Easier to pan up close?

[Lightsped]

I'll be attending a car race at Road Atlanta this Saturday. The race will start in morning and last until after dark.

My main question is would it be easier to pan zoomed in, or zoomed out? Or will the focal length even make a difference? Should I stay in shutter priority mode after dark?

Equipment will be a D800 with 70-200 f2.8 and a D7000 with the 55-300 4.5-5.6 as backup.

Thanks

 

[Stradawhovious]

I would think that the longer the lens, the harder it will be to pan with a longer shutter speed, for exactly the same reason that the longer the lens, the harder it is to take a stable handheld image with a longer shutter speed.

I'm no Rocket Surgeon, but I'd guess that panning with a long lens would require, at a minimum, a monopod or a REALLY solid handhold for decent results.

 

[CameraClicker]

Panning takes some practice. Faster moving, closer subjects are harder than slower moving, more distant subjects. Large objects moving at uniform speed are easier than small objects moving erratically.
Find a safe spot to sit, at the side of a highway, practice on the cars going past. If you can find a field by the highway, or the edge of a gas station apron, you can adjust how close you are to the road and see the effect of distance. You could also visit the local skate park and pan while shooting bicycle riders and skateboarders. Speed is mostly a factor if your subject appears and disappears quickly -- by that, I mean your subject pops out of some trees, travels, say 60 feet, and disappears behind more trees. Shooting airplanes a few hundred feet away, while they are travelling just below the speed of sound is not that hard because you can see them coming.

The larger your subject is in the viewfinder, the harder it will be to track. Also the heavier the lens, the more work is involved. It will come with practice.

Night will be interesting. I hope the track is well lit. Drivers will probably object to being blinded by flash. If you are panning to get a sharp car, and a blurred to streaks background, you will be shooting at a relatively low shutter speed anyway, even during the day. Night may just mean increasing ISO and opening up your lens. Some of the bigger zoom lenses have an image stabilizer with a panning mode, check your lens' manual.

Your 55-300 is probably lighter than your 70-200. I would just hand hold either of those to pan, but I would usually only be doing it for a couple of hours, not for 12 solid hours. It would probably be OK for 2 minutes followed by a rest of 8 minutes, or whatever, if the cars appear, then go off and run the rest of a long track. If it is a regular road coarse with left and right turns, finding a safe spot at a turn would work better than the middle of a straight section. Cars slow down a lot for sharp turns, but accelerate quickly when the straight section appears. They often bunch together in the turns too.

Hope you have a great day. Remember to apply sunscreen.

 

[Braineack]

figure out the focla length you want the shot to be taken at and stick with it.

as you practice and get better, lower the shutter speed.

I keep it on Shutter Priority and increase the ISO if need be.

for example, this was still just 1/80sec but completely pitch black out. ISO 6400.


DSC_0159-91 by The Braineack, on Flickr

 

[lambertpix]

Ahhh... Petit LeMans. I'm jealous. ;-)

I've always found panning to be tough when subjects are too close, but play around and see what works for you. I've never been there, so I can't tell you for sure where you'll have good track access for shooting, but based on racing I've seen there + experience at other tracks, here are a couple areas I'd check out:

* Turn 8 (from the outside of the track) looks like an interesting place to try panning. The cars will be accelerating out of 7, and turn 8 is really just a bend around your position, which should keep the cars nearly equidistant from you through the pan.

* Turn 9, from what I understand, is pretty hairy in-car -- sort of like the Kink at Road America. Might be some interesting action there as Prototypes overtake GT's.

* Turn 10a will be a hard braking area -- good for action as well as brake glow photos as light starts to fall. Watch for backfires in some of the decel zones, too.

* Turns 1 and 6 would be next in terms of braking areas -- watch for brake glow, lock-ups, and late-braking overtakes.

* The Esses are probably the most iconic turns on this track. See if you can get close to 4 or 5 and look up the track as the cars approach.

I can't wait to see what you come up with.