Fast Action shots

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Permalink Reply by Sean on July 18, 2009 at 10:42pm

I think the tripod may be to bulky. Your shutter speed will be high so you will have less chance of blur from shake vs. motion blur of the motorcycles. These are a few shots from the Ferrari Challenge a few years back. The top two were at 1/1000 the third was at 1/1250.(You can see on the third one the wheels are frozen) The cars were in the speed traps so there were at 170mph plus. ISO was at 100. Bright sunny day.

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Permalink Reply by Sean on July 20, 2009 at 6:07am

One last note: make sure your AF is on servo.

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Permalink Reply by clickandpic by Leo Gesess on July 18, 2009 at 11:05pm

My way to take action pictures is to use the fixed shutter speed (position S on your camera). Normally 1/500. This gives you a chance to have action pictures with "a little bit" of motion. See my pix. Use the movement of the car or what ever to combine a freeze with motion. If you really want to freeze a picture use your tripod a choose a angle that is 3/4 front of the subject (or total front). See the picture with the jumping car from a Rally race in Italy. My camera: Nikon D2xs with Nikkor f200/ 1:2G. See also my webpage www.arteRally.com or as one of my webdesing examples go to www.mtracing.it . Hope this helps.

Attachments:

• motion by Leo Gesess.JPG, 3 MB
• motion by Leo Gesess 3.JPG, 5.2 MB
• Kimi Raikkonen by Leo Gesess.JPG, 2.2 MB

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Permalink Reply by Lee Jones on October 24, 2009 at 8:56pm

Great pic. Question? I have a canon rebel XTI and I don't see a position S on it.

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Permalink Reply by Fred on July 19, 2009 at 5:09am

I would not take the tripod but the monopod will be invaluable.
When at a race trck I tend to manual focus at a point the cars will emerge. As they approach, press the shutter button as they come through.
Panning, I always use the monopod and follow the cars as they pass by. Play with a slower shutter speed to blur the wheels to get an extra effect of speed.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Tisdale on July 19, 2009 at 8:39am

Thanks Sean, Leo and Fred for your tips. I greatly appreciate the help. The track day isn't till Friday and I will be arriving there Thursday so at least I will be able to scope it out a head of time. Great shots by the way.

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Permalink Reply by Thor Håkon on July 20, 2009 at 12:40am

Just a little input here, to get a fast action shot, a good action shot where you can see the motion and all, think about how you arrange the picture, where do you place the car for example. Think of The Rule of Thirds, you've probably heard of it, don't follow it as a slave, but have it in your mind so that the viewers of the photo will have a greater feeling of whitch way it is driving. For all we could know, it can be reversing. So try to place the car more to the left if it's driving to the right.
Also, I would suggest to make the wheels go blur, the background should go blur and the motorcycle should be frozen. I hope this helps!

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Tisdale on July 26, 2009 at 12:01pm

Thanks for everyones input. I think the day was a good success. The event was a success. I shot about 1000 photos of the days event and so did the other photographer. I just have to wait to get the other photographers photos then the big job of going through the 2000 photos and doing a DVD of the event to sell to the participants.

Once again thanks for the tips.

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Tisdale on July 26, 2009 at 12:09pm

One of my shots from the days event

Attachments:

• DSC01895.JPG, 2.5 MB

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Tisdale on October 15, 2009 at 12:41pm

Thanks Alan. Was a little nervous being out there near the impact zone. This was my first time I learned a lot. Timing is everything out there. These guys were going into the corners at about 100 klms/hour. Not much time to set up.

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