While this is almost always a valid approach, you need to create different images to tell a complete story and properly "cover" an event.
Many times when people shoot sports, they feel they need to shoot very tight with a long telephoto. He had a special arm-powered recumbent tricycle, and he was quite a bit faster than many of the other racers! One of the stand out characters competing in the race I covered was a man with limited mobility in his legs. And look for people who have interesting stories. Look for the person who came in second last year. This will give you the best change to nail your shot.Įvery race has a few stand out performers. Sometimes this is called "burst" mode and other times it's also called "continuous" mode. I also set my camera up so it shoot rapidly. This is crucial for cycling where you subject is usually moving toward or away from you very rapidly. You want to give your camera the ability to track a moving object instead of locking on to a specific distance. I set my auto focus to "continuous" for my Nikon camera.
This allows my camera to select a very fast shutter speed that will freeze the action (sometimes, you may want blur, but I'll get to that later).
#Bikerace web editor iso
I set my ISO to 400 at least, often times 640 or 800. I set my aperture to the widest aperture the lens offers or maybe one stop down from that if I'm worried about depth-of-field. When I shoot any fast moving sport, I always use aperture priority mode. You'll want to have your camera set up before the race as well. That's three opportunities per lap for a total of nine chances to get photos. It's always better to get one perfect realization of the image in your mind than six "close enoughs." In my case, I knew the riders would be going around three times, and that I could cut them off twice during each lap. Don't try to do to many things with each pass. Maybe your first shot is with a long lens, then you reposition and shoot a wide angle. You should have a shot in mind for each location for each pass of the riders. Look for interesting scenes along the route, and look for corners where the cyclists will be leaning hard to make a turn. It's easy to figure out exactly where you want to be and when. With the average speed, your good map, and knowing where the sun will be. At that point the cyclists were biking straight towards the sun. The rest of the course offered be relatively nice side light with the exception of the section at the bottom of the map. By looking at the map, you can see the top stretch of the loop might not be the best place for pictures because the sun will be at the rider's backs. Looking at the map and noticing what time of day your cyclists will be coming through will further allow you to plan your day. Obviously, hills can affect this speed, and at big races, the pace will quicken to almost 50 miles per hour near the finish. It's important to remember that most long distance cycling racers will average between 15 and 25 miles per hour. As you can see there are several roads that cut through the loop making it easier to "cut off" riders and get several pictures of them during one trip around the loop instead of waiting in one spot. You can see a map of this loop in the photo above. Due to the 200-mile distance of this race, every rider was required to do three 16-mile loops at the end of race. At the very least, they will likely end where they began.
#Bikerace web editor series
Unlike most of the Tour de France, most lower profile bike races will have a series of loops scheduled in the course. On most courses, there will be short cuts to get from one part of the route to another. You don't necessarily need to go faster than the cyclists. But a bicycle or motor scooter would have worked, too. Because I knew the main pack of riders would be spread out and the race was out in the country, I just used my car to get around. It really came in handy.įinally, you'll need a mode of transportation unless you really just want to shoot one part of the race. I also packed my smart phone with GPS, so I could identify where I was on the route if I got lost. I was stationed about 5-10 miles away from any modern conveniences, and with all the work I would be doing on the heat, I didn't want to get dehydrated. I also packed a lot of water, almost a gallon. Honestly, I could have used my 70-210mm for almost all my photos. So along with my Nikon D700, I packed a small kit of three lenses: a 24mm f/2.8, a 50mm f/1.8 and a 70-210mm f/4. The first thing you need to do is pack for the race. While its prestige wasn't quite on the level of "Le Tour," it was still intense and fun. I recently photographed a 200-mile, one day bike race through rural Ohio in the United States. With the Tour de France ending this Sunday, we'll take an in-depth look at cycling photography.
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