Shooting motorcycles

[Fiat124Spider]

Hi all,
Is there a thread on how to take bikes and motorcycles? I've looked around but maybe not in the right corners.

I'm in to old bikes like Triumph, BSA etc an would love to make some nice pictures but so far they didn't come out very well.

These were taken with a Nikon D50 and manual focus 50mm at f2.8

[cyber3d]

Your images are probably fine if you process them in Photoshop. Do you have any programs to do edits like brightness, exposure, levels, etc?

Here is one of an old bike. In this one I liked the handmade quality and detail - "elegant machinery" So, I focused on the detail. It was processed in Photoshop increasing the contrast and vibrance and sharpness. I'd imagine your photos have as much detail in there.



In this one, it was to capture the beauty of the engine so I wanted to show the engine within the frame - giving it scale and context. It was processed similarly to the above photo.



Final picture as an example: I ride the canyons of Malibu, California. What better place to photograph your bike than on the road. Experiment with angles and perspective.

[Fiat124Spider]

Thanks,
Yes I do have Photoshop CS5 but I'm not experienced with it. I tried a few tweaks but still I'm not happy with it. Maybe because both pictures were taken in my garage with TL lighting and almost no natural light they turned out a bit dull.

Here's another one.

[cyber3d]

Well, FWIW, here is an edit I did in PSD on the BSA tank. It's all personal taste, of course.
This was done completely in PSD Camera Raw editor.

[Fiat124Spider]

Nice job, thanks. Guess I have to dig deeper into PS.

Thanks for your feedback!

[MOmilkman]

I edited both photos in LightRoom3 just to show you how good a editing program can be. Now I'm far from a expert with LR3 but it will recover the colors in a picture nicely.
On the shot of the bike from the back Lightroom really brings back all the colors that were present when you took the shot. If you shoot in RAW and do your adjustment before you convert to JPEG or TIFF then all the better.

Hope you don't mind my edits but just wanted to show you a option to Photoshop

[lostsmitty]

My motorcycles were the subjects of many of my photographs, 35mm film. Quoting Cyber3d "Experiment with angles and perspective." Be creative and look for the unique angle, have fun.

[Fiat124Spider]

Thanks for the editing. Although not really my style, still -like you said- it's amazing what these programs can do. I do shoot in RAW but need more practice in both shooting and editing hence my message ;-)

Thanks

[Fiat124Spider]

Show me show me show me please some pictures of your bikes

[Izzy]

Shoot motorcycles the same way you would shoot a car.

Look in motorcycle mags and look closely at what you like. Decide what it is that you like about it and duplicate. Steep learning curve this way but when it is all done you will know exactly what it takes to make certain shots.

By the look of it none of these were shot with flash. You WILL HAVE TO get comfortable with flash to shoot bikes.

I could ramble on to 1K plus characters and barely scratch the surface on technique to do this.