Go-karts

Jwill

Hey, here are a few shots I took from Go-karting the other night. It was dark so I found it necessary to use high ISO settings and a low shutter speed. My first go at panning. C&C welcome, thanks.


Gone in a blurr


Featherweight flyer (best lap time of the girls)


Focused (though mostly a blur )


Using my 40D and EF-S 10-22 USM.

mercphoto

If they will let you use a flash, use a strong external flash (like a 580EX). Set flash to ETTL with high-speed-sync OFF (this is important!). Set camera to Manual mode, 1/200 at f/4 and ISO 1600.

Jwill wrote:

They are entering the turn on a very bad racing line!

Jwill

Thanks mercphoto I've yet to acquire a flash, but shall remember when I get one.

mercphoto wrote:

If they will let you use a flash, use a strong external flash (like a 580EX). Set flash to ETTL with high-speed-sync OFF (this is important!). Set camera to Manual mode, 1/200 at f/4 and ISO 1600.


They are entering the turn on a very bad racing line!

kdog

Very creative set here.

mercphoto wrote:

Set flash to ETTL with high-speed-sync OFF...

Say Bill, how come?

Cheers,
-joel

mercphoto

kdog wrote:

Say Bill, how come?

Because I stipulated a shutter speed slower than the synch speed of the flash there is no reason to have hi-speed synch on. So technically it isn't required to be on, as would be necessary if the shutter speed was 1/320, for example. The next question is then why it needs to be off, which is not the same as saying it doesn't need to be on. The reason for that has to do with what exactly high speed synch does on the flash. What it does is change the flash from an extremely short duration burst of light to a much longer burst.

That very brief burst of light acts like a strobe in a dance club and will somewhat freeze the motion of those karts. This is handy because our shutter speed of 1/200 is a bit on the slow side. So, in effect, that brief burst of light is acting to speed up our shutter.

Jwill

1/200 would have been nice. The above shots were taken with no flash at 1/15, 1/25 and 1/15 respectively.

mercphoto wrote:

That very brief burst of light acts like a strobe in a dance club and will somewhat freeze the motion of those karts. This is handy because our shutter speed of 1/200 is a bit on the slow side. So, in effect, that brief burst of light is acting to speed up our shutter.