Trying to get the hang of processing, please give me your thoughts..

Photograph from The Armoy Road Races. I am still very much learning how to shoot the bikes and any critique would be welcome.

Thanks

Canon 70D, 70-200l 2.8 USM 1/800th f2.8

Hey John, It seems they have missed focus somewhat. The images are rather soft. The second shot, you can see in the lane strip that the camera locked in on that rather than the rider. Can't find the focus point in the first image. Going up to F4 will help and still give you a good deal of background blur.

Couple of things to think about next outing. Make i more simple for the camera to do the right thing. Try reducing the focus are to just the center. Riders uniforms generally have lots of contrast. AF loves contrast. And simplify what the camera has to think about. Shoot manual if you can. You were all eh way down at ISO 160. You camera can easily handle 400, 800 with out noise being an issue. That would have increased your shutter speed. By taking some test shots, then manually dialing that in, your camera is having to make less decisions. The decisions it does need to be made will be done faster. And it will increase your battery life as well. Took me a long time to figure that one out.

Other stylistic things.... watch your backgrounds. Look for angles where your not getting cars, big blue blobby things in the shots. Everything else in the background doesn't hurt the shot too much. Just keep as your mantra that the more simple the shot, the more the rider/bike will stand out.

Panning the shot also helps with unfortunate backgrounds.

The moments you caught are great.... just need to help the camera capture what you intended. Your gear can do this.... just need to simplify what you are asking it to do.

I always raise shutter speeds for action really high, and then lower them a bit at a time until I find the best speed to stop action.

I would suggest doubling the shutter speed and then come off that as needed. Agree with Mark about putting yourself in a position that gives you a vantage of the action, but not with distractions in the background taking over the shot.

Thanks for the tips guys. I am rather restricted in my location as my first role on the day is safety communications. I will up my shutter speed and use a single focus point.
Would back button focus help? I am going to take a monopod with me also.

john_ch wrote in post #18901295
Thanks for the tips guys. I am rather restricted in my location as my first role on the day is safety communications. I will up my shutter speed and use a single focus point.
Would back button focus help? I am going to take a monopod with me also.

As no one else has mentioned it, make sure the camera is set to servo mode and get the focus on the bike as far away as you can. Follow the bike letting the focus follow and take your shots as it approaches. If you had taken your shots slightly earlier the background would have been improved too. The shutter speed you were using should be fine, I've countless sharp racing shots at much less than 1/800 but stopping down to 5.6 and letting the iso raise will also help with sharpness over the subject.

john_ch wrote in post #18901295
Thanks for the tips guys. I am rather restricted in my location as my first role on the day is safety communications. I will up my shutter speed and use a single focus point.
Would back button focus help? I am going to take a monopod with me also.

I always use BBF, and the monopod will just help hand fatigue more than anything, by supporting the weight instead of your hands/wrist.

At 50+mph, the details on the bike/rider cover 1+" in space for 1/800th shutter, so depending on your angle to the bike, and how much you are cropping, that will have some form of impact on the final result. That is the reason I suggest going faster to just see, but definitely go single point, BBF is pretty useful, and AI Servo.

First of all I would suggest talking to other photographers at the circuit, they will be able to tell you what settings they are using and show you the results that they are getting.

Use the centre AF point and AI Servo and focus on the riders leathers.
I wouldn’t bother with a monopod as panning is much easier without one, especially if you are only using a 70-200 lens.
As for the shutter speed, I certainly wouldn’t go any faster than 1/800 as all it will do is make the bikes look really static, in-fact I would say you should look at lowering the shutter speed. But there again it is also dependant on the circuit speed where you are shooting from. A 1/50 sec at 50mph will produce the same amount of motion blur as 1/100 sec at 100 mph.
With regard to BBF all you are doing is pressing two buttons instead of one to achieve the same result, and if you have not used BBF before it does take some getting used to, but a lot of people prefer it.

So the best advice I can give is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, and eventually everything will fall into place.

Too tight. Especially the second one.