Photographs of off-road bikes

[Kev M]

Does anybody bother with panning for off-road bikes? Looking through some magazines it seems the don't bother they just use high shutter speeds all the time. Going through a load of photos from the weekend it seems that panning off road is a lot less successful than doing it with cars or bikes on a tarmac surface. Not only is the bikes moving from one side to the other which you need to track but they bounce up and down which creates a problem you can't fix either at the time or afterwards.:bang: :bonk: So is it a technique which shouldn't be applied to MX/Enduro?

 

[The_old_man]

Off road bikes are normally taken at high speed because their current position implies movement. You know, hanging in the air during a jump etc.

Simple rule I use is if its on the ground the pan to get implied movement, if its in the air, our knowledge of gravity does the implying for us

Steve

 

[Joe T]

I think dod is your man on this!

 

[dod]

Does anybody bother with panning for off-road bikes? Looking through some magazines it seems the don't bother they just use high shutter speeds all the time. Going through a load of photos from the weekend it seems that panning off road is a lot less successful than doing it with cars or bikes on a tarmac surface. Not only is the bikes moving from one side to the other which you need to track but they bounce up and down which creates a problem you can't fix either at the time or afterwards.:bang: :bonk: So is it a technique which shouldn't be applied to MX/Enduro?

Most of the stuff you see going into the mags taken by pros is at least 1/1000, I suppose they've got the extra pressure of having to get the shot and these guys are moving so quickly at really close quarters it's not easy.

You've already worked out the problems with slow pans in MX, you need to take a LOT of shots to get lucky. If you study the track though you will find the smoother parts where you can try it. It's also worth trying it on the jumps where you've still obviously got vertical movement but it's not quite so erratic.

Here's one from the weekend at 1/50, that's about as low as I'm happy to go to be honest

 

[C7KEN]

Hi there as Dod rightly says taking Motocross or Supercross photos can be very difficult because generally if they are in the air and you don't know exactly where they will be as they change lines from lap to lap, I never go as fast as 1000 and try to keep between 250th and 500th at most so I try to at least get the spokes blurred, I always try to focus on the number plates that are in view as the riders move about too much on the bikes, if they are somply coming at you on a slow corner then pre focus on the area of track you think they will use, in the air A1focus,F5.6 try to always fill the frame as much as possible rather than a lot of cropping and when you press the release keep your finger on it and count to two while still following the bike, in other words think of it like shooting clays dont stop the gun movement or the bird will be gone

Click to enlarge

 

[Kev M]

I shot around 1/60 to 1/80 for the panning stuff, some of them the bikes are too blurred but in some the bikes are sharp but the riders' head is blurred because the head is less stable than the bike I suppose. It's not all down to the terrain though I dare say a few were down to me. I was hardly in a stable position balancing on a fallen tree about 4 feet off the ground. I even fell off a few times, camera in hand. Unfortunately I don't get to practise the bike side of things too much.

 

[C7KEN]

Hi Kev you better have another go then, feet firmly on the deck camera set to f5.6 iso high enough to get a speed of 250 minimum A1servo focus using centre point only then practise but dont stop the camera moving when you press the button. it will be hard to get them in focus due to the short DOF but when you get the hang of it then its like riding a bike, the riders don't seem to like close cropped shots so show some track with some shots and if you're lucky two or three will come over a table top jump all whipping it like James Bubba Stewart and this will be a shot well worth posting on here, these are the shots you want but the riders don't always perform during racing so practise days may be better for you

 

[Kev M]

Thanks for the advice. Enduros' are a bit less accommodating for such shots than MX is because it's mostly in the woods following single tracks. I'll post some of the better stuff when I get some time to sort through them.