SL2 and Ski/MTB Photography

[jesperwahlstedt]

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New SL2 user here.

Trying to find out what the best settings are for Ski and MTB photography. What are you using?

Thanks for sharing!

[beewee]

Would be useful to know what focal length or lens you’re using.

If it was wide angle, I’d just do zone focus and all manual. 🙂 

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[jesperwahlstedt]

On 1/20/2021 at 7:04 PM, beewee said:

Would be useful to know what focal length or lens you’re using.

If it was wide angle, I’d just do zone focus and all manual. 🙂 

SL 24-90 for landscape, story telling but also action

Lumix f4 70-200 action

[scott kirkpatrick]

MTB = ??  (Bikes?, with mud flying would probably have different requirements that skiing, and races different from wilderness powder.)

[hillavoider]

Canon R5 

[beewee]

I’m not familiar with the continuous autofocus options but assuming you’re shooting moving subjects, you probably want to use a fairly high shutter speed unless you’re good at panning with the subject and you’re looking for a background with motion blur.

1/500s would be on the low side if you want to stop motion on the wide angle range (<35mm) and 1/1600s is probably where want to be for telephoto range. You’ll need to bump up ISO to compensate for lighting conditions.

Would also be good to know what kind of skiing you’re interested in shooting. MTB on narrow trails are much slower than most skiing. Downhill bike is much faster. As for skiing, there are also many disciplines of skiing. Downhill slalom skiers can hit around 100km/h whereas half pipe and free style is almost stationary at the apex of the jump.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

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For downhill or enduro you might get away with tracking AF in some sections but courses are getting so tight now that tracking tends to fail. Personally I'd set the camera to manual focus and the shutter to continuous high and grab a set as each rider passes through the focus zone. Panning as the downhillers crest some of the big rollers might be fun. You'll get away with tracking and facial recognition on climbs if you're looking for those grimaces cross country riders make.

Continuous AF is not as strong on the SL2 as it is with other systems. You can get decent results but no where near the hit rate of a modern Sony or the Canon R5. Due to the *through the forest* nature of MTB that might not matter as manual focus and good timing might get more keepers than any AF system. It might be an idea to make some different profiles that'll make switching settings easier.

Skiing will depend on discipline. For racing tracking might be the go. For downhill maybe MF on a particular turn that gives a great angle might be the go. I have a friend who shot people powder skiing for a living. Tracking was useless as you don't really see the subject, just the snow they push up. White on white He shot a lot in manual. And definitely manual exposure.