Motorcycle Shoot - CBR 900

Stranger · Nov 30, 2008

My brother was home for the week for thanksgiving and I have been dying to get into automotive photography. This was my first motorcycle. I Have another bike shoot scheduled for when the season comes back around but we had decent enough weather yesterday for me to get my brother to come out for a bit.

I was saving the "gritty" shoot for the other guy but i guess ill give him something different.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Have a look at the full gallery here for full size and all 24 photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamar787/sets/72157610422023085/

craig · Nov 30, 2008

Love the light in these.

Love & Bass

tirediron · Nov 30, 2008

Agree, great light, but too much DoF for my taste.

Stranger · Nov 30, 2008

Thanks for the comments,

The DoF was being goofy. I was shooting at f/4 but i find my tamron kinda soft and iffy focus wise when i go much larger than that. This was my first bike shoot though and I am definitely looking forward to the others i have scheduled.

Thanks

lukebloomquist · Dec 4, 2008

diggin the light. night bike too!

dascrow · Dec 4, 2008

Nice Shots!

stsinner · Dec 4, 2008

Nice pictures.. Nicely captured.. Unfortunately, it's not the 900 that I'm used to.. The 900RR of my past was aggressive looking, but this bike looks like my grandpa could saunter out and take a spin on it... Again, it's nothing to do with your pics, which are great, but just as Subaru has Old Manned the Sti, this 900 drops the ball on aggressive looks.. '

I guess I'll cast my votes for pics 1, 2 and 4.... Without that exhaust, that would be just another bike...

Stranger · Dec 5, 2008

Thanks!

The lighting was my biggest worry because I've never tried it before... Good to know its been getting positive feedback!

stsinner said:
Nice pictures.. Nicely captured.. Unfortunately, it's not the 900 that I'm used to.. The 900RR of my past was aggressive looking, but this bike looks like my grandpa could saunter out and take a spin on it... Again, it's nothing to do with your pics, which are great, but just as Subaru has Old Manned the Sti, this 900 drops the ball on aggressive looks.. '

I guess I'll cast my votes for pics 1, 2 and 4.... Without that exhaust, that would be just another bike...

hahaha, it's my bro's first bike so he didn't want to go all out. I totally agree though and made the same comment. He just said give him a year or so to get used to riding and gain confidence and then wait for his upgrade. :lol:

delizo23 · Dec 5, 2008

old school bike.
nice shots

Craddie · Dec 5, 2008

Very nice shots & nice lighting. I personally don't like the vignette though...

Patrick · Dec 9, 2008

Nice!

Awesome Bike too:heart:

notelliot · Dec 10, 2008

I don't like the lighting. Sorry. If you were going for gritty, it's kind of there, but it seems really uneven. For example, the first shot, the shocks and disc in the front well are a a bit too hot, and the rear wheel is a little too dark. Looks like you used bare strobes (which isn't "wrong"), and a uni-directional set-up, with most of the light coming from camera right.
Take that critique with a grain of salt though, I have no automotive experience to back me up. I think you've got some skills and potential here that just need a little tweaking. If I were to shoot it, I'd use softboxes with grids for the kind of directional light, but being being softer, it would look a lot more even. Probably backlighting it would reeeally help kick it out from the background too, so your amount of DOF would work better. But again, grain of salt.

Stranger · Dec 10, 2008

Thanks for the comments!

I figured someone would call me out on the vignette

@ note - Thanks, I do see what you mean. I did use two bare strobes because i was looking for that harsher light. Uneven was not the goal though and i will try to note that more in the next shoot. I am curious to see if maybe it was brought in by the editing. My main light was camera left and the fill was camera right. Definitely looks like i had it aimed a little far forward though perhaps. My next shoot, when the weather comes around, is set to be in a cornfield. Im looking for much more natural light and will get a chance to play with my umbrellas then.

I do agree about the backlight though. I tried for a good 10 minutes to get a flash positioned to fire optically but with the overcast sky, it refused.

Good to know overall not much went wrong on my first auto shoot