American Le Mans Racing

onehundredoctane · Sep 17, 2012

Took these while at Virginia International Speedway on Saturday, it was the first time American Le Mans has raced there so I was excited to take as many pics as possible! This is my FIRST time shooting cars in motion and trying to capture them while panning in order to get the car crisp and the back ground blurred. It took some trial and error to get it right, getting the panning smooth and steady along with figuring out what shutter speed is best. All in all I had a blast learning something new! I really wasn't expecting much out of my Canon T3 with the 75mm-300mm telephoto but I was pleasantly surprised to get what I consider some great pictures from a cheap set up. Please feel free to leave feedback good or bad as I'm always looking to improve in my technique until I can upgrade to a nicer camera.

^The ALMS Patron Tequlia Ferrari 458

^One of the Mazda USF2000 spec racers.

^This might be one of my favorite pics, showing the elevation changes at this part of the track as well as the down hill esses. This one was taken during a GT2 spec race.

^ALSM Battery Tender Lotus Evora, I love this car for some reason. . .

The ALMS Muscle Milk Prototype, these things are quick as all hell!

brian_f2.8 · Sep 17, 2012

Good job. Who were you shooting for?

leeroix · Sep 17, 2012

i love the last one... i have done a lot of work personally for that team...

onehundredoctane · Sep 18, 2012

brian_f2.8 said:
Good job. Who were you shooting for?

I was just shooting for the experience really, the only way to learn is by doing. . . right?

leeroix said:
i love the last one... i have done a lot of work personally for that team...

The HPD Muscle Milk team? Pretty cool! That car actually won the P1 class at VIR.

onehundredoctane · Sep 18, 2012

Some more eye candy?

^The Alpina Porsche GT3

^Even though the Corvette is not in direct competition with the Prototype classes, I would like to believe that it's stalking the prototype car in this one!

Being a HUGE Nissan fan I was glad to see a Nissan powered prototype car.

onehundredoctane · Sep 21, 2012

Some others I snapped during the GT3 Challenge and Cooper Tire Prototype Lites races.

LOVE the GT3 spec racers!

One of the Cooper Tire Prototypes coming up a section of the esses that lead up to the Oak Tree turn.

leeroix · Sep 21, 2012

some of your shots i would try to drag the shutter more... use a monopod if you need to...really get the feeling of motion going...but all in all, pretty darn good!

yep, MM is just down the street from me... we do all the graphics for the team and they let me shoot whatever i want...
not to hijack but...

headon-1-2-mid by keips66, on Flickr

KmH · Sep 21, 2012

OP. Do you use a CPL filter?

shorty97 · Sep 21, 2012

shorty97 · Sep 21, 2012

leeroix said:
some of your shots i would try to drag the shutter more... use a monopod if you need to...really get the feeling of motion going...but all in all, pretty darn good!

yep, MM is just down the street from me... we do all the graphics for the team and they let me shoot whatever i want...
not to hijack but...

headon-1-2-mid by keips66, on Flickr

That is awesome

onehundredoctane · Sep 22, 2012

leeroix said:
some of your shots i would try to drag the shutter more... use a monopod if you need to...really get the feeling of motion going...but all in all, pretty darn good!

yep, MM is just down the street from me... we do all the graphics for the team and they let me shoot whatever i want...
not to hijack but...

headon-1-2-mid by keips66, on Flickr

Very nice!

I tired longer shutter speeds but it seemed like anything longer than 1/160th turned out with he car blurry so I def need more hands on to get better. My mono pod DEF made it a little bit easier though! Like I said, for my first time, I'm more than happy with how some of the pics turned out!

KmH said:
OP. Do you use a CPL filter?

While I do have one, I'm pretty sure I didn't use it that day.

Here are a few more

Derrel · Sep 22, 2012

Pretty good for early efforts!!! COuple of things. First--'normally', it looks better to give the car more room to "drive into"...so allow a bit more space in front of the front than bumper,and less space behind the rear bumper of the car. Second--some of these look a bit "far away", like for example, the orange-and-silver #26 car, the Porsche...not enough room in FRONT of the car, and also "too far away". I LOVE the motion blur you've put into the majority of these...I even like "more blur". I raise a shot of Patron to you! The 01 car! The #1 tequila! Since these are your first shots, you're only gonna get better and better!

onehundredoctane · Sep 22, 2012

I get what you're saying, makes sense too! Plus it kinda makes it look like you just barely got the picture before the car left your viewfinder if the front bumper it closer to the edge of the pic. I get it!

It's the difference between this. . .

and this. . . (which I've already posted in this thread)
View attachment 20960

Thanks for much for the advice, I'll try to keep this in mind in the future! Advice like this is exacly why I joined a photography forum.

KmH · Sep 22, 2012

Click on Edit post > Go Advanced scroll down under the text editing box to and click on Manage Attachments.
That photo will be on the bottom left of the dialog box. Hover the cursor over the upper right corner of the photo and an X will appear. Click on the X to delete the photo.

While some room for the car to move into in the frame is desirable, to much room reduces subject scale visual weight.
Which is why many pro car racing photographers use 600 mm telephoto lenses - Nikon 600mm f/4.0G ED VR II AF-S SWM Super Telephoto Lens for Nikon FX and DX Format Digital SLR

onehundredoctane · Oct 2, 2012

^Thanks for the tip!

One of my favorite cars was this Lotus Evora, for some reason Lotus styling has always caught my eye. . .

Derrel has already mentioned that it's good to keep a little more empty space in front of the car to give it space to drive into, that's something I'll keep in mind in the future. But something about the picture below makes me think "the car is so fast that you almost can' capture it", that isn't the case obviously, but there's something about it that I still like.

Caught this Porsche lifting it's right front coming out of a turn while tucking the left rear, these cars are so sexy!
View attachment 21782

Thanks for looking!

-Matt