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Yesterday a firm of solicitors had booked me to photograph them and their clients having a taster day at The National Cycling Centre in Manchester. Had a great time photographing them learning to cycle fixed wheel around the velodrome, and doing a time trial.
After lunch we all went back into the velodrome to watch the UK cycling team in training. If it had been a challenge to photograph the racing clients under lowish lighting conditions in the morning, I had my hands very full trying to capture some of the fastest people in the world on two wheels in the afternoon!
Anyway, I think I got some pretty good images, and here are some of them.
To freeze action you have to use a high shutter speed. The shutter is a curtain that opens and closes across the cameras sensor, its array of pixels. The faster this curtain moves the less light gets to the sensor which means to compensate you normally have to have a larger aperture. Even so, unless you have a lens with a really large aperture of 1.4 or 1.8 the chances of freezing the action can be even more difficult if you are not allowed to use a flash. Guess what the coach told me when he spotted me taking photos? The only other thing to do is to change the ISO setting on your camera. This increases the sensitivity of the sensor in the camera but usually leads to increased grain and noise on the finished picture. Noise appears as flecks of bright colours in dark areas of the image or dark flecks in lighter areas. More expensive cameras have better sensors and noise reduction, but it remains a problem.
Getting the balance right between shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity and flash, if you are allowed to use it that is, is what either the camera does automatically or you choose. The more you choose to do, the more challenging and fun the photography becomes. It also means you can be creative in exposure control and, in this case, how much you want to freeze the action to create a more 'arty' effect.
Feel free to comment and ask questions and I will try to respond.
Yesterday a firm of solicitors had booked me to photograph them and their clients having a taster day at The National Cycling Centre in Manchester. Had a great time photographing them learning to cycle fixed wheel around the velodrome, and doing a time trial.
Anyway, I think I got some pretty good images, and here are some of them.
To freeze action you have to use a high shutter speed. The shutter is a curtain that opens and closes across the cameras sensor, its array of pixels. The faster this curtain moves the less light gets to the sensor which means to compensate you normally have to have a larger aperture. Even so, unless you have a lens with a really large aperture of 1.4 or 1.8 the chances of freezing the action can be even more difficult if you are not allowed to use a flash. Guess what the coach told me when he spotted me taking photos? The only other thing to do is to change the ISO setting on your camera. This increases the sensitivity of the sensor in the camera but usually leads to increased grain and noise on the finished picture. Noise appears as flecks of bright colours in dark areas of the image or dark flecks in lighter areas. More expensive cameras have better sensors and noise reduction, but it remains a problem.
Getting the balance right between shutter speed, aperture, ISO sensitivity and flash, if you are allowed to use it that is, is what either the camera does automatically or you choose. The more you choose to do, the more challenging and fun the photography becomes. It also means you can be creative in exposure control and, in this case, how much you want to freeze the action to create a more 'arty' effect.
Feel free to comment and ask questions and I will try to respond.
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