Motocross Photos C&C

[Destin]

Alright, so I've pretty much established that motocross is my favorite thing to shoot, and I'm making decent money shooting it this year. Not a ton, but enough to cover my overhead on it, which, being that it's so fun, is enough for me to keep shooting it. I think I've been out at this track every week this summer. I'll be shooting my second race weekend this weekend, and I'm hoping it goes well.

The biggest probem I've found is that I currently only have 2 lenses, a 70-200 2.8, and a 50 1.8. I'm getting sick of the look the long lenses give me. I've seen some REALLY nice motocross work done with UWA lenses in the corners, and on jumps, so I think I'm going to go for a Tamron 17-50, and a Toking 11-16 soon. We'll see. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Here are a few photos I took at this week's practice night:

1.)

2.)

3.)

4.)

5.)

6.)

 

[t_hayat]

great work, the last one is pretty damn awesome. I'd say go for it with the UWA, I have a friend who shoots races with ultra wides, and he gets some really nice shots with them.

 

[Destin]

Thanks man! the last one was actually just snapped as a test shot to see how my exposure was, when I first walked up. I thought it was pretty cool so I kept it.

I'm going to get the UWA lens as soon as I make enough money shooting the races to cover it. I try not to put any of my income from my real job into photography if I can avoid it. If I start that, I'll be broke paying off a D3s and pro glass haha

 

[JClishe]

Not bad. Do you follow Simon Cudby's work? If not I'd suggest taking a look and studying how he composes shots; he really does fantastic work.

 

[EIngerson]

Not bad. Do you follow Simon Cudby's work? If not I'd suggest taking a look and studying how he composes shots; he really does fantastic work.

For an Ohio guy, you sure do follow the SoCal scene. LOL. I don't blame you...great photographers out there. "BDW" Brown Dog Wilson is another one that is great. Forgive the shameless plug for a friend though. Racer X puts out some good images.

Destin; Cool series. I agree on the last one being "it" Nice work.

 

[Robin Usagani]

3, 4, and 5 are at least 1 stop underexposed IMO. I personally would slower the shutter just a tad so you can see the wheels spin more. I would also use my flash if I were you on 3, 4, 5 unless you are super far away.

 

[TwoTwoLeft]

You need to hang out by the corners more, that's where the races are won. Intense battles for position rarely happen in the air or at the face of a jump.

With that 70-200 you get some nice compression if you sat at the first turn and shot the start head on to capture the battle for the holeshot. Or you could capture some nice get-offs at the whoop section.

I really don't think you need to buy a new lens, you just need more of the actual race action in your shots. None of your shots tell me a race is happening.

 

[MSnowy]

Ok set, I agree 3, 4 and 5 being underexposed. I think 5 would have been you best shot if you had nailed the exposure.

 

[JClishe]

Not bad. Do you follow Simon Cudby's work? If not I'd suggest taking a look and studying how he composes shots; he really does fantastic work.

For an Ohio guy, you sure do follow the SoCal scene. LOL.

Motocross is huge everywhere. More AMA supercross and motocross champs come from outside California than in CA. But I used to race and go to a lot of races.

 

[EIngerson]

Not bad. Do you follow Simon Cudby's work? If not I'd suggest taking a look and studying how he composes shots; he really does fantastic work.

For an Ohio guy, you sure do follow the SoCal scene. LOL.

Motocross is huge everywhere. More AMA supercross and motocross champs come from outside California than in CA. But I used to race and go to a lot of races.

True, I was just talking about the photogs names you tossed out there. I love Cudby's work. Lot's of wide angle stuff in his galleries.

 

[Destin]

3, 4, and 5 are at least 1 stop underexposed IMO. I personally would slower the shutter just a tad so you can see the wheels spin more. I would also use my flash if I were you on 3, 4, 5 unless you are super far away.

I was using flash on those 3 shots. My SB-600 was on Full power (auto fp mode of course to get a shutter speed fast enough to expose the background, so I lost a good bit of power) I was about 20 feet away from the bikes

The reason for not shooting the actual race action is simple: These were taken at a practice night, so the riders were pretty spread out. I'm heading out in 20 minutes to shoot a full day of actual racing. I'll post them in this thread tonight when I get back.

 

[Robin Usagani]

FP mode isnt really full power. Have you tried setting the shutter speed to slightly faster than your sync speed? And dont use FP mode on the flash, just manual. You can cheat the max sync shutter speed a bit if you are shooting a bike flying in the air because the part with no flash will look the same at the sky (assuming non of the no flash hit the subject. Im not sure how much you cropped those shots.

 

[Destin]

FP mode isnt really full power. Have you tried setting the shutter speed to slightly faster than your sync speed? And dont use FP mode on the flash, just manual. You can cheat the max sync shutter speed a bit if you are shooting a bike flying in the air because the part with no flash will look the same at the sky (assuming non of the no flash hit the subject. Im not sure how much you cropped those shots.

Haha I never really thought about doing that, but it's a damn good idea! I'll give it a try next time I'm out there. Even if I have to shoot a little wider and crop more to do it (these shots are barely cropped at all) it would be worth the trade off.

 

[Destin]

Alright so I shot an actual race day, and took your advice. 85% of my shots were in the corners. The riders were fairly spread out by the time they got to where the lighting was good though, so I didn't get a whole lot of corner battles. I think these came out a whole lot better than the original set in this post, due to better shooting, better conditions (overcast day), and better editing. What do you guys think? Am I improving, even a little bit?

Here are a few shots from the day. The rest are HERE if you're interested. And yes I know the watermarks are ridiculous. I don't care, the photos are on my website to sell, not in a portfolio to attract new customers.

1.)

2.)

3.)

4.)

5.)

6.)

 

[Robin Usagani]

Nice man.. This set is much better.