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Motorsport -- panning, SS & motion

Here are a couple from a little dragstrip near here on Friday night. First time at a drag race -- it proved fairly challenging as the light faded, but there were one or two that I wound up liking.

IMG_9801.jpg by lambertpix, on Flickr

Not the most outstanding panning job, but the setting sun produced some cool lighting for a while:

IMG_9457.jpg by lambertpix, on Flickr

Sadly, one of the better panning shots, but I framed just a little too tightly:

IMG_9589.jpg by lambertpix, on Flickr

Anywho, it was good practice -- we're getting into the thick of racing season around here now!
 
Here's one from Mid Ohio this weekend -- there are a few with slower shutter speeds, but I thought this was a good start.

IMG_6594.jpg by lambertpix, on Flickr
 
Here's one at 1//50 -- not quite as razor-sharp as some of my faster ones, but it's decent, I think:

IMG_3624.jpg by lambertpix, on Flickr
 
Still working on my technique 1/100


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Wozza! what shutter speed do you use for those type of shots and how far back are you from the car, what lense are you using there. I never seem to get more than a few right.
 
Wozza! what shutter speed do you use for those type of shots and how far back are you from the car, what lense are you using there. I never seem to get more than a few right.

A slow one. It depends on the speed and distance from the moving object that determines what SS to use. Starting around something like 1/150 is ok, then slow it down to see what the results yield.

Most motorsports require a long lens, at least 300mm, but it depends on the desired results. Panning can be done with any lens, wide angle or telephoto. Most of the shots in this thread are probably taken around 200 to 300 as a guess from the spectator areas. Getting closer to the subject is almost always better.

Panning is a technique that will never yield a 100% keeper rate. It requires a lot of practice and the slower the SS gets the less keepers there will be.
 
Wozza! what shutter speed do you use for those type of shots and how far back are you from the car, what lense are you using there. I never seem to get more than a few right.

My Grand Prix panning shots were taken at between 1/180s & 1/50s.
Mainly at around 300mm (450mm EFL) and at least a fifth of them have been deleted even though I usually keep ones that are nearly there. Camera shake was more of a problem for the few shots I tried at 400-500mm (600-750mm EFL) but this may have been down to the less predictable route the cars took in that section of track as much as anything.
IIRC the best shots at 1/50s & 1/90s looked OK on the cameras screen, but on the computer screen there not quite sharp. Around 1% of those at 1/125s still look reasonably sharp at full size which is a big improvement on my normal rate. Perhaps an effect of the free wine at lunchtime???
At the touring cars in April I found my 150-500 wasn't wide enough for my favorite spot (the inside of the hairpin) whilst at the powerboats a few years back I real wished by telescope (~1000-4000mm) could give sharp images when zoomed in - 1000mm was roughly 3 boat lengths at the nearest part of the circuit.

My work has include motorsport for nearly 20 years so I've had quite a bit of practice at panning - quite possibly well over 30,000 shots by now - I'm not sure the proportion that are 'right' has changed much in that time. To begin with it might have been 1 shot in 3-4 films feeling OK, but that was only looking at 6x4 prints so that standard of 'right' has probably changed!
 

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