mountain biking photography help

Hey, im off riding today, and im going to try and get a few shots of people jumping for my flickr. i have a Canon 450D and both the 18-55 kit lens and a Tamron 70-300 (nice zoom, but no IS and bad quality compared to the 18-55. but yeah any tips on positioning, flash etc would be greatly appreciated.
:)

thanks,
-Glenn

There are some good bike shooters (and riders) here, so you should get some help. If no one answers in a couple of days (probably low traffic this weekend - they're all out riding), try asking in the Sports forum. Also do a search on the sports forum. - TF

What type of MTB images are you looking at getting? You could get a nice wide variety with those lenses.

both dirt jumping, and singletrail. locally my mates jump, but i prefer going out to the nearest forrest with trails but thats rare. on my compact ive managed to get shots like these

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenn61...7622508993414/

but now ive got an slr, and ive been finding it tougher to get images to this quality (which is worrying)
so yeah any advise would be good.

It's kinda odd to hear that having an slr is giving you worse images. I'd probably keep the lowest f-stop you can being out in the woods with less light, and use as high of an iso that you can to use a shutter of about 1/250. This will still give you a bit of motion in your shots. I don't think freezing them is always best, but you'd want to go to 1/500 at least if you.

just had a good day in the forrest. got a few pic's trying what you said. ill link to them once they're uploaded.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenn612/4657648900/
this is a self portriat i got today

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_pm99DJIc9_8/Ri...2/DSC_0125.JPG

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_pm99DJIc9_8/SV...0/DSC_0034.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_pm99DJIc9_8/SV...0/DSC_0046.JPG

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_pm99DJIc9_8/SV...Peak%20041.jpg

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_pm99DJIc9_8/SV...2/DSC_0292.JPG

The first two photos made it into DirtRag and the last was a self portrait. I am still working on the action and jumping photos but a great location like in the middle 3 pics really helps a lot!

db

Nice stuff! Location makes a huge difference. And for some photos, a good rider really helps. Bad technique can really ruin a photo.

Did DirtRag pay you? If they're worth publishing, they're worth paying for...

photo-john from mtbr? DR and I have done some things, but nothing big.
db

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DLB1973

photo-john from mtbr? DR and I have done some things, but nothing big.

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Yep, I am the same Photo-John. Running this site is my main job :)

I just like to make sure people are getting paid for use of their photos. It's so hard to make money as a photographer, or even pay for the habit. When publications use photos, I believe they should pay. And the mountain bike industry is terrible about trying to get photos for free.

Cool and thanks. They did pay me for this one, taken at the Matador Tequila Bar.

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_pm99DJIc9_8/TB...2/DSCN0128.JPG