NSW 1/10th scale R/C car club series round 2

[DanPower]

Inspired by this thread, I took my 550d and a hired 70-200 2.8 to the second round of the NSW 1/10th scale radio controlled car club series which just happened to be down the road from me. I had a CRACKER of a day, got to test-drive the lens I'm looking at buying for 10 hours straight and learnt a lot, mainly since these little buggers are so quick that capturing them in action is f'ing hard. I learnt a lot about setting up and waiting for action, along with autofocus (the 550+70-200 2.8 did a damn good job in AI SERVO) which is something I don't use much since my kit lenses focus so slowly.

I have a few ideas for next time, in particular I would like to try Magic Lantern's trap focus function.... the AF was good, but these cars are SO fast that taking shots head-on, when I hit the shutter release the AF stops and by the time the shutter opens the car is outside the DOF. I couldn't really see it on the screen but looking on the computer I have hundreds of photos where the car is out of focus but the track a foot behind it is in focus. Although I imagine ML's trap focus will do the same thing, fire the shutter when the vehicle is in focus but by the time it's actually exposed the vehicle is out. The obvious solution is to use a smaller aperture to lengthen the DOF but then I might run into issues with the shutter speed being too slow.... either that or just prefocus and learn to time it properly?

I'm still working through the processing but I've gone through about 1/8 of the keepers (had 975 keepers), and isolated about 35 of those as the top photos . I've posted my favourite 8 here (tried to limit it to 6 but I couldn't choose), the rest can be found on my Facebook page if you're interested.

When I finish the set I'll post a few more photos and links and stuff... I expect the final set to be about 200 images!

Constructive C&C always welcome and appreciated I'm aware the watermark is excessively large but I did that on purpose as I got enough absolute cracker shots that I think I can sell some prints!

1.


2. Thought this one might make a nice FB cover for the owner, had to crop the top due to a bad background but still happy with it


3.


4. That little bit in the middle is a tie rod


5.


6.


7. Wheelies FTW!


8. Lucky shot

 

[groan]

These look amazing! Love the crash and the dirt shot. They all look good so no c & c from me!

 

[SCraig]

Quick as they are, these aren't even the fast ones. I raced R/C dirt for a season and R/C oval for several years. It's a lot of fun but even more gimmick-ridden than photography.

Some good shots but with the exceptions of #4, #7, and #8 they were all shot with too high a shutter speed. There is no sense of movement or speed, someone could have just sat them on the track for you to take a shot.

 

[DanPower]

Thanks groan!! Still have 750 keeper shots to process so hopefully I find some more!!!

SCraig, thanks for that input - I know what you mean about the gimmick factor in r/c (**** factor I called it)... I raced r/c years ago and bailed on it because of that. I get your comment about the shutter speed, I was aiming for two types of shot on this day.... cars 'doing stuff' (like 4, 7, 8) and stop-motion shots of cars in aggressive poses, 5 and 6 are probably the best examples of what I was going for in that agressive pose..... 5 has a wheel off the ground, rear end squatting, 6 has suspension bottoming out, chassis lean, etc. I can definitely see it in first three though, to be honest I only like #1 because that car is just so damn nice

Thanks for that mate I'll keep that in mind when I'm editing the rest of the series, and I might go back over some of the ones I rejected because of blur and try to look at them in a different light. I tend to see a blurry shot and automatically go 'thats no good' but I guess I need to think a bit more about it..

Cheers

 

[SCraig]

Yeah, go back and look at some of the discards (that is THE reason that I never, ever delete an image. What you hate today you may love tomorrow). The cars are quick and portraying that speed and agility is important in a good photograph. Of course, it's always a trade off. Had you been shooting at a slow shutter speed number 4 and 8 would have been junk.

I haven't shot R/C but when shooting motorsports I always try and get some motion blur in the shot somewhere. The background, the wheels, something needs to show that speed. Here's an example: First shot in 2010 at 1/1000 second and the second in 2011 at 1/160 second. Both in pretty much the same area of the same track. Which most clearly says "Racing" to you?

 

[DanPower]

Thanks again mate, I can definitely see what you're talking about at least in the first three.. I think I was attracted to the bodywork in these ones. 5 and 6 do have the aggressiveness in the vehicle that I was looking for but a little blur in the wheels would be nice... I wonder if, since the wheels are solid, I could use photoshop to just blur the tyre treads in them a little more. I don't like faking stuff in post but it might just add a little more punch to them... we'll see what happens.

I deleted all of the absolutely rubbish images (e.g. miles out of focus or cars cut in half etc) but haven't deleted any others, and I've flagged them in a way that I can go through those rejects quite easily and maybe pick out a few more. I'll start working on that today.

Here is another photo from the set that, although it's not quite as sharp, it shows a bit more motion and is probably more towards the kind of image you're talking about, what do you think?



By the way lovely work on that yellow bike shot, love it.

 

[SCraig]

I definitely like this one better! Carrying the left front and kicking up a rooster tail of dirt does the trick. Plus the tread in the rear tire is just faint lines. Personally I think that is a much better shot.

Glad you liked the bike shot, and thanks. There are TONS more of them Here. I really need to go through that page and remove about 75% of them but I just can't seem to find the time.

 

[jake337]

I liked the wheelie shot the best as it shows speed. I would try much, much lower shutter speeds like in the 1/20-1/60 range and pan. These lil buggers would be great practice for panning.

 

[DanPower]

You're not wrong there, they were incredible practice and I learnt heaps from this. My arms and back were killing me by the end of the day, so a lighter lens would have made it easier for sure. The wheelie shot is 1/80th and that was about as good as I could do... I even got some panning shots at 1/160th which came out well because of the speed of these things! I got a lot of panning sequences where the vehicle starts in the frame then by the third shot it's just the back wheels, I just couldn't turn fast enough!!!

The scale speed of these vehicles is 650km/h, and after a lot of thinking about angles and stuff and some talking to some more mathematically knowledgeable friends we've decided the scale speed roughly applies... by that I mean that if your focal length stays constant you are panning a 1/10th scale vehicle at 65km/h @ let's say 2 metres away, that will require you to swing the lens at the equivalent speed as if you were panning a full size vehicle doing 650km/h @ 20 metres away. I'm *reasonably* sure we've got the maths right on this one, the actual size of the vehicle doesn't matter but it's simply to do with the distance between me and the object - if the object speed stays constant, then the closer you get the faster you have to turn.

Now I've actually thought about it that way and seen it written down, I probably could have gotten better panning shots at slower shutter speeds by using a longer focal length and positioning myself further away. I'll definitely try that next time and I *think* it will work, although it might introduce issues with shake because of the longer focal length? Guess I'll just have to try it. This was an unstabilised lens too so shake is a bit more of a problem than it would be with the IS..

The biggest problem I had with anything below 1/100th (the wheelie at 1/80th was pretty lucky) was that the off-road cars skip up and down A LOT particularly when they're planting the throttle, so it's completely different to panning a car on tarmac. Anything under about 1/80 or 1/100th introduced so much vertical blur that they were unusable. They have an on-road meeting coming up soon which I think I'll attend, and I think I'll be able to pan those with a much slower speed because they're not bouncing around so much..

Anyways thanks for your comment, it gave me a lot to think about as you can see by my rambling.... lol