Yesterday must have been a “Century” ride for valley cyclists. They cruised through my little community all day. Groups of what look like professionals all wearing sponsor cycling garb cruising at about 20 mph. Some smaller groups with mixed garb but riding hard and fast. Yet others riding double bikes, some alone and others just cruising along enjoying the cool day with hopes of finishing the ride. A fun test for the photographer. Panning with low and high shutter speeds. Playing with depth of field. All in all it’s great practice for panning birds. A lot to think about when photograhing bikers including;
* Background
*Shutter Speed
*Angle of view
*Composition including not cutting off tires, heads, etc.
And many more items to consider when photographing cyclists. To test me even further I used my D800 that has a highest frame of just few shots per second vs my D4. It sounds like a lot. But it isn’t. When a cyclist is passing at twenty miles per hour and you want to pan with a slow shutter speed to show motion in the photograph, it gets tough. Shooting with the D800 I had to anticipate the shot much better. Out of about 2000 shots I was happy with about twenty…10%. About my average. If I would have been shooting with my D4 I would have had to review well over 4 times as many frames. And probably would have had a much higher percentage of good shots. My favorite was a cyclist that was in the fast ride “low wind resistance” position. Added a little more drama to the photograph…….
