BMAD Paignton Bike Night

Motorcycle Photography Light Painting Project: 1

Light painting technique

Motorcycle Photography: Light painting.

Here we have an example of the ‘Light Painting’ technique. The subject used was a Triumph Bonneville SE photographed using a Nikon D700 mounted on a tripod with a 30 second exposure, f16, ISO 1000. The light source was a small hand held pencil torch used sparingly to ‘paint’ in the detail. With this method of bike photography, sometimes more is less and the generous use of what in photography terms is called Negative Space, adds an edgy feel to the photograph.

Motorcycle Photography South West

However these photographs represent a first attempt at this slightly tricky technique and the resulting images look flat and underexposed. Using an effect called tone mapping during the post production also hasn’t helped.

It was done to deliberately try and inject a cool feeling, but has in fact contributed to the images looking drab.

The other main problem was I had tried to capture the image in one 30 second exposure and that is not good practice.

To see how the project progressed and the changes made to improve the outcome, read the second part: Motorcycle Photography Light Painting Project: 2

Motorcycle photography on location………..

 

 

 

Motorcycle photography on location

Motorcycle Photography:

This photograph of a Triumph Bonneville 2012 SE shows quite nicely the importance of choosing the right location for the back drop to compose your picture. Of course this only applies to motorcycle photographers who specialise in working on location as opposed to studio work.

In the example above the track gives nice depth to the picture and the recently cut straw field provides a nice pale yellow background.

The camera used was a Nikon D700 with a f2.8 24 – 70 Nikkor lens. The lens was set to f4 giving enough depth of field to retain detail on the bike, whilst still giving the background a pleasing soft focus effect.

Motorcycle photography bar end mirrors

Here the lines formed by the background seem to compliment the bike. The handlebars line up with the edge of the field, the petrol tank sits in the band of green grass and the black saddle sits over the grey track. Whilst all these elements are subtle, they are definitely things to consider when photographing motorcycles on location.

Triumph Bonneville side view

 

 

Triumph Thunderbird Sport photo shoot

Here is a photograph of a Triumph Thunderbird Sport motorcycle taken in woodland. This bike photography shoot was set up using off camera flash and if you click and zoom in on the photograph you can see how the detail of the bike is picked out.

Triumph Thunderbird Sport woodland photo shoot. BikePix motorcycle photography.

Motorcycle photography is no different than photographing any other subject and the same portrait techniques and principles apply. In this example the strobe flash lighting was positioned to light the bike and enhance the detail, whilst be careful to avoid direct reflections which would create ‘hot spots’ and blown out highlights.

Exposure is controlled by using the camera in Manual mode to select the correct aperture and shutter speed for the ambient lighting conditions.

The picture below shows just how the photo shoot was set up using wireless controlled flash:

Motorcycle Photography: photo shoot set up

 

Triumph Thunderbird Sport woodland photo shoot