Mountain Biking

[Nate P.]

Looking for advice on how to make these better... sports shooting is a lot of fun, just ain't that good at it right now. All taken with a Canon 20D and the EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6. I am aware that most of them are blurry or out of focus, but that was kind of the feeling I was going for, speed.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3101/2679073984_3297f9a860_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3268/2678256513_253e3c06f9_o.jpg

Dang, only two keepers out of 40... oh well.

[[XC] 2long4u]

Blur on the subject is not good. You want your subject in focus and you want to blur the background. You want a fast lens use your 50mm. The f3.5-5.6 is too slow without bright sunlight. Here are some good examples.

82151

82152

[Cold Fussion]

2long4u;3147744']Blur on the subject is not good. You want your subject in focus and you want to blur the background. You want a fast lens use your 50mm. The f3.5-5.6 is too slow without bright sunlight. Here are some good examples.


Thats not true. You want the exposure time at under 1/60th and you probably wont get that from a using a large aperture.

[[XC] 2long4u]

Wrong.
http://phototip.blogspot.com/2007/05/lenses-for-sports-photography.html
http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Canon-Lenses/Canon-Indoor-Sports-Lens.aspx

[Cold Fussion]

You can't do panning shots with a large aperture because you get the depth of field effect which is not what you want for a good panning shot..

[Nate P.]

I know they aren't that great technically, but I guess they are alright in an artsy kind of way... definitely not my best.

[MaxxxRacer]

If you notice, all the pannin shots that are done in sports are with good lighting. If you dont have full daylight then the panning shot tends not to work out because you can only track your subject so well. you need to have the shutter speed fast enough to stop the differential in motion between your panning and the movement if the subject across the Field of view. Once you have adjusted for that then you are good.

As far as a large or small aperature, it depends on what kind of effect you are going for and if you subject is going parallel to you or perpendicular. I have seen good pannin shots in auto races done at F2.8 and up, and all looked good.

[Xoote]

nice pics

[[XC] 2long4u]

Most of the time with sports you want to shoot in shutter priority. Apeture isn't as important as speed.