. I look forward to seeing your next MX pics. Be sure and post them up for us to check out.

Thanks Erbeman. Even before this thread you've been a big inspiration for me. I've shown my son quite a few of your football pics. He's a Texas fan though, has a hookem that he holds when he watches the games. His favorite college team is the Ducks though.

I'm glad that there is some time before next MX season. I'm going to practice at every opportunity. I think I'll get set up with some external power and magazines for the 580EX II. I'll be doing nightime supercross under the lights next year too. So much to practice and learn, so much fun.

mercphoto · November 18, 2008

PixNW wrote:

I varied the ISO to help get the shutter speed I was looking for too. I shot between 100 & 400 most of the time.

Interesting. All my years of kart and MX photography I always shot Tv mode to guarantee the shutter speed I was wanting, and adjusted ISO to get the aperture range I wanted. Shutter speed is prime when it comes to motorsports and is usually more important than DOF issues.

PixNW · November 18, 2008

mercphoto wrote:

Interesting. All my years of kart and MX photography I always shot Tv mode to guarantee the shutter speed I was wanting, and adjusted ISO to get the aperture range I wanted. Shutter speed is prime when it comes to motorsports and is usually more important than DOF issues.

There were some distracting backgrounds that I really wanted to make sure stayed out of focus.

nipprdog · November 18, 2008

Erbeman wrote:

Another thing I do is I always have my Auto White balance set to Vivid.

????????

Are you referring to the Picture Control setting?

Erbeman · November 18, 2008

nipprdog wrote:

????????

My D300 doesn't have that option. Did you do that with the 'Fine tune' ?

That is actually the next option after setting your white balance in Shooting Menu. It's called "Set Picture Control".

PixNW · November 19, 2008

I liked an image that had a zebra striped rider, so thought I'd play with it a bit. I still have some edges to touch up a bit.

j-bo · November 19, 2008

Another thing I do is I always have my Auto White balance set to Vivid

HUH?

Erbeman · November 19, 2008

j-bo wrote:

HUH?

If this confuses you, try reading all of the pages of this thread before you post. There you will find the answer.

j-bo · November 19, 2008

No need to be an arse about it.

I find it odd that someone sets their WB to "vivid" and I may not be understanding the different settings between Canon and Nikon.

Erbeman · November 19, 2008

j-bo wrote:

Don't be an arse about it.

I find it odd that someone sets their WB to "vivid" and I may not be understanding the different settings between Canon and Nikon.

I don't know Canon's sorry. Vivid isn't a white balance setting. I generally use auto. Vivid is simply a color setting that is the next selection after white balance setting on Nikons and I assume the picture control setting relies on the white balance. I should have explained myself more clearly the first time.

j-bo · November 19, 2008

I understand now. Thanks for clearing it up.

Erbeman · November 19, 2008

j-bo wrote:

I understand now. Thanks for clearing it up.

Good, I appologize for my previous post being a bit harsh. It's hard to tell how people are coming across when you're not face to face sometimes.

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