Bikes, fast bikes.

The first bike meeting at Oulton Park in Cheshire. My favourite circuit and today was a bit of a learning exercise to find the best postions and angles for shooting bikes. So, here are some examples of today's work. Nearly all the shots are taken with the 1D MK-II, 300 2.8L IS and x2.0 TC. Don't believe all the rubbish you read about the 2.0 TC making shots soft, it all depends on the lens you attach it to.

Good spot for overtaking:

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Great shots Ken

Do you find it easyer or harder to photograph them,upto photographing the cars ?

Hi Alan, I think it is easier to photograph any kind of motorpsort, bikes or cars, if you have done some yourself. For the cars it is easy for me after racing myself for a few years, but for the bikes, apart from running an ex-police Norton 650, I have not raced them. I can read them pretty well, but not as easy as cars on the circuit.

Taking the pictures is just as easy. The only difference from the cars is I sometimes take the bikes in portrait mode, using the top focus point on the rider's helmet. Also, inside of bends is more useful for bikes than cars.

Here is an example of portrait (one of my favourites of this type today) and the focus point was on the helmet.

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Nice shots! What settings you got to get the colours to pop quite like that? Lighting sucked at Donington today!

Nice shots guys...

Yeah, the colours are great!! Good job capturing that wipeout. That one must have been hard... unless you paid the guy off to take a dive in the 7th round... I mean lap.

Excellent shots! I like the low angle on the two in the first shot.
Turn one is always interesting with big grids like your shot of the 600's.

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Wonderful photos again Ken. When you decide to write a book with stories about your days of active racing and racing photography you must let us know. Everyone here would snatch it up in a heartbeat.

Excellent stuff.

I simply shoot in RAW, convert with C1 and re-size for the web with PS. Between races a bunch of us were discussing shooting at Donington. The concensus was none of us liked working there and most avoided it, so you are in good company. Even with media accreditation you can't get anywhere to get decent shots when the sun comes around mid afternoon on. Look where the media work and you will see what I mean.

I'm off to Croft shortly for more two-wheel madness and then back to cars next week.

I feel bad for the guy in the second picture, thats gonna leave a mark!

He was fine. I went and talked to him when the race ended, while he was waiting for the recovery vehicle. He was more worried about what the owner of the bike would say about the damage than the few scrapes on his leathers. Shaken, but not stirred.