Resident professional photog Fraser Britton (Transcend) drops some tips on how to boost the quality of your ride's photographic documentation. Are point and shoots the way to go?
As a mountain bike photographer, I often get asked many questions about how I get the shots I do, how riders can make their own photos better and what equipment I use. There really is no simple answer to these questions, but in this short article Ill try and explain some basics of why the images you get arent what you wanted. Ill also briefly cover some tips that everyone can use to help them get the shots they were envisioning at the time and not the shots the ended up with.
The biggest problem most people have when taking action photos is their equipment. The proliferation of cheap digital point and shoots has been a boon for anyone who loves to take pictures, however these P&S cameras really arent the best for action shots for a few very simple reasons.
Shutter Lag
The biggest issue is the shutter lag. Generally, the cheaper the camera the more shutter lag will be present. This is largely due to the fact that the auto focus system in these cameras really suck, and the camera will not actually take a picture until the camera has been focused on what it thinks you want to take a picture of.
Pre-focusing your camera (usually by half pressing the button when aiming at something the same distance your subject will be at) can help alleviate this issue, but there will still be some lag.
Metering
The second issue most will encounter is an exposure problem. The metering systems in most P&S shoots uses an average metering mode. This means it takes into account everything in the frame (from bright blue skies to dark woods) and then takes an average exposure of these subjects. You can see how this would be a problem taking pictures of a rider in a black outfit on a bright sunny day under bluebird skies. The rider will be nothing more than a silhouette against a bright blue sky as there will be more sky than rider in the image.
You can try and counter this by filling the frame with something the same color/darkness as the rider you are trying to take pictures of, at the same distance your rider will be at. This is because the metering usually takes place at the same time as the pre focus, so you can try and trick the camera the same way.
Slow Shutter Speed
The third issue is tied pretty intricately with the first, blurry images. Part of this is due to the aforementioned really crappy auto-focus systems. However, a large part of it is also due to how the camera meters. There arent as wide a variety of manual settings available on most P&S as there are on an SLR, therefore you are at the mercy of the cameras processor and the often obscure automatic settings. Shutter speeds are often not set very high (leading to blurry action). In dark conditions, this is because the sensitivity of digital P&S sensors is very low (ISO). In sunshine, F stops are set very small (higher number) in order to increase depth of field which is what the majority of users want for landscape photos, group photos, night out with your buddies photos etc.
To help counter this, you can learn to smoothly pan with the rider as they go by, this will help alleviate some of the perceived speed of the rider, and help tighten up the focus on the rider. As an added side effect, it can start to blur the background at lower shutter speeds and give you some nice separation between the rider and background. This wont also work with a P&S, as it is pretty dependant on camera settings, but it can make the difference between a messy blur, and a recognizeable rider.
Break out the Benjamins
Luckily, these 3 major issues CAN be easily solved in a way mountain bikers are used to, throwing money at the problem!
My personal P&S camera is a Canon Digital Elph 850IS (Ixus 850IS in Europe). This is a lower priced, well made, image stabilized point and shoot released towards January of last year. It suffers many of the same issues mentioned above, however I never intended to use it for action shots. I picked it up in order to have a very small profile camera to shoot podiums will as well as to use at parties. It works to take action shots in a pinch using the tips above, but it often isnt pretty.
One camera that is moderately priced but WILL get you great action shots, is one of the Canon G models. The newly released G10 has a FULL selection of manual controls, as well as fully automatic modes. It also features a hotshoe so that you can use a real flash, instead of the pitiful built in ones in most P&S cameras which give you overexposed foregrounds and usually pitch black backgrounds in anything but midday sun. The G10 retails for about $425 USD and I recommend it if you want the ability to go full manual, but dont want to worry about carrying different lenses and spending loads of money on gear. It is a decent SLR alternative for the weekend warrior.
Check back soon for part 2!
