Craig’s Brief tips:

• Keep it simple. Take a general purpose zoom lens and nothing else.

• To shoot other cyclists, try panning. Set a shutter speed of 1/15 of so, start rotating your body from the hips and press the shutter button mid rotation.

• Try and cycle in a loop route to give you more options for photos.

• Water holds color and light longer than sky, so early/late in the day, try and include beach/river/lake etc for some added effect.

• For deeply saturated, blue skies, use a polarising filter.

Further tips given by Kirk Kenny, a Canadian photographer based in Hong Kong:

• You can ask for feed-back from your friends to improve your shots for next time out.
• Regularly look at photos from better photographers’ websites for inspiration. You can then try “reverse engineering” it.
• “The more I shoot I really think the 10,000 hour rule applies, it was an idea put forward in a recent best selling book -the idea that to be successful at something you have to crack that 10,000 hour barrier”.

You can check out some of Kirk’s images on Flickr

Taipei’s Largest Graveyard that covers practically a small mountain range

You can add interest to your photos by shooting your companions in the environment

The limitation with the small camera is that the image quality is not as good as the SLR but the convenience of portability is the biggest plus. In a couple of recent training rides I’ve gone on – 150kms in Taizhong and a couple of days ago up in the Wulai Region, I took my Nikon D90 camera with me slung over my back. It worked well but just had to be more careful about handling the camera and keeping it safe from debris and potential rain showers. I found that my quality of shots improved dramatically and I would spend more time composing good compositions when I found a good vantage point. I don’t just shoot any pretty thing I see during my ride, but seek out potentially more striking scenes that can evoke an emotional response from whoever will view the images. For example, as a cyclist I find that looking at images with an empty road snaking through beautiful scenery inspires me to go hunting for those roads myself. I enjoy the thrill of exploring new routes and finding good images to remember it by.

Today’s posting is going to close with six tips for taking better photography whilst out riding:

• Choose either early morning or late afternoon to start the ride as this is the best time of the day to capture the “golden light” that photographers often seek.
• Always think in terms of what would make a “shot of the day” type of image rather than just snapping any pretty scene you see. Be selective.
• If you see something particularly striking, don’t just settle for the quick snapshot but spend some time shooting the scene from different perspectives. If you are willing to take the SLR with you on the bike, you’ll be more inclined to do this.
• Think about what other people would consider as a great shot that would inspire them to go out exploring themselves and seek their own epic ride images. Also, don’t forget to take images that inspire yourself.
• Explore routes off the “beaten-track” instead of sticking to the popular routes. You’ll find alot of gems that are undiscovered by most cyclists or even regular tourists.
• Sometimes it is nice to include your bike within the composition of your photograph as it adds another dimension of interest.