Taking a stab at trackside photography

[Leskid]

this is a pure photography post so unless you're a shutterbug, move along before you fall asleep

A month ago, I finally sprung for a decent DSLR. I've been picking up the ABCs of real photography and have had some decent amateur results shooting landscapes and outdoor stills.

Next Saturday is a track day. When not in a riding session, I'd like to walk-out to some of the tighter curves (bikes moving slower / knees a' dragging) and capture some cool close-up action

My camera won't be the bottleneck and I have a great fast telephoto. If I come home empty-handed, it will be my doing.

- Nikon D90 (I originally bought a D5000 but upgraded to the D90)

- 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

- 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED VR (this is a pro lens that I rented for a month. It kicks ass)

- 35mm f/1.8G

- a decent tripod

- remote shutter release (D90 won't shoot in burst mode with the remote)

So I'm thinking of setting up the tripod fairly close to the track with the 70-200. If it's a sunny day and I have that fast telephoto, I'm thinking ISO 200, adjust white balance for cloudy / sunny.... so far so good (or is it?). With that lens, I'm thinking of trying aperture priority with a big aperture (f/2.8 - 4) to soften the foreground / background and I assume the D90 will pick suitably high shutter speeds.

As a complete noob with real cameras, I have no ego to burst so if I'm way-off, please advise. It would just suck to come home with a bunch of crappy images.

thanks in advance

PS: a big thanks to forum member Nik Hisham in Malaysia for tips on on-bike photography prior to my ride around the maritime provinces. I ended-up just sticking on a little gopro hero for the onbike shots.

 

[Bungie]

Fast shutter speed, large aperture (you may have to diddle with the ISO level if its bright sun, set it way down if you have to). The fast shutter will help control the blurring (especially with the telephoto), the large aperture will help with blurring backgrounds (bokeh).

When a bike is coming right at you, motion blur won't be a big problem, but those that pass 90 degrees in front of you will be. You will learn to pan like an expert in this situation.

Don't forget the composition (difficult for sure when photo'ing races). Not much you can do for the horizontal, but you have some leeway with the vertical. Try to put the horizon in the top or bottom third of the frame. Better in the top if you can manage it.

Snap a million pics!

 

[Leskid]

Fast shutter speed, large aperture (you may have to diddle with the ISO level if its bright sun, set it way down if you have to). The fast shutter will help control the blurring (especially with the telephoto), the large aperture will help with blurring backgrounds (bokeh).
When a bike is coming right at you, motion blur won't be a big problem, but those that pass 90 degrees in front of you will be. You will learn to pan like an expert in this situation.

Don't forget the composition (difficult for sure when photo'ing races). Not much you can do for the horizontal, but you have some leeway with the vertical. Try to put the horizon in the top or bottom third of the frame. Better in the top if you can manage it.

Snap a million pics!

Yeah, composition.... sadly, a few of the nicest shots taken to date show that I'm not consistently conscious of the horizon. At least I've started to get pretty quick at composing my desired DOF across the different lenses.

thanks for the tips Steve.

ps: I didn't even know you were into photography?

 

[Bungie]

thanks for the tips Steve.ps: I didn't even know you were into photography?

I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night.

 

[wfooshee]

Don't even take the tripod. You can't use it for action shooting, and you'll have to carry it around all day. Ditch it. Same with the remote release. No good out there.

Don't take anything but the 70-200, either. The others don't get tight enough for what you want; you'll get a bike about one-sixth of the frame somewhere near the middle.

If you have selectable autofocus areas (my D50 has 5) use the center one. The others may not fall on the bike, and you'll focus on the pavement. If the shot is tight enough and has a big enough aperture, you'll be out of focus. Better yet, don't use autofocus, but make sure you're preset in the right range. Manual focus will be tougher with larger (lower number) f-stops because of the shallower depth of field.

I shoot shutter-priority, and shoot at 1/250, or even 1/125 if I'm feeling goofy. That gives me motion blur in the wheels but you have to pan carefully with the bikes. Keep the camera moving with the bike as you click, and don't stop till after you click, like a follow-through.

Faster shutter will freeze the bike and free you from motion blur, but the bikes look parked, which I personally don't care for.

Slowing the shutter also stops down the aperture, giving you a bit more depth of field, which you need in a long, tight

shot. As you practice panning with the shot, you'll miss more pics than you get, but the ones you get will be very satisfying! If you miss too many and get frustrated, go to a faster shutter, but watch that you don't lose underexpose by reaching the maximum aperture of your lens.

Some of my pics from Barber AMA weekends 2008 and 2009.

Oh, yeah: Shoot from the inside of the turn whenever you can. Having the bike between you and the rider, leaning away, is boring. And slightly head-on is better than absolutely profiled.

 

[jzzmusician]

I pretty much agree with wfooshee.

Don't bring the tripod. Bring only the 70-200. I'd probably shoot as close to f4 as I could. I would also pick a spot and pre focus.

 

[cyclebabble]

+1 on what wfooshee said. Your panning will get better each time you go out and shoot. Don't expect great shots right off the bat.

Get out there and take some pics!

 

[Leskid]

Don't even take the tripod.Don't take anything but the 70-200, either. The others don't get tight enough for what you want; you'll get a bike about one-sixth of the frame somewhere near the middle.

check and check.

If you have selectable autofocus areas (my D50 has 5) use the center one. The others may not fall on the bike, and you'll focus on the pavement. Better yet, don't use autofocus, but make sure you're preset in the right range. Manual focus will be tougher with larger (lower number) f-stops because of the shallower depth of field.

The D90 has 11 AF points and there's a physical switch to let you lock-in the one you want. I thought all I'd need to do is use whichever one i have locked-in as my focus target. Can you lock the desired point on the D50? If not, I think I understand why you'd say that.

Also, the D90 has an AF mode called '3D tracking', meaning that if you want to let the camera pick the focus point, it'll dynamically follow the subject you have focused on and change the AF point if you're not keeping up with the action. The camera 'just' needs to lock-on to the desired bike and once it has, then the 3D tracking takes over, in theory. I suppose I'll try a bit of that, a bit of AF/C and some manual. That 70-200 f/2.8 is supposed to be a fast lens (glass and AF) so I'm HOPING I can use some of these features.

I shoot shutter-priority, and shoot at 1/250, or even 1/125 if I'm feeling goofy. That gives me motion blur in the wheels but you have to pan carefully with the bikes. Keep the camera moving with the bike as you click, and don't stop till after you click, like a follow-through.

really? Wow, and here I thought I was gonna be shooting with big apertures between 1/1600th - 1/4000th. Walter, I think you just saved the whole day!

Faster shutter will freeze the bike and free you from motion blur, but the bikes look parked, which I personally don't care for.
Slowing the shutter also stops down the aperture, giving you a bit more depth of field, which you need in a long, tight shot.

agreed on the 'parked' effect

that makes sense. I'm only just starting to understand how everything on a camera is all about compromise. It's slowly starting to make sense.

Oh, yeah: Shoot from the inside of the turn whenever you can. Having the bike between you and the rider, leaning away, is boring. And slightly head-on is better than absolutely profiled.

Yeah, I have three shooting scenarios in mind and that's the main one. I DO want to get some of those shots from the outside where you see the bottom of the bike though

Some of my pics from Barber AMA weekends 2008 and 2009.

Holy shit. There are a LOT of keepers in those pics. Good job Walter and thanks for the tips. I'll hopefully have a few decent ones to post shortly after track day.

But track day is saturday, then sunday, my track / riding buddy and I are going back out to ride the cabot trail in Nova Scotia for a couple of days so give me until next weekend.

thanks!

 

[Grumpy]

Girls, man.....shoot the good lookin' women!

 

[Leskid]

Girls, man.....shoot the good lookin' women!

Mécaglisse is a supermoto* track in rural Québec so odds are that the pit-babes are only gonna appeal to bustanut

* where big STs like the FJR have no rightful place, which makes it more fun to out-ride squids on their R6s

 

[wfooshee]

My D50 has 5 focus points, and you select with the thumbwheel during half-press on the shutter button. No lock, and it's easy to bump it to a different one. I've learned to look at it every so often! No 3D follow-stuff mode, though. When I get the bucks I'll get a grown-up camera, too! (Got the D50 used from a buddy who upgraded.)

And thanks for the ego gratification on my shots.

Your comment about "babes" reminds me of going with a friend to a track he said was in Albany, GA, but was in fact only somewhere near the same county as Albany, to "crew" for him as he raced his dirt-oval go-kart. The girls were . . . . . scary.

 

[UberKul]

I hate to say it but read your manual often. These things do more than most people can begin to exploit. Turn down your number of focus points to make moving it around faster and turn off 3D. The camera cannot be trusted to track the bike you want. Set up your camera for back button focus, the only way to go for action sports in my opinion. Get on the focus button early to allow the 70-200 stabilizer to spin up. Pan with both eyes open. Try to get the light in the helmets to see the eyes. Bring your kit lens for off track shots, every pit is a story to be told. Get a decent photo editing program to tweek your shots to fix those horizon defects, adjust curves and crop. Start banking favors with your wife, you're going to need them when you start buying lenses.

Oh yeah... read your manual often.

 

[rickcorwn]

Reading the manual is a good idea (understanding your camera better) but these days with all the wiz bang features on cameras there's a whole bunch of "how to" books that are camera specific. The manual is good at telling you how to set your camera for any particular feature but not so good at telling you why or when you might want to use that feature. Most of these "how to" books go more in-depth about how these features will affect and hopefully improve your photos.

 

[Leskid]

These things do more than most people can begin to exploit. Turn down your number of focus points to make moving it around faster and turn off 3D. The camera cannot be trusted to track the bike you want. Set up your camera for back button focus, the only way to go for action sports in my opinion. Get on the focus button early to allow the 70-200 stabilizer to spin up. Pan with both eyes open. Try to get the light in the helmets to see the eyes. Bring your kit lens for off track shots, every pit is a story to be told. Get a decent photo editing program to tweek your shots to fix those horizon defects, adjust curves and crop. Start banking favors with your wife, you're going to need them when you start buying lenses.Oh yeah... read your manual often.

Yeah, it's unbelievable how many 'features' there are in there. I'm doing it backwards, learning the camera first and applying that knowledge on how to actually take pictures. I realize it's supposed to be the other way around so I guess I'm more of a techno-geek than an artiste.

Now that you mention it, the examples in the manual for the 3D tracking are about pets that won't sit still, children running around on the beach etc.... not a bike flying by at high speed. You probably saved me a lot of wasted time.

The 11 AF points on the D90 are all selectable via the multi-selector on the back of the body. Then there's that lock switch for AF points so D90 users can select & lock-in the AF point with their right thumb, on the fly in a second or two. (come to think of it, maybe learning the camera first isn't such a bad idea)

Obviously (but just to confirm) this means you would shoot in single-point AF and never in any area mode and I'm assuming I should leave it in AF/C all day? (yes I have 2 batteries)

I did not know that the VR needs to "spin-up". The lens has regular VR and 'active VR', for shooting out of moving vehicles. Could it be in 'active' that it needs time to spin-up & stabilize or also in regular mode? Think I'll read-up on VR!

about post-processing, I'm not there yet so I've been shooting jpg only. I guess I should start shooting in raw+jpg so when that time comes, I'll already have some keepers accumulated to work-on. Problem is that RAW+jpg will fill-up my buffer pretty fast at 4FPS in burst mode.

thanks UberKul & Rickcorwn!

Reading the manual is a good idea (understanding your camera better) but these days with all the wiz bang features on cameras there's a whole bunch of "how to" books that are camera specific. The manual is good at telling you how to set your camera for any particular feature but not so good at telling you why or when you might want to use that feature. Most of these "how to" books go more in-depth about how these features will affect and hopefully improve your photos.

Yup, I ordered one on amazon when I first bought the DSLR. The drag is that it's "Mastering the Nikon D5000". By the time the book showed-up, I had returned the D5000 and traded-up to the D90 But it's still mostly applicable.

 

[UberKul]

Now that you mention it, the examples in the manual for the 3D tracking are about pets that won't sit still, children running around on the beach etc.... not a bike flying by at high speed. You probably saved me a lot of wasted time.

It's just that it jumps around with multiple potential subjects. Smart, but not smart enough.

The 11 AF points on the D90 are all selectable via the multi-selector on the back of the body.

If you know you want to compose your shots with the subject off center move your focus point to that area of the finder. If not you are doing the focus-compose-shoot which gives the bike a chance to move out of focus.

Then there's that lock switch for AF points so D90 users can select & lock-in the AF point with their right thumb, on the fly in a second or two. (come to think of it, maybe learning the camera first isn't such a bad idea)

This is the button you should customize to be your focus button and let your shutter button trip the shutter. Takes a while to get used to but once you learn it you will never go back.

Obviously (but just to confirm) this means you would shoot in single-point AF and never in any area mode and I'm assuming I should leave it in AF/C all day? (yes I have 2 batteries)

AF-C =continuous tracking, best for action.

I did not know that the VR needs to "spin-up". The lens has regular VR and 'active VR', for shooting out of moving vehicles. Could it be in 'active' that it needs time to spin-up & stabilize or also in regular mode? Think I'll read-up on VR!

Tiny little gyroscope, you can hear it when you half-press and let off. The logic is sound... like starting your bike in gear...with the clutch safety switch disabled.... uh, it started off as a good analogy. :glare:

about post-processing, I'm not there yet so I've been shooting jpg only. I guess I should start shooting in raw+jpg so when that time comes, I'll already have some keepers accumulated to work-on.

Start thinking of long term file management. Naming, dating files/folders and tagging images cannot start too soon.

Take a bazzillion photos (especially the hot girls) and have a blast!

Ken Rockwell link to the D-90.

 

[boylit]

i'm no expert but here's my 2 cents...

the d90 + 70-200VR is an excellent combo for track shots IF you can get close enough to the action... if not, i recommend you consider a longer lens or bring a tc (if it's a bright day)...

i generally stick to the center focus point, af-c, shutter priority and iso200... seems to work as i've been lucky enough to be offered (and i accepted) to have a few images licensed out... not enough to be a means to living but enough to cover the cost of the trips...

here's a shot i took last year at sepang with a d90 + 70-200VR...



pedrosa_02 by boylit, on Flickr

been busy at the office of late... if i get a chance to skip town in the coming malaysian or australian gp, i'm renting a longer lens... maybe a 300 f4 vr...

 

[Speed3]

this is a pure photography post so unless you're a shutterbug, move along before you fall asleep
A month ago, I finally sprung for a decent DSLR. I've been picking up the ABCs of real photography and have had some decent amateur results shooting landscapes and outdoor stills.

Next Saturday is a track day. When not in a riding session, I'd like to walk-out to some of the tighter curves (bikes moving slower / knees a' dragging) and capture some cool close-up action

My camera won't be the bottleneck and I have a great fast telephoto. If I come home empty-handed, it will be my doing.

- Nikon D90 (I originally bought a D5000 but upgraded to the D90)

- 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

- 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED VR (this is a pro lens that I rented for a month. It kicks ass)

- 35mm f/1.8G

- a decent tripod

- remote shutter release (D90 won't shoot in burst mode with the remote)

So I'm thinking of setting up the tripod fairly close to the track with the 70-200. If it's a sunny day and I have that fast telephoto, I'm thinking ISO 200, adjust white balance for cloudy / sunny.... so far so good (or is it?). With that lens, I'm thinking of trying aperture priority with a big aperture (f/2.8 - 4) to soften the foreground / background and I assume the D90 will pick suitably high shutter speeds.

As a complete noob with real cameras, I have no ego to burst so if I'm way-off, please advise. It would just suck to come home with a bunch of crappy images.

thanks in advance

PS: a big thanks to forum member Nik Hisham in Malaysia for tips on on-bike photography prior to my ride around the maritime provinces. I ended-up just sticking on a little gopro hero for the onbike shots.

I'm new to the track photography thing as well. I have a D60 with the 70-200 2.8. I was suprised with the results you can get with a good lens and a entry level camera.

I shoot on shutter speed mode and let the camera do the rest. I don't have a tripod or monopod, just panning only. I've been out 3 or 4 times now to take pics and I personally feel I'm getting better each time. The biggest factor I'm running up against is the focal length. Really a 400mm 2.8 would be IDEAL for this but at around $10k, they can keep it! I rented a TC-20E II for an event and made a difference on focal length but slowed the ability to focus fast.

Practice, practice, practice. Each time I'm out I usually take 1,000 photos or so. Most of them aren't so great, but you learn from them.