Who wants to help a Newbie!!!

[61longlegs]

Hello, I'm a newbie. I have a Nikon D5100. I'm at a drag race track right now and want to get some good photos of the cars going down the track. I've been playing around with the shutter speed and aperture. Can anyone suggest some good settings? I'm new at this still and don't know a lot.

anything helps.

thanks.

 

[KmH]

:thumbup: Welcome to TPF! :camera:

Use the Aperture priority shooting mode.
Set the aperture to f/5.6 and keep an eye on the shutter speed in the viewfinder. The camera will adjust the shutter speed but you don't want it to go below 1/500.
Set the ISO to Auto.

Next you need to set AF-C or continuous focus, and center-weighted metering modes.

Lastly you use a technique called 'panning' and move the camera with the car. You will, be moving the camera when you release the shutter.
Ideally, you want to release the shutter when you can still see a bit of the front of the car and the near side of the car. Shots of the car being directly in front of you, or going away are not quite as interesting.

 

[IceCanAm]

Welcome to the site.

 

[terri]

Welcome to the forum!! You'll have to come back and post your pictures from the event. What you did well or not so well will be apparent, and members here will be able to help you with specifics from your pictures.

Enjoy!

 

[smalltowngirl13]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

 

[61longlegs]

thanks for all your help!! I've been busy and haven't been able to post some pics. I'll do that this weekend and you can take a look and tell me what I did wrong!!

thanks again

 

[61longlegs]

Here are some of the shots I took. I was going for the look of the main focus point being on the car and everything else in the background blurry. As you can see this didn't happen! Any tips is greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Designer]

Depth of field (DOF) is predictable, even if somewhat difficult to understand at first.

To get the effect you want, you should:

1. Get closer to your subject. A long shot will lessen the effect.
2. Use a wide aperture setting (can't read your EXIF, so will have to guess) If your lens will go to 2.8 or so that should work.
3. With wide aperture, you will have to compensate with a faster shutter. Which in the case of fast cars, that works to your advantage anyway.

 

[ratssass]

....check out this link
How to shoot motion drag racing - Yellow Bullet Forums
I think you'll see that most panning shots are much less than 1/500....
I see your shooting at Norwalk.If you have the chance,while over at "the bullet",look for shots from Chuck Clark.The dude pans as low as 1/30 with much success.He shoots at Norwalk quite often.I,too,will be heading over there for "The Shakedown" in Oct.
....on a side note,if you decide to post anything over at "The Bullet",do yourself a favor and hit the newbie tab first.They will not be kind if you don't.
...and,btw,welcome aboard!
...here's some of Chuck's stuff 2013 Summit Nats. @ Norwalk - Yellow Bullet Forums

 

[SCraig]

....check out this link
How to shoot motion drag racing - Yellow Bullet Forums
I think you'll see that most panning shots are much less than 1/500....
I see your shooting at Norwalk.If you have the chance,while over at "the bullet",look for shots from Chuck Clark.The dude pans as low as 1/30 with much success.He shoots at Norwalk quite often.I,too,will be heading over there for "The Shakedown" in Oct.
....on a side note,if you decide to post anything over at "The Bullet",do yourself a favor and hit the newbie tab first.They will not be kind if you don't.
...and,btw,welcome aboard!
...here's some of Chuck's stuff 2013 Summit Nats. @ Norwalk - Yellow Bullet Forums

A lot depends on how close you are to the subject and how fast they are moving, but in general I do agree with what you say. I wouldn't shoot most cars on a strip at 1/500 but Top Fuel and Funny Car are the exceptions. I can't keep up with them at all much past the launch so I typically get those shots just as the lights go green or during the burnout. Other classes I try and shoot down around 1/160 to 1/250 and it seems to work pretty decently as long as I'm pretty close to the wall (i.e. front row of seats).

This was at 1/160 second:

and this one at 1/250 second:

This one was shot at 1/500 second just as the lights went green:

 

[PhotoArtist]

Welcome to the forum!