Motorsport photography

[oldmate15]

I had a thread a few weeks ago about this. This time when I went out to the track I used full manual mode. I have a few questions, with motor sport, I am supposed to use the fastest shutter speed possible, but when I shot using anything faster than 1/1600 came out too dark. Also I was using f/5.6 for pretty much the whole day, because if I went for a higher number, it came out too dark.

Now at the moment I don?t understand too much about the aperture thing, but if the opening is smaller, shouldn?t that area still have light, where the outside of the photo is dark? Or does it not work like that?

Here are two photos from the weekend.

Photo 1

Photo 2

One more thing, what would be the advantages of shooting in RAW?

[Grahnman]

A smaller aperture will give you a bigger zone of sharpness (depth of field) while a larger aperture will make the zone of sharpness more shallow.

f/2.8 (large aperture) will give you a moderate and f/22 (tiny aperture) will give you a huge zone of sharpness.

Try different shutter speeds, 1/1600 is hella fast and I think you might want to try speeds like 1/250. Otherwise you might want to try cranking up the ISO.

About RAW, someone else might have to answer that one.

[BroChaos Veteran]

for fast moving sports, you want to have the fastest shutter speed, with the lowest DOF (usually) which means the smallest/fastest aperature (lower number). you don't want to go higher than f/5.6.

check out these shots:

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/405338

mostly shot at 1/800 at f/2.8.

[Sjokkel]

With sports it depends on what results you want. Needing a fast shutterspeed is not correct in all cases. For moving bodies that are not static, for instance a runner or a cyclist, where the arms and legs are moving independent from the body or the object is moving up and down opposed to the surface its on , it is good to use a fast shutter so you can freeze the moment.

With car races for instance, where the whole body of the car is moving in the same direction, a slower shutterspeed adds alot to the shot. For instance, if you shoot a f1 car on a straight from the side with a very high shutter it would be as if the car is just standing still. If you lower the shutter, follow the car with the lens when he passes, then you'll get a nice feeling of speed. The background will be flying by while the car is nice and sharp. This does take some practice though! But since you're shooting digital practising is free.

I have a nice shot of a renault F1 car passing at 275 km/h and i used a shutter of 1/125th. My aperture was up at about 8 compensating for the light on a bright day. Aperture in this situation doesn't matter because the only thing sharp in the picture will be the object you were following with your lens.

With motocross you tend to use the biggest aperture (lower number) available and a higher shutter like the 2.8 aperture and 1/800th, because you want to freeze the bike and capture all the sand spraying up. I do have some nice shots at home (i'm in the office now) with a slow shutter but that is mostly on a flat straight so the bikes aren't jumping up and down when you follow them.

Good luck!

[Monkeh]

These are MUCH better than the your previous shots!

As Sjokkel mentioned, you should look up panning once you're comfortable with capturing the bikes at a high shutter speed. Getting a sharp shot while panning will take some practise, but once you master it, it'll give you some amazing shots.

Working in RAW lets you tweak the WB, Curves, Exposure etc. when you load the RAW file onto your computer. If you shoot in continuous mode (which you should), I recommend sticking with JPEG, because RAW files will fill up your buffer very quickly.

[Dallas]

Motorcycle racing I use 1/100th or 1/500th and that is plenty fast and 400 or 800 ISO, and F/3.5 (or F/7 with 2x converter). But I use film and there is a lot more room for error. But try 1/1000th that is fast enough to freeze action. Anything slower then 1/250 you need to be good at panning. Also if you can, don't see into the sun, shoot in the general direction your shadow is pointing.

Nice supermotard pics (Y)

[IanD]

About time someone on here did photography like I did, lol. Motocross/supercross is my passion- The best lenses for high-speed/high-action (at least in my experience) are f/2.6 lenses and definitely at least 1/500 shutter speed. Here are some examples of my stuff:

Image #1 - Chad Reed

Image #2 - Amateur MX

Image #3 - Amateur MX #2

-Ian

[oldmate15]

Thanks guys. I didn't know how slow the shutter speed could get before it was 'too' slow.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/405338

From this gallery, what's the best way about getting photos to turn out like that? With bright, clear colours and the background completely blurred/out of focus.

[Dallas]

Thanks guys. I didn't know how slow the shutter speed could get before it was 'too' slow.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/405338

From this gallery, what's the best way about getting photos to turn out like that? With bright, clear colours and the background completely blurred/out of focus.

An expensive, long telephot lens with a huge apature (F/1.8, 2.8, 4)

[IanD]

An expensive, long telephot lens with a huge apature (F/1.8, 2.8, 4)

Exactly.. The smaller the aperture, the better.