Ferrari Pics

[phase_k]

I did a track day at Bruntingthorpe last Saturday and took my camera and shot off a few pics. Thought these 2 came out quite well:

http://www.thephotographyforums.com/albums/album45/ferrari_1.jpg

http://www.thephotographyforums.com/albums/album45/ferrari_2.jpg

Comments? :D

[SammyC]

I take it that isn't your car then?

You don't drive an S2K by any chance do you?

[phase_k]

I certainly do Sammy!

[SammyC]

Thought I recognised the name. :)

[matty]

nice pics, but they look a little flat, have you messed with the levels yet?

[dazzajl]

Comments?

Good pics and I like the way you have gone for pretty slow shutter speed, rather than nudge it up and go for the high percentage shots.......

but... they're not quite there. If your going for a panning shot then the car needs to be pin sharp and these aren't quite. The second shot is better than the first and with practice you'll see the results improve very rapidly. :)

[SammyC]

I guess you'd need a fairly big focal length to get the whole car in focus?

[dazzajl]

It does work better on longer lenses of course but if you're shooting with a shorter lens then the most common approach is to get the driver/rider in the sharp bit and let the rest fall where it does.

This is one of things where digital really helps out as you can fire off hundreds of shots without fear or spending a fortune to get the knack. Like many things, it's all about getting the action to become second nature.

At the sort of shutter speeds you were using it's far from easy and most pro track day snappers seem to shy away from such low percentage settings in favour of the frozen car look and a higher hit rate.

I'd always go for the way you did it and expect/hope to get about 1 in 10 or so bang on perfect. Feels really good when you get a whole sequence just right and every shot is pin sharp in the critical areas.

[CriPPle]

Nice shots there, but have to agree that they could do with being a bit sharper and some colour manipulation wouldn't go a miss.

Keep practicing and these panning shots will soon come to you. :)

[phase_k]

I have adjusted the saturation as the levels were really bad and looked really flat, but not much apart from that.
This is the first time that I have attempted this kind of shot so am reasonably happy with the results. Agreed that practice is the most important thing and I need to get the hang of "tracking" the cars as they go past. I was messing around with the shutter speed most of the time and the above photos were taken at 1/160, maybe a touch too low on reflection, I think 1/250 would have been adiquate.
Thanks for the comments all! :)

[Gandhi]

you could probably get away with anything between 1/160 & 1/1000th of a second and still blur the background sufficently. Depends on the speed of the car ultimately I guess. Good shots, though, If the lights flat on the day, there isn't a whole lot you can do about the images looking flat without making it look artificial.

Still better than anything I could produce in that field though!