Tour of Virginia Cycling Race

[stormyva]

These are a few shots from the Tour of Virginia Cycling Event in Harrisonburg, VA this past weekend.  I spent the first part of the day playing cycling official for the "amateur" races then switched hats and got out in the crowd to take a few pictures.  The race was in the historic downtown area of Harrisonburg, VA with overcast skies and good steady breeze, not a great day for shooting. 

Any opinions or tips?

Focused

Canon D70 270mm F/6.3 1/2000th

Look Before Crossing

Canon D70 24mm F/18 1/30th

Hold Your Line

Canon D70 300mm F/6.3 1/400th

[JaketheSnake]

I have been riding myself and hope to do something like this sometime.

The photos are good.  But I am not liking the first one because so much is cropped off his head.  Or maybe just the whole image is too tight.  The second one is my favorite but I don't like seeing the man hole cover in the photo.  I find it too be a bit distracting and take away from the flow of the image.  I think just cloning it out would make the image work.  I love the motion in it.  I like the bright colors in the third one.  The only this is that I don't like seeing the guy's arm in the yellow in the way.  That's all I have to say.

[JaketheSnake]

Oh, by the way, what kind of camera did you say you used?  A Canon D70?  Did Nikon and Canon join forces? 

[habakuk]

I do like the second shot for the dynamics the blur brings. That's really cool. It gives a good sense of the speed, and I can almost hear the sounds of them swoooshing by. I am not sure, but I feel like I'd crop the left most athlete away, as it isn't really looking like he moves... that is a bit against the overall effect, but as I said, I am not really sure if that is actually a good or a bad aspect. While being in the mood of cropping... how about getting rid of the round metal disc, which draws a lot of attention to it.

And I have to confess, I as a cyclist, would have stopped there and had a nice little break int he indian coffee shop. I am not a fan of a hurried life style. 

cheers
®

[eob]

I am by no means an expert on sports photography, but I can apply the general rules to what I see.

My favorite is shot number one. I see tight cropping as an element of dynamic composition and the one that adds drama to the action. Placing two other competitors at the edges of the frame and out of focus, further enhances the feeling of action and importance of the central figure. When we add to that a nice smooth gray background, I don't see how this shot could be improved.

Second shot needs to be cropped more tightly. Other than that, I would try to make verticals less slanted. Pretty good.

The last shot is very generic and least appealing to me.

[stormyva]

Thanks for the input.  Jake... I didn't even notice that I put Canon and D70 together, shame on me :O

On the first shot I cropped it tight in on the head to bring focus to the tension in the arms and legs as well as the tightly grouped peleton. 
I do agree about the manhole cover now that it has been brought up.  When I was originally deciding on how to crop it I left it because I like the "line" between the sharp stationary Indian American Cafe sign and the manhole cover being broken by the movement and color of the peleton.

Thanks again!

[Teikoku_Taiyou]

The first and last photo are very noisy. I noticed that you shot the first one (which to me, seems more grainy then the last) at 1/2000. Please excuse me, as I don't know how quickly the cyclists were moving or just how little light was available, but I am willing to bet that you could have traded at least 1/1000 in shutter speed for an ISO of around 400 while keeping your aperture the same. Artistically speaking, I like the photo in the middle. I only have two small complaints with this photo, one of which is/was completely out of your control. I would have tried to move in a bit closer, as to cut out some of the tarmac in the fore ground. A bit of this is nice in my opinion, because it provides for "stage" so to speak, and draws the viewers eyes in nicely. Secondly, the woman standing in front of the shop window keeps drawing my attention away from everything else. This is probably just my fault though.

On the other two photos, I am inclined to think that the photos would be better (visually) if there was a clearer, more prominent center of interest. For instance, from about 2.5 inches above the helmet to the elbows (or knees), or even to the bottom of the handle bars.

All in all, I dont think its bad at all for photos taken under the circumstances you described. My favorite is definitely the photo in the middle.