Bike Week Road Shots Motorcycle Photography

by Steve Wishard

We have all ridden the southeastern mountain roads. And we have mostly all been to a Bike Week or Biketoberfest in one state or another. So it is also likely that we have all had our photos taken as we rode the Ormond Loop or Tail of the Dragon or countless others. It is equally likely that many of us have purchased one or more of those photos.

I recently purchased a couple of these event photos, taken by Daytona Bike Week photographers, and was surprised by their poor quality. I photoshopped both of them in an effort to make them presentable, however, in the end neither could be made print quality. The only time I’ve used either of them is in the G310 GS article in this publication. The riding the scenic loop image is the one on the 310. The Main Street image on the GTL is okay but it took a lot of work.

Years ago I purchased a couple of photos from Killboy in North Carolina. Tail of the Dragon and Moonshiner 28. Those were very high quality images which now hang on my wall as aluminum prints. That is the level of quality I require for the photos I shoot. If not - why bother. For simple road shots like the one above, I let the camera do a lot of the work and I take advantage of the superior optical quality of prime lenses (prime = single focal length not a zoom). I set the camera for continous focus, 1/2000 sec shutter speed, f/2, auto ISO and 12 frame a second shooting rate. Then when the bike passes, I hold the focus & shutter buttons and track the bike as it goes by. With a 50mm prime lens on a pro camera, you’re going to get several very high quality images. I also like to put something in the background to show where they were.