Experiments in sports photography: Cycling

The shots below were taken on 26/03/2006 during the Commonwealth Games 2006, 100 Km cycling competition for Women and Men.

I have made a few mistakes during the shooting session but by the end of it, I was getting better results.

Here's a list of tips I got out of today's exercise:

1. Understand the sports and study the venue. Don't leave it till the last minute like I did.
2. Learn about the competitors and their style. I did not even know who the contestants were.
3. Use a high speed ISO film. I used 1600 ISO.
4. Take your shots with a large depth of field as focusing is a bit hard at high speed. I was using an apparture range of 13 to 22.
5. Do not stand in hard sun light or in the shadow, pick a well lit area with soft light. In some of the picture below, you will notice that faces are not recognizable. The colours came out bright as intended but the faces were a bit on the dark side.
6. Use the flash when in a dark spots or when cyclists are riding in the shadow. When using the flash, pick your shots as the flash might not recharge fast enough to allow you another chance at shooting your target.
7. Pick a long stretch or road and move your camera horizontally at the same speed as your subject. I found that keeping the cyclist in the middle of the frame while having the lense at its widest angle produces the best results.
8. When panning with your subject, do experiment with slow shutter speeds. Reduce the shutter speed to capture the effect of speed (a blurry background with a focused cyclist).
9. Do not zoom too much, you can always crop later. It especially applies to shooting on bends and during downhill rides as cyclists tend to pick up speed.
10. Choose a hilly area and stand on the uphill, you'll get plenty of time to shoot the competitors and some interesting facial expressions. It's a bit hard for the contestants and easy to photograph.