Thread: Motorbike racing photography

That particular pic was taken with a 24-105 F4.0L IS mounted on a 5DMk2 - the main camera I use for product photography, people and general scenery shots. The resolution of that body is so good that you really can't get away with using cheap lenses. With my Sigma 50mm EX DG Macro F2.8 it is absolutely amazing. The AF on that body is flat out no good for motorsport, meaning if I want to use it they have to be pre-focus and pray type shots.

The Safari is an amazing event with so much interesting stuff going on, regardless of whether you're into two wheels or four.

Have a look at http://ghrhonda.dirtbike.com.au/blog/ if you've interested. All the Safari pics are mine and I'll be at Condo over Easter doing more of the same.

I had a busy Easter

I've just revisited this thread and noticed you have a cracker of an image here:

Originally Posted by p38arover

I've taken the liberty of editing it a little. Bear in mind that the image was only 87KB so there is a lot of image detail lost to compression. This makes any editing a very tough job as you exaggerate any artefacts.



I did five things:

Croppped it.
Boosted the exposure as you are slightly underexposed.
Increased contrast to restore the dark track after I boosted the exposure.
Added some sharpening.
Decreased the vibrance & saturation. I wanted to boost them to really make it pop out, but the compressed image started looking very un-natural. So I went the other way.

I think the same edits on the full sized raw would look really good. You may even be able to boost the saturation without getting the same strange effect I was seeing.

The more I look at other people's images the more I realise that almost nothing is exactly as shot.

Cheers, Steve

Cheers, Steve

I guess all you motorcycle/camera enthusiasts will be at Wakefield Park this weekend, 21st-22nd April to take some photos of your own.

Formula Xtreme Calendar

Is it this weekend?

I've not seen anything from TerryO.

I had a letter from Gloria back in about November or December with the form to complete.

Aren't you glad about the advent of digital? When I started, with a 2nd hand Pentax spotmatic, box of lenses (all screw on no quick changes), all manual everything on a media we called filum spooled into a manual fill canister you could cram almost 100 shots into, 2-3 of which would be worthy.

PP was during printing adjusting times, light levels and even dodging with your hands across parts of the image to reduce exposure in parts of the image. I haven't really taken a picture since I could no longer buy Ilford 1000 in 500m rolls locally.

My best efforts from first attempt at photographing racing motorbikes, at wet Malaysian MotoGP 2009. First pic's cropped a lot tighter than I would've liked because these guys are so fast he was right at the left side of the frame with more empty space behind (right of pic). No media vest, shot as spectator from grandstand.
Shot with Nikon D700, at 400mm from 70-200 f2.8 (VR1), 2X teleconverter.