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    I wish I knew how to photograph a bicycle like y’all. Advice?

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    20 Comments

    1. Powerful_Bug9102 on

      Watch the everything’s been done episode with John Prolly at Made. Scroll the radavist for inspo.

    2. Plenty-Rooster7278 on

      Those shots look great to me! I’m still learning myself. Outdoor shots you want to make sure the sun is behind you. It’s amazing what a few tweaks editing on your phone can do. A little cropping and adjusting can make a decent pic pop

    8. East_Requirement7375 on

      1st thing I’d note is to shoot against backgrounds that don’t draw away from, or disrupt your view of the bike. If possible, stand the bike farther away from things and use depth of field to soften the background so the bike stands out.

    9. TakerOfLanes on

      I’m sure the cat doesn’t mind you posting their butthole on Reddit. Beautiful bike btw.

    11. gumption_boy on

      I’m no pro but my biggest things are:

      1) avoid distracting backgrounds

      2) indirect sunlight to avoid shadows (sun behind you) or washout (sun in front of you)

    12. MikeoPlus on

      Set up the bike level, cranks at 3:00, valves at 12:00. Keep the light behind you until you know how to make it look good from other angles. Stand further back than you would, zoom in slightly. Keep the camera lower and level, about level with the top tube. With drop bars, you can angle it so the further side of the bar hides behind the nearer side. Don’t portrait mode too hard or cables and hoses and spokes will disappear.

    14. joe-vee-wan on

      I’ll start with admitting I’m not a professional photographer, but am married to a former one who has a degree in the field. You’ve done pretty good! Your angles are nice, it’s really just lighting and framing that you need to work on. Both of which can be somewhat compensated for with auto-adjust, the “vivid” filter (iPhone, not sure what it is on others), and cropping. The way yours getting a low angle so that you’re at the horizontal center or just below is excellent, so keep that up. If I’m doing a full on glamour shot session I usually go in the order of:

      Full drive side

      Angle (30° to 45°) off the front tire of the whole bike

      Angle off the crank towards the rear

      Angle off the rear tire of the whole bike

      Angle off the rear derailleur towards the front

      Full non-drive side

      I find that usually covers all the “sexy” angles and works for most bikes (I’ve been through many lol). Depending on the bike I might get a vertical/portrait shot from in front of the handlebars looking down the top tube or one from behind the saddle. To add a little flair I sometimes set it to have a degree of blur in the background so that the viewers’ focus is forced to the foreground to accentuate blingy parts.

      If you want to get super detailed, head on over to r/bikeporn and look at the hottest posts. They narrow in on things like pedal/crank position, having the top and bottom chain lines parallel, no distracting equipment (water bottles, bags, etc.) and choose of background. Fair warning, they can also be a bit mean-spirited, but try not to take anything people say on the internet personally.

    15. Frockett on

      The secret to good pics is using a flatter lens to remove the distortion from a phones 1x option.
      If you have an iPhone you can toggle between all the lens options. I’ve found that using the maximum zoom your phone supports before it transitions to digital zoom is the best. I got an iPhone pro specifically for the options and find myself using the 5x 120mm lens the most.
      You can take a look at my posts to get some examples of what you can do with just an iPhone and very subtle editing.
      Oh yeah also dont take pics in direct sunlight

    16. worker_bee_drone on

      OP – Is that a Microshift Sword 9-speed you installed? I think it is. I just installed that mini group on a bike even older than that one, early 1980s Univega, with front facing horizontal dropouts even. I’m really happy with it! All 9 gears work great and with 40 teeth up front and 44 in the back, I can climb anything!

    17. FantasticAd5239 on

      Super nice build, gorgeous color and nice component choices. Love the chonky tires, too.

      I only take average photos of my bike, and yours are several notches above mine, for sure. I’ll put it this way; if I was in the market and that bike was for sale, I’d be looking to buy it.

    18. External_Mulberry548 on

      Plain backgrounds help – a lot. Or at least bike/ background separation.

    20. TheGreatManitou on

      1. Carefuly get the bicycle leaning standing in the middle of open land – for example on some rock, with stick, etc., but without a wall in background (on road, on field, etc.)
      2. Get further from the bike and use lens with longer focal lenght – at least 50mm, 85mm or longer, or zoom if you have lens with zoom.
      3. Use lower aperture.

      This should blur the background (bokeh) and make the bicycle visually stand out.

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