Shooting motorsport

mark4183

mark4183

Messages
1,264
Name
Mark
Edit My Images
Yes
Hello there, I have reading on this subject quite a bit for quite a while and i just seem to be going round and round in circles. Especially most of the helpful tips are related to canon and not a nikon

Anyway, recently i have been getting more and more frustrated with my shots from the track as they arent in focus, i seem to take to many (deleting quite a few afterwards), lighting, exposure blah blah the full works. The more frustrated i get whilst at the track, the more i change the settings and without thinking and getting lost ive given up.

The camera is my beloved nikon D300s and my zoom lens is AF-S VR 70-300 F/4.5-5.6G IF-ED and the general setting are in shutter mode which im always flicking through settings (feel stupid ) metering, not to familiar with it and flicking through, same as exposure compensation. ISO tends to stay at around 200 and i have the camera shooting 6fps (no battery grip) generally 9 focus points and continuous focus AF-C.

Think thats all the setting above.

Think thats everything i can think of, i feel stupid for this because i thought i was doing well and getting along but all of a sudden i cant do it anymore.

Hoping for a help and sorry for the long read
 
What shutter speeds are you using, could you upload one of your images with the exif info intact.
 
Ive been trying alsorts really.... panning shots where the cars are zooming passed and shots where the cars are coming head on into or out of a corner so shutter speeds tend to vary and i try lots ranging from 1/125 to about 1/250 i have been down to 1/60 with some, shall we say interesting blurry mess. Every now and then i get a shot and think wow tho but cant remember what i changed etc and im playing with dials and messing everything up. feel a tit because i thought i had the hang of this a while ago

A friend of mine who races, asked me to take pics for him this year and i got really excited and said no probs and i did really well at donny last year for his first race but not i feel a tit

Thanks

i havent got any of the bad ones because i delete them obviously
 
mark4183 said:
and thats all i need to change or learn? lol
Click to expand...

It's definitely the first thing I would do ;) Second is practice. Try lots of settings, see what works for you. Shutter speeds sound good - you need to show motion. Try shutter priority mode, 1/250sec shutter and as low ISO as you can get away with (depends on light available) and go from there. If you could post a pic or two up we could perhaps make some specific points :)
 
I think your shutter speed is a bit slow, I shot a lot of Lawnmower racing and I tend to stick to about 1/250 - 1/320 which retains sharpness whilst still recording movement in the wheels. And I presume that your Cars are moving faster than my Lawnmowers, so go for at least 1/500 sec.
 
This is shot at 1/320 sec, which as you can see retains sharpness and movement in wheels.

417_2406.jpg
 
The first shot looks very static, but the third one is great, you must be pleased with that one.
 
First of all, with motorsport I doubt you will get anywhere near 100% keepers, so don't beat yourself up.

You panning shots seem OK, but incase anyone else reads this thread, start at about 1/125th, continuous focus and I usually use a single focus point towards the front of the car (I'm not sure what the focus points on Nikons look like) and it is just a case of practicing, pan with your upper body and be gentle with the shutter button so it is all one smooth movement. Then as you get better you can drop the shutter speed, in 1/3 stop increments until you find a speed you are comfortable with, but the slower you go the less keepers you will get.

While I remember - another thing I found really improved my motorsport shots was setting the back button for AF (can you do that on Nikon?).

For other shots you want the fastest shutter speed you can get without freezing the wheels, if the wheels are in the frame 1/250th or 1/320th usually works well (yellow Ferrari shot shutter speed was too fast). It is also a case of photographing the car where it looks like it is moving, turning/braking etc, the newer Fiesta (#68D) could just be parked there, where as the 3/4 shot of the older Fiesta you can see there is some load going through the suspension. For that kind of shot again you want to be using a single focus point, with it over the front of the car, I also find it better to move the camera with the car in the view finder, rather than wait for the car to drive into the viewfinder.

The main thing is though - practice, practice and more practice!
 
brilliant advice and very much appreciated. some question unanswered.

1. What metering mode should i be in? matrix, centered or spot, i always thought center waited.

2. What ISO? or is it a case of higher the shutter speed then higher the ISO to compensate?

3. Exposure compensation?

4. how many pictures are keepers generally? I always think im takin to many, i took approx 4000 at brands hatch for BTCC and deleted to the point of about 600

Will be trying this out this weekend as the BSB come to croft so i will post some results.

Thanks for the patience
 
Dont know much about metering but ISO should be kept as low as possible at all times but you will of course be fine if you need to go higher (heard nikons are good with noise so maybe ISO3200 will be no problem). I personally don't fiddle with the exposure compensation but then half the time i don't use the light meter that much. Last time I was at BTCC for a Sunday I took about 1000 and cut that down to about 400/500 then down to about 150 for better ones then about 20 that I really really liked.

As for panning it depends how fast they are doing but I have shot at about 1/20 at a car doing about 90mph at a distance and very close to a car doing about 30-40mph at about 1/30 (with really sharp results). Btw I had many from this panning malarkey that I chucked in the bin (virtually :p) and most of my rubbish ones came from here. Once you are shooting at a higher shutter speed you will get less blurry ones of course.
 
mark4183 said:
brilliant advice and very much appreciated. some question unanswered.

1. What metering mode should i be in? matrix, centered or spot, i always thought center waited.

2. What ISO? or is it a case of higher the shutter speed then higher the ISO to compensate?

3. Exposure compensation?

4. how many pictures are keepers generally? I always think im takin to many, i took approx 4000 at brands hatch for BTCC and deleted to the point of about 600

Will be trying this out this weekend as the BSB come to croft so i will post some results.

Thanks for the patience
Click to expand...

Well these settings work for me, but others may disagree.

1 - I use matrix metering.
2 - ISO dependant upon lighting conditions, if you can't get a high enough shutter speed, then increase the ISO, but always try and stay low if possible.
3 - I do a few test shots and see if anything is burning out, if so then I will adjust the exposure compensation to either -3 or -7.
4 - A good third of mine will be keepers.
 
mark4183 said:
brilliant advice and very much appreciated. some question unanswered.

1. What metering mode should i be in? matrix, centered or spot, i always thought center waited.

2. What ISO? or is it a case of higher the shutter speed then higher the ISO to compensate?

3. Exposure compensation?

4. how many pictures are keepers generally? I always think im takin to many, i took approx 4000 at brands hatch for BTCC and deleted to the point of about 600

Will be trying this out this weekend as the BSB come to croft so i will post some results.

Thanks for the patience
Click to expand...

1 - I use centre weighted.

2 - You need to match the ISO to your shutter speed and the light available, lower is better, but if you need to increase it to get a faster shutter speed that's what you need to do. If you find you're shooting at an aperture smaller than f11 and you can drop the ISO down drop it down.

3 - Again it depends on the conditions, I start without using any exposure compensation and dial in either positive or negative compensation when I need it. Check the back of your camera. It's the sort of thing that there aren't magic settings for, you've just got to get out there and practice.

4 - It depends how you define a keeper, I only keep about 10% of my motorsport images, but I'm quite harsh on myself and don't see the point in keeping thousands of images on my hard drive and no one wants to go through more than about 100 images in one sitting!
 
nice pics, mark4183 ;)
 
Mark,

Some tips from a fellow D300 motorsport user:

1) 9 focus points is the way to go. 21 is too many and is too slow, using just 1 is for non-Nikon pro body users ;-)

2) Whats your focus tracking lock on setting set to? Set it to low or even "off"

3) Turn VR off!!!!!!

4) Using the AF-On button on the back of your camera.

5) Understand that with the best will in the world, not everything is going to come out sharp.

6) Also understand what makes it not sharp - subject movement usually - ie did the subject remain equi-distant to you during the length of the exposure and also not bounce around up and down. If not, it won't be sharp, simple as. Judging the correct speed to allow for this is one of the remaining things your superbly engineered piece of Japanese ultra-tech cannot do for you :D
 
desantnik said:
Mark,

Some tips from a fellow D300 motorsport user:

1) 9 focus points is the way to go. 21 is too many and is too slow, using just 1 is for non-Nikon pro body users ;-)

2) Whats your focus tracking lock on setting set to? Set it to low or even "off"

3) Turn VR off!!!!!!

4) Using the AF-On button on the back of your camera.

5) Understand that with the best will in the world, not everything is going to come out sharp.

6) Also understand what makes it not sharp - subject movement usually - ie did the subject remain equi-distant to you during the length of the exposure and also not bounce around up and down. If not, it won't be sharp, simple as. Judging the correct speed to allow for this is one of the remaining things your superbly engineered piece of Japanese ultra-tech cannot do for you :D
Click to expand...


Other than that, get yourself a 7D :D :exit:
 
ah brilliant desantnik, you have just become my new best friend on here to pester lol and kidding....

Firstly, have you seen the pics? thought i did well
2. turn VR off? really, why?
3. 9 point af, many people have use the spot focus.
4. focus tracking? you have lost me a little
5. yea, the af button on the back is soooooo much easier

Thanks
 
mark4183 said:
ah brilliant desantnik, you have just become my new best friend on here to pester lol and kidding....
Click to expand...

:bat:

Firstly, have you seen the pics? thought i did well
Click to expand...

There's always room for improvement and also, getting it right means you have more keepers :)


2. turn VR off? really, why?
3) 9 point af, many people have use the spot focus.
4) focus tracking? you have lost me a little
5) yea, the af button on the back is soooooo much easier
Click to expand...

2) Yes. I'm going to be controversial here, because it sucks for motorsport.

3) Only non-D300/D700/D3 users will be doing that for motorsport. You have a camera thats got a virtually state of the art AF system - use it.

4) Ok, go in to

menu
Custom settings
a. Autofocus

Then set:

a1. to focus and release
a4. to short or off (your choice!)


5) Remember, if you have ignored my suggestion about binning VR, the AF-On button doesn't start VR up... nice eh?
 
Last edited:
Have a go, see what you think and come back to show us what you've done.

Hopefully it should be quite noticeable...
 
Sorry to thread hijack, but I've found the info interesting. I only went out the first time this weekend for a motor sport event. Panning was great fun, but I was wondering if people used a monopod at all or IS\VR panning mode? Does a monopod restrict the movement too much or is a "loose" ball head flexible enough? I've used one at airshows before, but things seem to get on top of you quicker at a track!
 
I don't use a monopod for panning as I prefer to have my body as the pivot point of the arc, rather than the the middle of the lens.

That way if the car is going right to left I swing the camera right to left. With a monopod attached to the camera the end of the camera will travel less distance, but in a tighter arc.
 
Craikeybaby said:
I don't use a monopod for panning as I prefer to have my body as the pivot point of the arc, rather than the the middle of the lens.

That way if the car is going right to left I swing the camera right to left. With a monopod attached to the camera the end of the camera will travel less distance, but in a tighter arc.
Click to expand...

Good point, I guess I just need to practice lots :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top