Cameraworld Live - 7 July

[Mike Farley]

That looks like a shutter speed of 1/60 or 1/125?

[toms]

Hi Mike,

It was a balancing act due to having a 100-400 lens on.

I started at 1/500th and soon realised that it froze wheel movement.

The best shots came from a combination of 1/200, F11 and ISO 640.

Obviously much depended on locking the focus onto the car first then waiting until it arrived at the kerbing or signs. I soon found that shooting in front of grass did not give any feeling of movement. For me an interesting leaning kerb.

Incidentally, having had the same settings on the camera I used them to capture the Spitfire that came from behind us. And yes I changed the sky to one that I took the day after due to the bland greyness. Nothing else was altered as the prop was clearly moving

Tom

[Mike Farley]

Obviously much depended on locking the focus onto the car first then waiting until it arrived at the kerbing or signs. I soon found that shooting in front of grass did not give any feeling of movement. For me an interesting leaning kerb.

So there I was at Druids. In my hand, the previously mentioned X-H2S. Shutter speed set to 1/25 and trying out my panning technique as the cars went past. Would technology in the form of state of the art autofocus and image stabilisation compensate for my decidedly ropey technique? After I had taken a few shots, the pro leading the photowalk came over to see how was I doing. He looked at the last image I had taken. “Not quite sharp”, he said. I am not sure that he even bothered to magnify it. He then set the camera to 1/125. From previous (limited) experience, I know that this is my “safe” speed when panning. I can sometimes get away with 1/60 but the results are more miss than hit. 1/125 is more reliable but does not blur the background to the same extent. For preference, I would really like to get down to 1/15 or even 1/8 but I know that would require a lot of practice.


This is one my more successful efforts when shooting at 1/25. The shooting position at Druids is close the track so I did not need the 150-600 lens I had also borrowed from Fujifilm. This is taken with a 50-140 zoom set to 66mm, equivalent to around 100mm on a full frame sensor. Another tip from the pro was not to zoom in too closely on the car as it makes it easier to track a fast moving vehicle. He said most motorracing images are cropped, as this is. Other settings were f/10 and ISO 160.

Panning at 1/25

Panning 1-25.jpg (81.1 KiB) Viewed 8325 times

The same car shot after the pro had set the faster 1/125 shutter speed. In addition, he opened the lens to f/5 to help blur the background. Due to the larger aperture, ISO remained at 160. For me, I do not get the same sense of movement and I would probably try to compensate by adding motion blur to the wheels and background in Photoshop. When I have done that in the past, it has never seemed as good as getting the effect right in camera with a slow shutter speed.

Panning at 1/125

Panning 1-125.jpg (93.7 KiB) Viewed 8325 times

Another shot from the Druids sequence.

Another at 1/125

Panning 1-125II.jpg (91.99 KiB) Viewed 8325 times

Tom and I took different approaches to the same subject. Either way, we both gained from our experience.