Motorcycle racing

canonguy

Some pics from my day at the motorcyle track. I would love some feedback on these. I have no experience shooting action, especially action this fast. Very challenging but great fun.

Steve Cavigliano

Kirk,

I think you did really well for first time out Some of them, like the 4th one are really good

The faces are dark in most of them, but it looks like you were fighting against tinted visors :uhoh So I don't know what you could have done differently
I like the wheel motion and the exposures all look good. A few look just a touch soft. Could be due to shake or just getting used to the panning motion/speed. But, most are nice and sharp

Hopefully Brandon (Bones) or Andrew (MacZippy) will chime in on this one and give you some Pro level tips

Thanks for sharing,
Steve

BBones

definately nice for a first time, can I ask what settings you were using and which lens?

canonguy

BBones wrote:

definately nice for a first time, can I ask what settings you were using and which lens?

I was shooting apature priority using a 75-300 IS USM canon lens. Most of time I was shooting at f8.0 and fully extended at 300mm. This lens is not super sharp, but mostly the action is fast.

canonguy

Here are a couple more
I processed these a little diferently. I close cropped, dropped the saturation a bit and increased contrast for a sharper picture.

ian408

canonguy wrote:

I processed these a little diferently. I close cropped, dropped the saturation a bit and increased contrast for a sharper picture.

#1 looks a little soft. Color's a bit washed out as well.

#2 Nice colors. But the crop makes you think the rider is working the weed
detail I like this one though.

#3 Also a bit soft.

#4 Backgrounds. This would benefit from a much tighter crop.

Overall, I'd like to see richer color and tighter crop where the backgrounds are
un-interesting.

Ian

canonguy

ian408 wrote:

#1 looks a little soft. Color's a bit washed out as well.

#2 Nice colors. But the crop makes you think the rider is working the weed
detail I like this one though.

#3 Also a bit soft.

#4 Backgrounds. This would benefit from a much tighter crop.

Overall, I'd like to see richer color and tighter crop where the backgrounds are
un-interesting.

Ian

Yeah, I shot #1 through a fence so that is my long lens focusing around the mesh, but on my monitor b4 I uploaded it to smugmug, the pic looked rich with color.

Thanks for the pointers. I am going to work these a little more. Maybe blur out the backgrounds and pump up the color and contrast a bit more.

JamesJWeg

First, good shooting. SecoundWhere did you get the idea for f8 from? Are you looking for DOF? or shutter speed? I just shot my first kart race with a digital, and plan to do another soon. I found that I needed some support, maybe a monopod? I think my biggest problems that I ran into were framing and camera shake, oh yeah, and not enough glass. Do some of the pro's have secrets about shutter speed or aperture that they care to share?

James.

mercphoto

JamesJWeg wrote:

Do some of the pro's have secrets about shutter speed or aperture that they care to share?

Well, I've made money selling photos of karts and dirt bikes, and I'm currently the "official" photographer for one new track. Does that count? (I don't make a living at this...)

For one, use Tv mode, not Av. You want to control shutter speed, not depth of field. Nor do you want the fastest possible shutter speed. I tend to start at 1/640 to get a bunch of keepers, then move to 1/400 or 1/320. Finally I go as low as 1/100 to get some more dramatic shots. I watch the aperture values and adjust my ISO accordingly. I want from f/8 to f/13 most of the time. Use an AI Servo focusing mode with all points active (Canon users). Usually in sunny to mildly cloudy ISO 400 is what I go with.

As per that 75-300 lens, no matter what you do it is going to be a bit soft on focus, a bit muted on the colors, and will occasionally not focus fast enough to keep up with the action. Try auto-levels in Photoshop. Also try that sharpening trick of using a high-pass filter layer. See the extreme sharpening thread in dgrin. A 70-200 f/4 would be a much better choice. I use the 2.8 IS version.

My examples.
http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/454585

JamesJWeg

Bill, if I remember right from my T70, Tv is shutter priority right? I am shooting with a Nikon D2H. Here are my shots from a race weekend at kershaw latly.

http://pics.jamesjweg.com/Racing/68424

I was shooting at 200 ISO, with a Sigma 70-200 2.8, it felt way short at times. Do you use any support such as a monopod? Why would you shoot 400 ISO if you can get the speed and you want at 200? Those shutter numbers sound good, I'll try that to start with, I was mostly just winging it, thankfully I was getting some background blur when panning, I did do some shutter priority to help with that. I hope to be shooting another kart event at Barber in a few weeks, I would love to have a better idea what I am doing by then. As you can see I didn't put the proof deal on my shots, and only one guy bought, a former track photog himself, I guess everyone else thought why buy when I can just save as.

James.

canonguy

JamesJWeg wrote:

First, good shooting. SecoundWhere did you get the idea for f8 from? Are you looking for DOF? or shutter speed? I just shot my first kart race with a digital, and plan to do another soon. I found that I needed some support, maybe a monopod? I think my biggest problems that I ran into were framing and camera shake, oh yeah, and not enough glass. Do some of the pro's have secrets about shutter speed or aperture that they care to share?

James.

Habbit on the Av, but I wanted to ensure that I had proper DOF because those suckers are haulin' ass I wanted as much in focus as possible. I did switch back and forth between Av and Tv some, but mostly Av. I definitely will be brining my tripod or monopod next time to help with panning and I'll be shooting Tv next time to. Just determining the right shutterspeed is the hard part. Fast enough to freeze the bike and rider, but slow enough to blurr the wheels and background on a pan.

Like I said, I gained much respect for the fast action shooters. It' ain't easy.

canonguy

mercphoto wrote:

As per that 75-300 lens, no matter what you do it is going to be a bit soft on focus, a bit muted on the colors, and will occasionally not focus fast enough to keep up with the action. Try auto-levels in Photoshop. Also try that sharpening trick of using a high-pass filter layer. See the extreme sharpening thread in dgrin. A 70-200 f/4 would be a much better choice. I use the 2.8 IS version.

My examples.
http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/454585

Thanks for the tips. Yeah, that 75-300 IS lens is kind of a dog. It is slow to focus and hunts like a MF sometimes. I have to save up for that L... 70-200 f2.8 IS... I have lens envy

mercphoto

First of all, James, if you are trying to sell those images, you need to have them watermarked and protected in your gallery settings. I am able to click on "original", and then right-click any of those images and take them to my computer. Why should I purchase your photo in that case?

I'm still a newbie to the selling end of things, but all my established competitors watermark their images for this very reason. They also don't allow someone to view the original file. Some don't allow seeing a large file.

JamesJWeg wrote:

Do you use any support such as a monopod? Why would you shoot 400 ISO if you can get the speed and you want at 200?

I gave ISO 400 just as an example. I don't use a monopod or a tripod. I feel a monopod just gets in the way. And a tripod is useless when you have to be mobile.

canonguy

BTW - This experience did accelerate my purchase of a 20D this week. Anybody looking for a barely used Rebel?

JamesJWeg

mercphoto wrote:

First of all, James, if you are trying to sell those images, you need to have them watermarked and protected in your gallery settings. I am able to click on "original", and then right-click any of those images and take them to my computer. Why should I purchase your photo in that case?

I'm still a newbie to the selling end of things, but all my established competitors watermark their images for this very reason. They also don't allow someone to view the original file. Some don't allow seeing a large file.



I gave ISO 400 just as an example. I don't use a monopod or a tripod. I feel a monopod just gets in the way. And a tripod is useless when you have to be mobile.

Thanks a million, at this point all help is greatly appretiated, 10-4 on the watermark/original, I think that is where all the promised sales went.

James.

ysr612

I haven't been racing this year so I have been shooting some pictures too. I have been to lazy to post process so I post them just as they come out of the camara.

I always liked having more then one bike in the shot but most riders seem to like just themselves


to me the above is better then the one below.

JamesJWeg

I like them both, the multiple bikes gives the real race feel, while the single bike is a fine example of hanging it out on a supermotard.James.

gsgary

No 5 is John McGuiness Isle of Mann TT record holder winning the Stars at Darley Race at a small track called Darley Moor built on an old WW2 air base, it is situated near Ashbourne near to the peak District UK

SpeedyLizard

OK... reviving this thread...

Any tips you guys can give me?

JamesJWeg

SpeedyLizard wrote:

OK... reviving this thread...

Any tips you guys can give me?

Yeah, keep shooting at Barbers, sweet track.

James.