[Closed] Mountain Bike Photography

Never very keen on the "filter to protect lens" option, unless you buy a top end filter it's like using the hubble telescope to look through a jam jar when the jam jar isn't needed most of the time.

UV filter saved my lens when I dropped the camera, filter cracked and metal rim bent, lens was fine maybe would have suffered the same fate if the filter hadn't been there

Not it's intended purpose I grant you

Yeah, thats the reason most people give. I just find the damage to every image more annoying than having to replace a lens due to a one-off mistake! 😀

a crack across the filter would probably improve my pictures 😕

Yeah, thats the reason most people give. I just find the damage to every image more annoying than having to replace a lens due to a one-off mistake!

Hark at you. 🙂

Before bike specific i'd suggest learning the relationship between ISO, shutter speed and aperture. Different circumstances will require a different combination of the above. If the biker is under a dense canopy you might be looking at high iso, a slower shutter and a low f-number. If there is an abundance of light settings will change.

Learn how to pan with a subject (to make the background blurry) is a valuable skill for "action shots" as well. I found it good to practise panning at a local car trackday or MTB race where there is lots of subjects going past the same point, you can play with different settings then and see what effect that has.

Imagination and your own ideas, don't copy. There are thousands of photographers doing the same thing and it's very unusual to find decent photos. Lots and lots of practice, if it was easy there would be thousands of good photos out there... 😉

I just find the damage to every image more annoying than having to replace a lens due to a one-off mistake

Got any before and after pics?

Re MTBing shots - quite hard actually to take good pics without them looking utterly dull. I'd suggest getting in unusual spots and shooting from unusual angles. Only so many shots of a rider on a trail the eye can take, really. Something like, I dunno.. a rider on one side of a gulley taken from the other side..? Or set up on a fast corner or some other obstacle and have a mate session it with varying degrees of control whilst you change angles and so on.

Before bike specific i'd suggest learning the relationship between ISO, shutter speed and aperture

Nah, to begin with just stick it sport mode. Have fun first, get interested and then start learning up. Composition (ie actually being in the right place taking the right shot) is waaay more important than fannying about with camera settings.

Composition (ie actually being in the right place taking the right shot) is waaay more important than fannying about with camera settings.

Quoted for troof.

Think about what you want from a shot, then plan it from there. Do you want to show a super gnarly action shot with the rider on the edge of control hurtling round a berm? Probably best not to shoot half a mile away with a wide lens. Harmony with nature and a calming view of the majesty of the terrain? You might not want to be laid on your belly looking up a steep rocky chute.

Get down the woods with a couple of mates, find a fun bit and get them to session it, taking different shots with different techniques from different angles. See what works, basically!

Develop a thick skin too, as everyone will feel the need to criticise your work and tell you what you should have done...

Enjoy it, that's the main thing.

I like trawling Flickr for ideas - there are loads of great amateur photographers out there and you get ideas about types of shots - you'll get lots of links off here as people post their photos.

No point saying composition again, so a couple of techniques...

Panning - for when you want a blurred background for a sense of speed. Stand at 90 degrees to the direction of travel of the rider. Lock focus on rider with a half-press (or even swap to manual focus), move the camera to track them and fully press the shutter as they pass you, but continue the swing through to follow them. You need a slow shutter speed, I use 1/50s to 1/100s and as much depth of field as you can (f8-f13 for example). Use shutter priority to set the shutter speed then do some dry runs to check the aperture and fiddle with the ISO until you get into the range.

Freezing action - the opposite of above where you want to just freeze everything without blur. Shutter priority again 1/640s or faster.

Scenery - google hyperfocal distance. Basically you want a high f-number, say f16 and focus quite close (i.e. a few feet). That way everything in shot will be in focus. So... stick the camera in Aperture priority and dial in f16 and take it from there. A tripod may come in handy, but as you have a stabilised body you should be able to get away with very slow shutter speeds.

And shoot in raw.

Anyone make a rubber coated filter ring with no glass to protect the end of the lens body from damage?

Got any before and after pics?

No, because I only put a filter on if I need it, but I do usually do a test run with stuff I buy to check how much it's trashing the sharpness of the already not very sharp lenses I can afford 🙂

Hark at me indeed 😆

I'm a bit of a pixel peeper it has to be said, but primarily because the one thing that really really cheeses me off is when I manage to make a half decent shot (rare) it's usually screwed up by having my cheap lens on! Having said that, I do recognise that sharpness etc is only part of the picture, I just sold a poster print which I'd consider my worst image ever sharpness wise!

As for MTB images - no idea, I don't do moving subjects 🙂

Anyone make a rubber coated filter ring with no glass to protect the end of the lens body from damage?

You'd be hard pushed to notice any negative effect of a decent protective filter. Even a cheap one will only be an issue with flare.

You'd be hard pushed to notice any negative effect of a decent protective filter. Even a cheap one will only be an issue with flare.

Thing is you need to specify decent. A £10 amazon jobby really softens an image, you need to make the jump to 50+ to get one that doesn't, so I guess it depends on your definition of decent.

You need to take care selecting which focus point you use, got a feeling that the K-x doesn't show the active focus point in the viewfinder (very strange because my older K200D did)

The lens hood is worth using, avoids flare and also protects the lens, I don't use a filter either except from a polariser occasionally

For scenic shots as mentioned above, go for something like f/16 and focus about a third of the way in to get everything with detail

Definitely learn the basics of exposure, also don't judge your pics on the camera LCD as they will look a lot different when viewed on a monitor.

Don't forget to back up your pics, memory is dirt cheap and nothing worse than losing a great shot through carelessness

Finally just enjoy, unless you are very good or lucky your first efforts will probably be not that clever, all comes good pretty quick though.

One other thing, buy a decent strap something like an Optech for about fifteen quid, makes for a much more comfortable time than the supplied one.

Thing is you need to specify decent. A £10 amazon jobby really softens an image, you need to make the jump to 50+ to get one that doesn't, so I guess it depends on your definition of decent

If I get a chance and the garden birds are co-operative will take some pics later using a 400mm with and without a Hoya Pro1 UV filter.

From experience I know it does make a difference and only keep it for odd days when its windy and sand/grit etc is blowing about.

half-press

If you only know one thing about how your camera works, it should be this.

Half pressing the button focuses and sets up the picture, then fully pressing it from there takes the picture. For action shots in particular, it can be very difficult to get the shot as even with a nice camera there's a delay as it focuses. Top tip - decide where you are going to snap the rider and focus on that bit of trail - the ground or an asjacent tree or something. Half press the button, then when s/he comes around, presto - instant picture.

The other alternative (but not all cameras have it, and it's not so foolproof) is to use continuous focus mode (it has different names on different cameras). On my Oly, if you half press the button it will continuously adjust to focus on whatever you are pointing at. So if you track a rider coming towards you it'll be trained on him or her, so again you should be able to snap instantly whenever you want.

Oh and also try using burst mode, so you can hold the button down all the way and it keeps on snapping. Good for getting the one shot you want or providing you with several candidates to choose from. Also good for pretending to be a paparrazo which is a great laugh.

Don't bother with RAW. Unless you know what you are doing it's way way more trouble than it's worth. It's one of those things you can learn about if you want to a few months down the line, or you can ignore completely and just take bloomin pictures.

It's better to clean a £25 Hoya filter 20 times a day than it is to clean the front element of your lens.

Lots of good advice above.... I'm definitely a fan of protective filters. If you're planning to stand in a studio with your camera on a tripod then, yes, by all means remove the £25 Hoya UV filter from your £1000+ lens.

If however, you're likely to be out and about in the rain and the mud, photographing 18 stones of bike and rider with a wide angled lens then a filter is a-very-good-idea.

I don't use them at weddings but I do use the deepest lens hood I can get away with purely to protect the lens' front element.

The other alternative (but not all cameras have it, and it's not so foolproof) is to use continuous focus mode (it has different names on different cameras).

I use a filter and a lens hood. I've bumped the thing several times with it swinging around my neck as I scramble for a good shot - just lightly, but the number of times it happens means that even at 10 quid a time it would still be annoying to have to worry about filters.

Only once did I see flare caused by a filter. It was indoors in the daytime, and there was a ceiling light in the top of the frame. At first I thought it was my lens being rubbish (with some disappointment) but no, it vanished when I removed the filter 🙂

Good online tutorials here:

http://leadinglinesphotography.net/category/tutorials/on-line

A quick filter test. Not the most inspiring of images but they do show high contrast and include a shiny thing.

Originals:

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

100% crops:

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Which one has the filter?

I must just be a careful dancing fairy with a camera, mine never gets clobbered or particularly muddy/wet, even when snowboarding with it. I mustn't be being gnar enough 🙂

From the image, 5th, I'd say the second had the filter on - less detil on the dents on the left of the tool and less detail in the thread. But that could be down to missed focus instead if you didn't lock manual.

Yep, you're right. I think you're also right to say it could be down to the vagaries of a handheld shot.

To spot the difference in print I'd have to print at least a 1m poster. Even then I suspect the printing would hide any difference.

Are they both exposed the same? Bottom image looks a fair bit lighter, can see it in the muddy smudges and around the logo. I can see how the filter could affect metering and other choices the camera makes, and tbh mine will often adjust the exact same shot slightly differently twice in a row.

Nice sharp image tho, what camera?

Are they both exposed the same? Bottom image looks a fair bit lighter, can see it in the muddy smudges and around the logo. I can see how the filter could affect metering and other choices the camera makes, and tbh mine will often adjust the exact same shot slightly differently twice in a row.

Nice sharp image tho, what camera?

Camera is a Sony a900 with a Tamron 80-200 f2.8.

Could be that the change in light with the filter could have caused the camera to do something slightly differently. Don't you lose half a stop of light anyway?

Even then I suspect the printing would hide any difference.

True, but sitting behind the screen looking at it I'd be dissappointed knowing it could have been better.

True, but sitting behind the screen looking at it I'd be dissappointed knowing it could have been better.

Just print it 3x2, job's a goodun.

& woosh, the OP leaves, to be never be seen again...............

don simon - Member

Imagination and your own ideas

Is the best advice so far 😉

I suggest go out riding alot and take millions of pix.

Take a compact as well.

WOW!!

Cheers guys, only just had chance to read through them all. Already got myself a Lens Hood, for protection and also for what it was ment for 🙂

i think i tried to Sprint before i could walk with getting a little lost in full manual mode, so as suggest, went for Sport, took note of what it was doing with the settings and went to Aperture priority and had a mess, some interesting results.

AF.C for continual focus on the Pentax, i had a good read of the manual before hand 🙂
Not really seeing the advantages to RAW/RAW+ but i guess this comes down you your Photoshop/Gimp/other post image software.
HDR on a moving Image?

Also planning to go to a few BDS rounds this year, i see it as a never ending line of photo's and my mates are already getting bored with doing the same corners 1000's of times. Already think skinned, from Yorkshire 🙂 (Flat cap and pipe to prove it).

I guess its all down to 1 thing and that is enjoying what you are doing and its an added bonus if other people like what you are doing.

there's some general tips here:> http://leadinglinesphotography.net/category/tutorials/on-line

Dougie specialises in "adventure" photography and is an MTB'er.

Having been playing with a new camera recently RAW is great in very low light; what comes out as just a big black blob in a jpeg contains a fair bit more detail in RAW, so you can brighten it up a bit without it becoming all weird.

Fake HDR can be done on a single RAW exposure of a motion shot, bu not true HDR.

True, but sitting behind the screen looking at it I'd be dissappointed knowing it could have been better.

Oh dear! 🙂

Now I can see the advantages of shooting in RAW for HDR stuff 🙂

Might I suggest looking at alot of the crap that's out there and deciding how not to do it... 😆

Having been playing with a new camera recently RAW is great in very low light; what comes out as just a big black blob in a jpeg contains a fair bit more detail in RAW

I'd blame my camera for that. It calculates the exposure based on the available light then takes a RAW image. It THEN processes this to a JPEG if you are in that mode. So if it's darkening the image too much you need to have words with it.

I'd blame my camera for that. It calculates the exposure based on the available light then takes a RAW image. It THEN processes this to a JPEG if you are in that mode. So if it's darkening the image too much you need to have words with it.

Surely you could set up your camera to do it properly? I'd say RAW is only for people who want to get into all the techie details (like me), or who want as much capability as they can get.

Photographers occupy a spectrum between geeks and artists. We're all somewhere in between the two. If you tend towards the geek end you'll be interested in RAW; if you tend towards the artist end you'll not care unless your images are being persistently screwed up.

If you tend towards the geek end you'll be interested in RAW; if you tend towards the artist end you'll not care unless your images are being persistently screwed up.

There's a wee troll in there somewhere, isn't there?

Surely you could set up your camera to do it properly?

Surely you could learn to pre-set up your camera to do it properly?

Surely you could learn to pre-set up your camera to do it properly?

99% may be perfect. Shoot in raw and one of the benefits is that the one that is cocked-up for whatever reason may be salvageable. That could be the best of the lot too.

That's why I do shoot in RAW as well as JPG, but then I am a geek who wants to understand it all. The thing is about being a geek is that geeking out to other non geeks can really put them off a subject, whic is a shame.

Shooting RAW costs me a lot of memory card space and meant that I bought an extra big fast one to handle it all. It still can fill up though on long trips.

RAW = Enthusiast / Geek
JPG = Sunday Afternoon Driver

?

I'm talking about a safety net here. People make mistakes. Ever leave a camera on the wrong iso? Ever leave a camera in spot metering? Ever forget to set the white balance? Cameras make mistakes too. Which is why people check histograms and dial in exposure correction.

Occasionally guilty, bt that's laziness. Generaly the camera is pre set using whatever is around me and occasionally something is set incorrectly or the light changes, but not so far out that a slight tweak of levels won't fix (nothing that couldn't be done in the darkroom) and not so far out that I have to rely on software to save an image.

RAW = Enthusiast / Geek
JPG = Sunday Afternoon Driver

?

I disagree.

Thread has turned into a fairly tedious debate not really related to the OP, how surprising! 🙂

I'll just throw in a little troll of my own. Jpeg is for amateurs happy for the camera designers to take their creative decisions for them. 😉

Surely you could learn to pre-set up your camera to do it properly?

hilarious 🙂 I'm always finding I've left my camera set to bracketting, underexposure, ridiculous ISO etc etc. If I have enough attention span left to notice such things I probably don't bother taking a shot...

I'm talking about a safety net here. People make mistakes. Ever leave a camera on the wrong iso?

Correction, the aperture & shutter speed and the ISO are all parameters that must be set correctly at the time you take your shot, you cannot exactly recreate the effects of a different setting in post processing.

hilarious I'm always finding I've left my camera set to bracketting, underexposure, ridiculous ISO etc etc. If I have enough attention span left to notice such things I probably don't bother taking a shot...

More incompetence masquerading as photography then. 😉

More incompetence masquerading as photography then

my cunning plan is to take so many that some still come out right :o)

Wow, sfb you are back!

Where have you been? We have been missing you 😉

And a good plan it is too!

Welcome back. 😀

We have been missing you

get posting on my MTB guide freebie thread then 🙂 I'm looking for really good MTB related posts instead of endless cruft about cars, road bikes and chronic DailyMailism!

Correction, the aperture & shutter speed and the ISO are all parameters that must be set correctly at the time you take your shot, you cannot exactly recreate the effects of a different setting in post processing

Jpeg is for amateurs happy for the camera designers to take [s]their creative[/s] some subtle decisions for them

Having the camera on auto does not tell you where to be and what to point it at.

Oh wait - silly me.. those things are trivial! Geeking the settings IS the creative process, of course! 😉

Not true. Too low an iso on shutter priority the camera will go ahead and take the image and it'll be under exposed, which you may well be able to salvage. Too high an iso and you may get more noise than you want but otherwise acceptable image. Again, if you have the raw you have more latitude to salvage it.

5thElefant - You cannot change the iso settings in RAW once taken, or for that matter the shutter or apature settings, they are not adjustable!

Sure you can play around with the RAW file exposure but thats not the point I was making.

5thElefant - You cannot change the iso settings in RAW once taken, or for that matter the shutter or apature settings, they are not adjustable!

Sure you can play around with the RAW file exposure but thats not the point I was making.

We're in complete agreement. I think... 😉

No point saying composition again

or even for the first time! I'm going to posit that it is a meaningless construct, or perhaps only a way of conforming to others' expectations. And as for learning from other people's mistakes, doesn't that also mean accepting their preconceptions ? It may be that making your own mistakes is vital to developing your own style 🙂

I'm going to posit that it is a meaningless construct, or perhaps only a way of conforming to others' expectations

No no, composition simply refers to how the photo is set up. Doesn't have to mean the same composition as everyone else. Every photo has composition; it may follow convention, it may not. It also may be good or it may be terrible 🙂

So stop bloody trolling 🙂

Can someone tell me how i tell my dslr to take a correctly exposed picture when in every setting i know of the clouds and skies are over exposed and the shadows etc are under exposed. Say for example a lakes scenic shot. Nice shadowy trees in the foreground but a bright cloudy sky. I know how i would go about compensating for this in RAW but how do i do it on the camera?

Filter.
Take two shots and play in Photochop.
RTFM.

HTH.

ps. I have a style of photography, I like it, my customers like. Your style and ideas are different and therefore wrong and I mock you for it, thank you.

I dont have a filter. I am talking to my camera like suggested. What settings do i play with.

I would take the picture in the best setting i could. Then i would just load the raw file up and adjust for highlights, save. Then adjust for shadows, save, then combine the two in photoshop.

Can a dslr camera do this instead for me?

I wouldn't know about RAW, that's for geeks who don't know how to use a camera, ignore this Hobo.
You'll need two shots from exactly the same position- tripod.
Set the exposure for photo 1 for detail in the sky.
Set the exposure for photo 2 for detail in the foreground.
Go to photochop and play and mix the two until you're happy.

So i cant just shout louder at my camera 🙁

I think some compacts can take two photos and merge them in-camera.

Every photo has composition

I've been reliably informed that mine do not.

So stop bloody trolling

this is called critical thinking. HTH.

Sigh.. you're being silly. When you point your camara this constitutes composing a shot. Obviously. Whether or not you do it well is another issue.

Critical thinking would be nice, but any kind of thinking would be a start 😉

Sigh.. you're being silly. When you point your camara this constitutes composing a shot

except that I've seen many on here insist that unless it's done in a certain way the result will be awful, regardless of what it looks like. And also, depending on circumstances, you might elect to zoom out a bit (or stand further back) and concentrate on framing later when you have the leisure, and in my experience the shape of the camera frame rarely accords with that of the perceived scene.

Can I also make a bid for creative error? I have a nice shot of Malham Tarn accidentally taken at -2 stops due to inadvertent bracketting which looks much nicer than the correctly exposed one 🙂
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except that I've seen many on here insist that unless it's done in a certain way the result will be awful, regardless of what it looks like

I think you mis-interpreted that particular argument. What we were trying to say is that there are certain conventions, but that is all they are. You seemed to think we were trying to force you to conform to some rules which would of course be utterly ridiculous, and no-one interested in any modern art form would say something like that.

which looks much nicer than the correctly exposed one

It's not a question of 'correct' exposure since there's no right or wrong. You can let whatever you like through your lens - it's your camera. The auto functions on your camera are simply there to help you find a middling option, resulting in the most evenly exposed image. It's well known that this may not create as good an effect as some other setting, which is why exposure compensation is usually a very accessible function on cameras.

In the light of that lovely shot, perhaps you'll experiment with the camera settings more often? Wasn't it you that said you left it on auto the whole time?

TheLittlestHobo - which camera are you using?

If you dont want to mess about with RAW files, does your camera have a bracketing option?

http://www.singletrackworld.com/2011/01/stop-taking-crap-photos/