Mountain Biking Photography

This week I had the opportunity to shoot the Bristol Bikefest event at Ashton Court.  The format is a 12hr race completing laps around the 9.5km course either as part of a team or as an epic solo effort.

This was a great chance to really get to grips with shooting some fast action and put the off camera flash (OCF) to the test. I thought i'd provide a bit of 'how-to' behind these images though it's a bit more of 'how I do' rather than trying to advise on the right and wrongs of mountain bike photography.

The course has some great single track sections so after a bit of hiking around i found some good berms that i could set up for a shot.

The good thing about shooting an event as opposed to a few mates is that you have a steady stream of riders flying past. This provides plenty of opportunity to tweak settings, adjust angles etc to get the shots just right. It also provides a range of characters some of which relish the site of a photographer at the next bend and do their best to pose for the shot!

I used off camera flash (OCF) for 90% of the shots. Off camera means literally that, the flash is mounted on a tripod in a separate position from the camera providing a better angle between the camera and light source. Using flash rather than just the ambient light means you can control the intensity of the light on the rider and make them 'pop' from the background. It also enables you to freeze the action using the flash rather than the shutter speed. Combined with some panning of the camera it creates the blurred background and a reasonably crisp rider.

The trick is getting the right balance between the ambient light, the flash and the amount of movement (both rider and camera panning). To do this I always work in the manual setting. Shutter speed I dial in between 1/10th and 1/120th second. This allows a bit of ambient light and is slow enough to blur the background. The aperture is set between f4 and f8. The balance here is between allowing enough of the flash light in (setting the flash to a lower power requires a larger aperture) and getting depth of field to help ensure the rider is in focus.

To use the OCF I have a basic wireless trigger. You can spend a few hundred pounds on the flash trigger benchmark, the Pocketwizzard, however for the moment my basic ones work fine. Being a basic trigger there is no transmission of TTL metering info so the flash needs to be set to manual. You have to play around a bit with the flash power and the aperture to get the exposure right but in essence having a lower power is better purely for the recharge time. I typically set mine to 1/2 or 1/4 power. 

When shooting action a common approach is to set the camera shutter to the highest frame rate per second  then hold down the shutter button ensuring that every fraction of a second action is captured. When using OCF that approach doesn't work as the flash will trigger on the first frame and the subsequent frames will be dark. Therefore you need to plan when you want to capture the moment as you only get one chance at it. This is when having a constant stream of riders helps!

Aside from settings the other consideration is lens choice, composition and viewpoint. For most of these shots i used a 17mm lens (on full frame). The wide angle distortion adds to the dramatic effect and makes it easier to capture the complete scene. Using such a wide angle lens does mean you have to get very close to the action, scarily close at times! If you are getting this close take care not to get in the way of the riders and make sure they can see you are there. No rider will appreciate you popping out from behind a tree while they are flying down a single track! 

A different lens option is to go for a telephoto, this keeps you at a safer distance if nothing else! Using OCF you can still set this up next to the action then take the photo from 100 yards away to achieve the same benefit from the flash.

The view point also makes a big difference and can really make a shot stand out against others. Shooting in a wood provides plenty of opportunity to climb trees to get above the action. This was slightly precarious at times but shooting from above does help to get a different perspective.

Its also worth mentioning that i rarely look through the view finder when shooting with a wide angle lens, preferring instead to shoot at arms length. Trying to keep the camera close to your head significantly restricts the camera position. You certainly wouldn't want your head as close the action as my camera was at times! It takes a few shots to experiment with the composition but generally works well.

The Bikefest event was fantastic with a great setup and atmosphere. Mountain bikers are a laid back bunch even when in full race mode so make for great subjects. I have stacks of images from the event so if anyone racing is reading this let me know your race number and i'll see if i've got a photo of you in action. 

As i mentioned this is just my take on mountain bike photography, i'd love to hear any other tips tricks or comments.