How to take great photos of your bike?

You can't effectively blur the background much with a little digicam like that. It's just the nature of the small cameras - they have a huge depth of field.

The best you can do is what I did in this shot:


Depth of field is determined by three things: distance to the subject (closer = smaller depth of field), aperture size (bigger = smaller depth of field), and focal length (longer = smaller depth of field). Since you can't get particularly close to the bike, I set the camera for aperture priority and used the largest aperture (smallest number), zoomed in all the way and made sure the closest thing behind the bike was far away.

The other thing to keep in mind taking pictures of your bike is in bright sunlight like that, the background and the sky are far, far brighter than your bike is. So, the camera is going to try and make everything well-exposed, thus underexposing your bike a little.

If you bump up the exposure compensation by a little, your bike will be brighter and better exposed.

Is that a carbon stem? First time I've seen a carbon stem on a mountain bike.

you have such a nice, green yard and all your grass matches.. I am jealous.

N8...with the money you've spent on bikeys lately I'm surprised your photo kit doesn't consist of a 5D, 2.8F/L zoom lenses, and a few 1.4 primes.

narlus said:

shoot raw, do layers.

Click to expand...

:nuts:

Somehow I don't think N8 wants to spend an hour in Photoshop brushing exposure layers into his bike pictures

also, choose a much less busy background.

Click to expand...

Yeah, background choice becomes even more important when you don't have control over the depth of field.

laura said:

you have such a nice, green yard and all your grass matches.. I am jealous.

Click to expand...

Laura is stunned - no cars on block on it either :devil:

narlus said:

the sigma 30 f/1.4 lens i got is great.

but can't be used on a FF body.

then again, a 5D ain't in the budget anytime soon; i think the 24-70L will happen 1st.

Click to expand...

My wife is the photog of the family. I need to get her a 50m f/1.8 (or the 1.4) prime lens some time. We got her the older 28-70 f/2.8L last year. She's taken some nice shots with it, but she doesn't really care for the heft of the lens.

A 5D would be sweet, but it's way out of our budget too. But if she does get a new body sometime, that will probably be it.

I concur - nice shot N8!

N8 said:

It is... it's a Bontranger and I and going to flip it over I think...

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've got that stem on my SS too. The degree rise was too high to make it work well on my geared bikes, so it goes on the SS. Nice, light, stiff, expensive. I like it.

JJames

you obviously aren't shooting close enough to the fence!

N8 said:

Ok, since the 29ers are all welcoming of everyone (except Dave Turner apparently ) let's talk bike photo techniques in here.

Ok, I was goofing around last night and snapped a few amatureish photos and I'd like to know what I can do it right...

Here are the photos:

I shot these photos with my macro on, flash on and the ISO at 400... I wish I could blur out the background but couldn't figure out how to my my Nickon Coolpix camera do that.

Click to expand...

I've shot semi-pro for a few years and had many shots published in National and international magazines, spent more hours than many in the darkroom and can honestly say, even your far-above average shooter will be fine with a quality point and shoot. I do have a few SLR's and a DSLR, but for most folks a Point and SHoot is more than enough. I've had plenty of shots published taken with a Sony CD400...would I prefer it to be my DSLR? Maybe, I'd have more options, but sometimes that's one option too many. With all the bells and whistles folks forget how to get dirty, how to work for an angle and how to make the best use of the available light. Getting a nice Canon Powershot will make you work less when you don't want to think (snapshots) and work harder when you want that certain effect or emotion....it will make you learn the basics of setup. Then later on you can take that work ethic and apply it to your SLR skillset. The result is a very well rounded photog.

Basically don't be afraid to get dirty. Oh and a nice flash diffuser is your friend.

This is from the Cyclocross Nats in RI last December

RJ

well, I could put on a clinic, but here's some quickie observations, based mostly on your specific question Nate, and on the photo's you posted at the top of this thread:

1) back off, you're too close to the bike, being too close throws the bike out of porportion...zoom in if you have to, but as a rule, don't get closer than 15 feet or so
2) don't use a flash
3) don't photo it in bright direct sunlight
4) overcast, but still daylight is the best light i've found
5) stay away from mixed shadows
6) full shade is OK sometimes
7) have a simple background...in front of streets, flower gardens, etc is no good...makes it cluttered and distracting

Here's a series that make the example of #7 (most important):

Early shot, I'm way too close the bike looks out of porportion:


A year or so later, I'm getting better at it (same camera), note the angle looks better, and the background is less distracting, but not perfect:


And more recently, bike in the porportion I want, background isn't distracting:


You can also use this technique (back off and zoom in) for in-your-face close ups....this is one of my all time favorites, note it's in excellent porporition...if you took this shot standing next to the bike, it would look crappy:


Here's an example of a shot that some might think looks good, but I was waaay to close to the bike, so the porportion is crappy, not good like the pic just above:


The further you back off the better sometimes...just make sure your image quality is enough to where when you crop it back, that you still have a good image. Here's a waaaaay backed off pic...


Also expirament with purposely having stuff be distracting or in the way. Sometimes that can be cool too, like a stealth thing. Take this for instance:


Anyway, that's all I have today...you can use these techniques to make a fairly simple bike seem a lot hotter than it is...not that any of the present company has a non-hot bike, i'm just sayin'...

1) Nice bike
2) Where's the wok?
3) -100 points (JSG stand in moment. I actually miss Pete).

These two are looking pretty good...I can tell your image re-sizer is making the image a bit grainy. the trick on mine, is to save the image before you resize it...that's how it works on my computer with MS Paint anyway...if I'm throwin' down the law though, I'll use Google's Free Picaso...

N8 said:

Click to expand...

IrfanView actually doesn't have a whole lot of graphics editing functions. Basic stuff like contrast, brightness, etc.

My favorite thing about it is that it has keyboard keys mapped to a huge amount of functions. Hit the delete key while viewing a photo, and your photo will be on its way to the recycle bin (after confirmation, of course). Hit the right arrow, and you'll view the next photo in the directory. Left takes you back one. Resize, crop, rotate, everything is just a keyboard tap away. Nice image resizing algorithms too.

Plus, it's super low profile and fast - no waiting for program loading or photo viewing.

Oh, and N8, your image is being compressed too much - that's why you get the little artifacts. I don't know what you're saving it with, but unless it's Microsoft Paint, there should be an option somewhere for how much you want to compress it. I never go below 80% (it may not be on a % scale, but whatever scale it's on, 80% of it is a good metric) for anything I want to look even remotely good.

see if it happens on imageshack

N8, zero points for a slack chain and wet tires