Cycle Racing

[OtherNiceMan]

Need a critique on some sports shots.

Went to the Visa Paralympic World Cup last year, here is one of the photos
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2196/2463902721_e4acef155e.jpg

The full set is here http://www.flickr.com/photos/otherniceman/sets/72157604874877404/

My camera is a Canon Powershot S3IS so noise can be a problem.

I am off to Manchester again at the end of the week so any pointers would be appreciated.

[HockeyFan]

Great shot. I typically photograph football, basketball or hockey, so I'm not familiar with some of the gotchas associated with photographing cycle racing. I would say though that the shutter speed is reasonable and it doesn't appear too noisy (IMHO), certainly with regards to sports photography.
I am curious what time of day this was. Whatever light there was, appears to be from right above so you have shadows below, but since it wouldn't be a great idea to use fill flash, I don't think you can improve them much unless you have a raw file to do some photoshop enhancement.

The street appears to be wet, or at least clean. That has a nice effect to it.
I like the colors. When I get a chance, I'll go to your site and see some of the other photos.
Since I'm honestly not familiar with the PowerShot, I'm not sure what it's capabilities are. I'm assuming there are no lense changeablility. What ISOs do you have opportunity to use?
I'm assuming that this photo is ISO 400 or somewhere around that range, and that the shutterspeed was reasonably fast.
It appears you focused on the lead cycle, right? Depth of field seems reasonable, but when I get a chance, I'll go to your site and see if I can get a larger photo to tell. Typically with this type of photography, if you can stop action, get a reasonable exposure with good color, then the only other thing you hope for is a sharp focus.

[OtherNiceMan]

Thanks for your comments.

The S3 is a high-zoom compact so no lens changing, these were ISO 400.

It was taken in a covered Velodrome so a mixture of artifical light and natural rain filtered light :). This year the weather should be better, the track is polished wood.

This one was taken at the end of the day, they had a scratch race with all the different disablities racing together.

What I did was focus on part of the track near me and then held the shutter down to get a series of shots as they moved through the frame.

This year I have more of an idea of what I want to take. The tandem racing is amazing, like to stream trains going full pelt with only an inch of air between them.