Shooting cycling

Shooting my first sports action tomorrow, a cycle race with my new camera and im thinking about the following settings? Shutter priority, AF-C, 21 point focus cluster, Auto ISO, Jpeg fine, and Continuous high, will these settings be okay?

Those settings will work. You don't specify shutter speed. For most sports I find 1/500th works well. However, that will vary depending on what your angle is that you're shooting them at.

Agreed, those settings should do fine.

Shooting just jpeg though? If you need Continuous high, that will give you good buffer utilization, but then you have less editing ability after the fact. Or if you intend to just turn out the jpeg and be done, then no worries.

One other thing, when shooting continuous with sports, the center area cross type focus points are the most accurate. As you push off center the focus accuracy will start to diminish. For this reason, when shooting sports I will allow for a little bit of room in my picture to keep the action focused using the center cross type and then crop off the side to put the area of interest where I want it in the picture.

I know there is this get it right in the camera the first time blah blah blah, but trying to focus with the non-cross type focus points will lead to a greater inconsistency in focus.

Thanks guys for your help ,Moab Man you say "the center area cross type focus points are the most accurate." where are they on the camera, how do i set them points? Oh should i shoot in RAW then?

In the center of your viewfinder are the cross-type. Depending on how many there are they expand out from there. To put it simply, when I am shooting sports and NEED focus accuracy consistently, I shoot from the center.

What camera do you have?

Nikon D7100? is it the S, D9, D21, and D51 points that you are referring to?

In red.

http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d7100/img/features01/img_27.jpg

Yea a single red square dot, which can be changed to the above focus cluster patterns?

Yip thats what im referring to. and thanks for your help.

Yeah, your settings should work well. You may want to try slowing down your shutter speeds at times though and practicing some panning. Gives a much better representation of speed rather than freezing all the action...

Oh and the riders can look pretty cute at times... see below...

I agree with Kevin, panning shots give a nice change up opposed to the typical stop motion shots. I practiced some recently and I was happy with the results. Check my flickr page from this link. You can see some of the settings I used and adjust accordingly.

BM6_8890-Edit by Bernard Malinis, on Flickr

Also, when I was doing my panning. I actually picked single point. I would use that single point (lit in red through the viewfinder) pin it to the cyclist's chest and use that as a marker to pan and keep it level/steady. That's the technique that helped me. You might see it differently, but it's worth a go.

Beautiful motion blur PapaST. What was your shutter speed on that one?

Moab Man said:

Beautiful motion blur PapaST. What was your shutter speed on that one?

Click to expand...

1/30

OH and thanks Moab!

PapaST said:

1/30

OH and thanks Moab!

Click to expand...

You really nailed it. Your subject looks great and the motion blur is spectacular.