NG Bike Race :-) C&C Please

[Cheesyman]

Hey hey, so i went back to Oulton Park race track (in Tarporley, Cheshire, UK) this weekend to practice some more motor sports photography. This weekend it was some bike racing, with plenty of qualifiers and races to practice on. These are just some of the many that i took, think overall from the whole day i took 5000 pictures :S obviously whittled tht down to a few hundred now. Anyway here's 11 of them

apologise for the grey shadow in the centre, shot this through wire fencing

i know this shot is blurry but theres just something that catches my eye about it, so thought would put it on here and see what you guys thought

 

[Cheesyman]

can i please have some C&C guys and gals :-D

 

[gsgary]

I don't think it's my eyes but non of them look very sharp, considering camera and lens used they are dissapointing, i wouldn't have kept any of these sorry

 

[CNCO]

gsgary - i agree they are not very sharp. what settings did yo use?

 

[edouble]

Good job with these photos. I absolutely love the wide crop that you did on a few of them.

 

[cnutco]

Agree about the sharpness from above, but I love the motion blur on the last shot!

 

[gsgary]

I think the problem is focus because shutter speeds are ok except the last one which has too much blur with good technique there should have been something in focus even at 1/10, what focus settings are you using ? the wheelie shot should be sharp at the shutter speed you used with panning

 

[Cheesyman]

hey guys sorry late reply, internets been down:

for the settings, i was on shutter priority ranging from 1/400-1/800, the last blurry shot was at 1/10.
The focus setting was the 19-point AF auto selection on AI Servo on my 7D, i wasn't sure what focusing to go with ( weather Single-point AF, Zone AF or 19-point AF auto selection) as it was my first time shooting bikes at such high speeds.
Can someone please give me tips or advice for next time to improve the sharpness of my pictures, cheers

 

[gsgary]

I use 1Dmk2's and only use the center focus point i haven't used a 7D yet but it should work
You will be surprised what shutter speeds you can get away with, this shot is 420mm @ 1/160 F9

This is 600mm @ 1/320 F9

I have found the sweet spot for fast panning shots is about 1/200

 

[Cheesyman]

thnks gsgary, i will try using the centre focus point next time im at oulton park. when it comes to photographing cars as well, do you think the centre focus point would work or to set all 19 points for auto selection instead?
Im only just getting into motor sports photography so im still a newbie when it comes to all this haha

great pictures by the way

 

[gsgary]

I have shot quite a lot of rally and only use the center focus point, for rally i go slower for some panning shots
1/30

 

[aprhockey]

gsgary: ? ... the back wheel doesn't look like it's moving the front one looks like it's going hella fast. Was the car sliding around a corner or something? It's almost surreal, but maybe that's because i don't look at these types of photos often.

 

[gsgary]

Back wheel has lifted because of the speed and sharp corner plus that little Suzuki had a 2.1 engine