Photoshoots

[nikfleisch]

So one thing i love doing is checking out everyone's pictures of their bikes, i've been wanting to get some good shots of my bike, what do you guys find tends to have the best backdrops and what cameras/settings do you use?

kind of like these shots,I have no experience when it comes to photography so what settings do you guys run?

http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2007/07/07/2008-buell-1125r-liquid-cooled-rotax-v-twin/

 

[nikfleisch]

bump

 

[XBChuck9]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/charles_allen/sets/72157625040103473/

So, I shoot mostly with a 50mm prime lens wide open. It forces me to think about the picture instead of relying on the zoom to get something that might look good. It also gives me a really shallow depth of field which I like quite a bit.

That goes more for "Portrait" style pictures of just the bike standing still. For action shots you'll either need a chase vehicle to shoot from or a long lens and pick a good spot along a corner. You'll want to use a little longer shutter speed than you might think to accentuate the motion and pan with your subject to give the background the nice motion blur effect to make it look super fast. Make sure the shutter speed isn't not too long otherwise you'll get motion blur where you don't want it.

As far as backgrounds go, you can see by the set that I like the "Urban Grunge" look. Really that's totally up to your tastes, but I think the environment shouldn't be totally unrealistic to find a bike in.

I hope this helps.

 

[nikfleisch]

Love these!

 

[nikfleisch]

seriously only one person likes taking pictures of thier bike on here?

 

[freak2180]

I love to see pics of our bikes and even considerd buy a nice camara to start taking more of mine. till then I guess I will just have to look at everyone elses pics.

 

[Ranger3987]

I would like to think most people on this site prefer to ride there bikes than just take pictures hence the picture challenge that includes riding to get photos

 

[Ranger3987]

Plus with the rise of digital cameras and cell phone cameras not as many people know or could help with the specifics for taking high quality photos similar to the ones your looking for

 

[rockerphotographer]

I don't own a bike right now but I'm very familiar with photography

The main thing you need to worry about is LIGHT. Make sure the sun in behind the camera and shoot shortly before the sun goes down. The big money pro's have all the fancy high powered flashes, reflectors, and light diffusers to create nice shots in any environment, but no need for all that for right now...

If you look at XBChuck9's awesome photos, # 010 specifically, you can see the "depth of field" effect you get from shooting with a big aperture (lower number), or as he says "wide open", compared to a small aperture (higher number). If you wanted the whole bike in focus for that photo then you would have to use a smaller aperture to increase depth of field but the bike in the background would also become more in focus, but not totally.

Wide angle lenses, maybe 17mm or wider, can give you some pretty cool effects too. The only problem with wide angle and digital photography is the cost. Most digital cameras are "crop frame" and you need to dish out some money for full frame to take full advantage of a wide angle lens.

You can create photos like this with fairly inexpensive equipment and decent software. I'm a Canon guy so I would say a Rebel XS with 50mm 1.8 lens would be really inexpensive if bought used and are very easy to find. I'm just warning you though, if you start to like this hobby it'll be a very expensive path after this

 

[nikfleisch]

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1902930100614.2109325.1462565713&l=d88827bb94


The last 5 are my sad attempts let me know what you think, there with my sisters rebel that she let me borrow

 

[Bicyclebob]

Nik,

You're on the right track. Experiment with composition, focus and aperture. So far so good #24 has the most interesting composition and the least effective light. Early morning or sunset with the light behind you would have worked the best. Once you get a feel for it it'll click. Next step is photo editing software but wait a while for that. Learn to compose your photo in the viewfinder first.

Nice work,
Bob

 

[XBChuck9]

Wow Nik, quite the reputation points you got there!

About the pictures... Really you just have to analyze your pictures compared to pictures you like. Sometimes I feel like I'm totally ripping off other photographers, but in the end, you're shooting a different place or time so it's hard to really totally plagiarize (unless you do it intentionally). You did good to be inspired to start with. Now the hard part is to figure out how to achieve the effects you see. You've got to "reverse engineer" the pictures that inspire you to mimic the effect.

Another thing that's vitally important is critique. You have to be able to critique yourself and you have to be open to other people's critique. Sometimes other people will see things that you dont see, or apply things they've learned to something you might not have picked up yet.

Anyway, if you have any questions let me know. I'll do my best to help you out.

 

[XBChuck9]

Hey Nik, any new pics?