Capturing moving objects clearly with a blurred background

Hi again.
Looking to capture photos of cyclists as they come at me with them being crystal clear and the background slightly hazy or blurred.
I have a K5ii with 10-20mm 3.5 and a 60-250 4.0.
Any help or advice greatly appreciated
New to photography so if you could dumb it down for me that would help also
Steve

I would use the 60-250 wide open to give a shallow depth of field which would blur the background. There are moblie phone apps available which can show you the DOF at various focus distances. Probably similar things for a pc or mac.

Jeff

If you do use a wide open aperture to knock out the background, you will need to go old-school, manual focus; pre-focus on a point and press the shutter when they pass through that point. Otherwise the depth of field may be too short for the camera to focus in time as they are coming towards you.
Burst mode might help with the above, but I wouldn't know as I never remember it

How close will you be to the cyclists?
weren't you offered some advice here
link

Like Screwdriver says use the telephoto zoom, wide angle lenses are not best suited to this type of action photography. I wouldn't shoot it wide open but fairly wide.
Shoot in auto focus and burst mode (high) and with the camera set to continuous. Start shooting slightly before they hit the spot where you want to capture them and leave your finger on the button until after they've gone through.
If this is a race and they are doing laps you'll get plenty of time to practice as they come round each time. Unless you are panning, and that's a different skill, keep the shutter speed high and that will mean stepping up the ISO. Don't be too disappointed if the first pictures don't satisfy you - action photography only gets better with constant practice.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

All of the above but I use TAV when shooting the karting at the local track and back button focussing ... see here
These things are coming at me at about 80mph
Be aware, you will not nail every shot so be prepared for some disappointing missed shots. But shoot loads and you'll get plenty

PS It was very very dark towards the end of the day so please ignore the grainy ones at the end

To get that subject to background separation, you generally want two things:
1) is a wide aperture, lowest f value your lens can do (or close to it), which gives a narrow band of in focus area.
2) some physical separation between the subject and the background, which highlights the affect from above even more.

In practise for moving objects, you'll want a fast shutter speed to freeze their motion, or you'll want a medium shutter speed and to pan with them, which will keep them in focus but blur the background. As a photographer these selections / intentions are over to you, so imagine the shot you want, and then place yourself in a location to allow for it, and make the settings selections to achieve that outcome.

The narrower your depth of field, the more important the focus and timing is going to be, so it's probably better to start with a wider aperture value to start with, meaning more is in focus, and narrow down for the more stylised shot later one once you've got the hang of it.

You've mentioned bikes coming straight on to you, which is different from panning along side you, so I'd:
1) use a zoom lens, as mentioned by those above, zoomed enough to frame the shot as you want
1.5) set your camera to TAv
2) use a fast shutter speed, say 1/800th of a second, that sort of thing, to freeze the motion
3) select a low aperture number, say f4 - f5.6 if you are using a zoom lens
4) Switch to Manual focus mode and pre-focus on the road at the area you are interested in capturing the rider in (Others may disagree but I have close to zero faith in Pentax autofocus being accurate or fast enough to handle this sort of work)
5) set your camera to burst mode Hi
6) set your iso to float between 100 and 3200, or 1600 as the upper limit if it's a nice sunny day.
7) set your metering mode for centre weighted
7.5) shake reduction can be on for these shots, although the faster shutter speeds mean it will be doing less to actually influence the photo in reality.
Take some sample shots, and adjust as necessary if the cyclist is too blurry, or the image is too dark etc. The slower the shutter speed the more light you will let in, but the more chance of motion blur.
9) When the riders approach your pre focussed area on the road, squirt away Spray and prey as they say.

That sort of thing.
Be open to the advice of others, the above is just my thoughts on how I would approach this.

Panning side on is very similar to the above, except you'll want to lower the shutter speed, so you introduce the chance for a blurry background. For this you don't need such a large physical distance to the background as you're moving the camera to track the rider during the shot. A monopod helps with this type of shot, and generally the shake reduction should be off, as you don't want to counteract the panning movement.

Thanks Richard for your good detailed overview of this type of technique ... Helpful and good knowledge for all!

I appreciated reading the pointers from Jeff, Mark, David and Steve as well. Have to try and find some more action around here now!

I agree with Richard, however ...

That bit ^ is the wrong way round. Small aperture number = wide open and narrow depth of field.

I totally agree about not trusting the auto focus to follow something coming at you. Manual and pre-focus can be almost 100% accurate with just one shot. Burst mode is worth a try but it might go off either side of the focus if you're unlucky.

As for back button focus - this is no time to start trying that and in this scenario it's just not necessary.

I'm guessing you want something like this? ... apart from it being normal cyclists. The idea being that you have a sense of movement.


New Milton Grand Prix Pedal Car 2013 by Mike.Pursey, on Flickr

This was done with the 60-250mm, you need to perfect your panning technique ... slow shutter speed, AF.C, multiple bursts and keep following the subject for a second after you have taken your finger off the button.

If it is actually head on then as already advised, pre-focus on one spot and hope for the best.

Might another option be to seek out an old manual focus lens and use 'catch in focus'? I got some decent shots of approaching racing cars (well, I thought they were decent enough) using a manual Tamron 500mm mirror lens and that feature on my Kx. Obviously that's quite a small aperture, but something like a manual 28mm f2.8 wide angle might do.

I noticed on my old Mirage 28mm that the focus pointer is surrounded by notations to indicate the depth of field on various apertures, and that none of my more modern AF lenses have that information. Is that because they're all zooms, or because it's just not felt that it might be useful any more?

Sorry, I was trying to word this in a way that would be easily understood by the OP who had asked for it to be simplified. I rushed it though and you are right, it's not correct as written. I should have said larger aperture number instead of wider.

The physically wide aperture has a small f number and results in a narrow depth of field but lets more light in.

For the OP, this might help should it still not be clear.







Agree