Hi,
I am a very new photographer and my first attempt at photographing F1 cars last year at Montreal was an absolute blast!
I was curious if any other ATLAS posters have had great experience taking photos of F1 machines in action? I am currently working on making a webpage dedicated to the photos taken at Montreal in 2000. I sat in Grandstand 11 and found it to be a great spot for getting some great shots of the cars coming towards me in the corner.
I used a Nikon N60 with a Tamron 80 - 200mm lens with Kodak 400Gold film. I have enlarged a number of the pics and they are really clear and sharp. It helped of course that many of the days, except Sunday, were sunny, and with 400 film I was able to get a shutter speed of 2000.
Any tips on how to take better F1 pics would be greatly appreciated. I will also have a portfolio of pics with me when I come to Ziggy's. Thanks in advance.
Cameras used for F1 photography.
Started by
MattB
, May 04 2001 13:01
16 replies to this topic
Advertisement
#2
mclarenmerc
-
- 65 posts
- Joined: August 00
Member
Posted 06 May 2001 - 17:02
I tried my hand at some F1 photography at Malaysia last year. Got some really cool shots, with cars doing about 170 k where I was.
I suggest that you invest in some really good equipment. 200mm is really not good enough. I have a Sigma 300, but found that it doesnt give the details that I wanted. Perhaps, 600 would pass the muster!!!
Of course, you cant expect to get photos like the ones published in F1 Racing magazine.'
btw, I am going to Montreal this year, though I couldnt manage to get any Grandstand tickets. Will have to make do with the General Admission. Any ideas which is the best GA area on the circuit?
Pass on the URL of your site when you are done.
I suggest that you invest in some really good equipment. 200mm is really not good enough. I have a Sigma 300, but found that it doesnt give the details that I wanted. Perhaps, 600 would pass the muster!!!
Of course, you cant expect to get photos like the ones published in F1 Racing magazine.'
btw, I am going to Montreal this year, though I couldnt manage to get any Grandstand tickets. Will have to make do with the General Admission. Any ideas which is the best GA area on the circuit?
Pass on the URL of your site when you are done.
#3
SlateGray
-
- 7,249 posts
- Joined: August 00
Member
Posted 06 May 2001 - 20:03
This reminds me of the old Real Estate saying "Location, Location,Location". If you can try to move around a little.
Try panning with your camera, smoothly follow a car as it passes, use a longer exposure time 1/60sec or 1/125sec this way you can hold the car in focus but have the background and the wheels blurred, this may add a feeling of speed to some of the shots. Smoothness is the key to this type of shot. Don't jerk the shutter open, be smooth.
Play close attention to focus, using a large lens opening say f5.6 on a long lens say 300mm to 500mm will allow you to isolate items with focus, you will have a nice clean shot of Jacques in his B.A.R. but the background will be nice and soft. That way elements in the background will not distract so much from your intended subject. There are many, many good books on this subject.
Good luck.
PS: Film is cheap shoot lots and lots, General rule with most Photographers one 36 exp roll will yield one good shot
Try panning with your camera, smoothly follow a car as it passes, use a longer exposure time 1/60sec or 1/125sec this way you can hold the car in focus but have the background and the wheels blurred, this may add a feeling of speed to some of the shots. Smoothness is the key to this type of shot. Don't jerk the shutter open, be smooth.
Play close attention to focus, using a large lens opening say f5.6 on a long lens say 300mm to 500mm will allow you to isolate items with focus, you will have a nice clean shot of Jacques in his B.A.R. but the background will be nice and soft. That way elements in the background will not distract so much from your intended subject. There are many, many good books on this subject.
Good luck.
PS: Film is cheap shoot lots and lots, General rule with most Photographers one 36 exp roll will yield one good shot
#4
F1Rulz
-
- 351 posts
- Joined: May 00
Member
Posted 07 May 2001 - 04:32
Here is some information that I snagged off a website one day. I used this technique at Indy and I think my Jag picture turned out best (check my site; Profile). Too bad I didn't have a better zoom at the time. Picked up a Tamron 80 - 210 for $75; changed the mount and it works great. I'm ready for Canada.
HOW TO TAKE GREAT AUTO-RACING PHOTOS
Here are some tips on how to take great auto-racing pictures from the world's largest photography school, the New York Institute of Photography (NYI).
Your Number One objective should be to try to produce a sense of speed in your still pictures. How? There are three traditional ways to do this.
The first technique is to freeze the action with a fast shutter speed. This may be fine for a pole vaulter, but it's a bad choice at an auto race. If you "freeze" a speeding car or motorcycle so that it looks like it's standing still, that's exactly the way it will look - like it's standing still. It may as well be parked!
The second technique is a better choice at the raceway. Place your camera on a tripod and shoot with a slow shutter speed. How slow? Start with 1/30-second and experiment with even slower shutter speeds like 1/15th or even 1/8th. On your prints the racing cars will come out with a blurred look on your prints. This blurring implies to the viewer that they're whizzing by.
The third technique is an even better choice at the raceway. As we just described, place your camera on a tripod and use a slow shutter speed. This time, however, pan as a car whizzes by. How do you pan? You pick up the car in your viewfinder a few seconds before you actually press the shutter button. Follow the car in your viewfinder by swiveling the camera to keep it in view. As the car zooms by, press the shutter button. Keep following the car in the viewfinder for a few more seconds. Result: The racing car will come out sharp in the print, but the background will blur. This blurred background implies "speed!"
With either technique, there's one more subtle trick NYI suggests: When you look at the racing car in your viewfinder, position it off center - with open space in front of it. In the finished print, this adds to the illusion of speed because it gives the car space to "move into." The picture looks much better this way.
http://www.nyip.com/
http://www.nyip.com/...racing0598.html
HOW TO TAKE GREAT AUTO-RACING PHOTOS
Here are some tips on how to take great auto-racing pictures from the world's largest photography school, the New York Institute of Photography (NYI).
Your Number One objective should be to try to produce a sense of speed in your still pictures. How? There are three traditional ways to do this.
The first technique is to freeze the action with a fast shutter speed. This may be fine for a pole vaulter, but it's a bad choice at an auto race. If you "freeze" a speeding car or motorcycle so that it looks like it's standing still, that's exactly the way it will look - like it's standing still. It may as well be parked!
The second technique is a better choice at the raceway. Place your camera on a tripod and shoot with a slow shutter speed. How slow? Start with 1/30-second and experiment with even slower shutter speeds like 1/15th or even 1/8th. On your prints the racing cars will come out with a blurred look on your prints. This blurring implies to the viewer that they're whizzing by.
The third technique is an even better choice at the raceway. As we just described, place your camera on a tripod and use a slow shutter speed. This time, however, pan as a car whizzes by. How do you pan? You pick up the car in your viewfinder a few seconds before you actually press the shutter button. Follow the car in your viewfinder by swiveling the camera to keep it in view. As the car zooms by, press the shutter button. Keep following the car in the viewfinder for a few more seconds. Result: The racing car will come out sharp in the print, but the background will blur. This blurred background implies "speed!"
With either technique, there's one more subtle trick NYI suggests: When you look at the racing car in your viewfinder, position it off center - with open space in front of it. In the finished print, this adds to the illusion of speed because it gives the car space to "move into." The picture looks much better this way.
http://www.nyip.com/
http://www.nyip.com/...racing0598.html
#5
leesctcom
-
- 11 posts
- Joined: January 01
New Member
Posted 07 May 2001 - 07:50
It's not really the cameras it's the glass in front. Most guys carry a couple of lenses, something like an 80-200 2.8 for closer work and a fixed length lens with the focal length dependant on the particular track. These vary from 300 2.8 to 600 f4. However these are very!!! expensive pieces of glass. The reason for using wider apertures is that a lower rated film can be used. A lot of the pros use slide film such as Fuji Velvia which is rated at 50 ASA (with some guys rating it at 40 ASA). This gives tremendous clarity and lack of grain, plus Velvia really punches up the colours (it's a very 'saturated' film). For many amateurs this is not an option due to the above stated cost of the glass. A good option is a 400 ASA print film, this covers most lighting conditions.
One option is to use one of the image stabilised lenses. Nikon have just released a 80-400 VR (vibration reducing) lens. This allows lower shutter speeds than normal. For instance if you are using a 400mm lens, your shutter speed should not really drop below 1/400 to avoid blur (unless you are panning where 1/60 and 1/125 can be used). With these new IS and VR lenses you can typically drop 2 to 3 shutter speeds without losing sharpness.
When it comes to your camera, one big assistance is predictive autofocusing. With this the camera tracks a moving object and continually adjusts its focussing based on where it thinks the moving object is going. With some systems the car can move out of the frame and the camera will still track it when you get it back in the viewfinder. After saying this I know a few guys who still swear by manual focussing. They prefocus on a point and when the car hits that point they press the shutter.
The best way to practice some of these techniques is by going to local track meetings where you can get close to the action. Practice panning without film and then just experiment with different shutter speeds. (When panning move from the waist, don't just turn your head. It's similar to clay pigeon shooting.)
One thing you might have gathered from this long winded reply is that the 'P'rogram mode found on a lot of cameras is very rarely used. For panning try shutter priority and the camera will adjust the aperture. With this method you will not be constantly checking the shutter speed and trying to adjust it.
Anyway, burn film and enjoy!
One option is to use one of the image stabilised lenses. Nikon have just released a 80-400 VR (vibration reducing) lens. This allows lower shutter speeds than normal. For instance if you are using a 400mm lens, your shutter speed should not really drop below 1/400 to avoid blur (unless you are panning where 1/60 and 1/125 can be used). With these new IS and VR lenses you can typically drop 2 to 3 shutter speeds without losing sharpness.
When it comes to your camera, one big assistance is predictive autofocusing. With this the camera tracks a moving object and continually adjusts its focussing based on where it thinks the moving object is going. With some systems the car can move out of the frame and the camera will still track it when you get it back in the viewfinder. After saying this I know a few guys who still swear by manual focussing. They prefocus on a point and when the car hits that point they press the shutter.
The best way to practice some of these techniques is by going to local track meetings where you can get close to the action. Practice panning without film and then just experiment with different shutter speeds. (When panning move from the waist, don't just turn your head. It's similar to clay pigeon shooting.)
One thing you might have gathered from this long winded reply is that the 'P'rogram mode found on a lot of cameras is very rarely used. For panning try shutter priority and the camera will adjust the aperture. With this method you will not be constantly checking the shutter speed and trying to adjust it.
Anyway, burn film and enjoy!
#6
Cole-B
-
- 119 posts
- Joined: July 00
Member
Posted 08 May 2001 - 07:01
Wow! Terrific information and advice in this thread.
If you're willing to put up with some of the problems of digital photography at races, Olympus has a very cost-effective solution to providing a long, fast, image-stabilized zoom lens.
Their 2-megapixel camera provides the equivalent of a fast image-stabilized 35-350 mm zoom lens. A relatively inexpensive telextender will extend the maximum focal length to approximately 600 mm with little loss of speed or quality. I haven't tried the "big lens" version, but I own its little brother - a 2 megapixel camera with a 3x zoom lens. The build and photo quality are exceptional. Love it.
Now, why did I mention the problems of a digicam at a race?
One is capacity. My 2 megapixel camera puts approximately 45-50 1600x1200 pictues on a 64 MB card, and 22-25 on a 32. You'd probably want to carry more than two 64 MB cards to a race, and these are still fairly expensive. You can stuff your pocket with a lot of 36-exposure rolls of film for the price on a card. But, if you have long-term plans for your digicam, you only need to buy the cards one time.
The real killer with a digicam, though, compared to a film camera, is shutter delay. There's a short amount of delay between the instant you press the shutter and the moment the camera takes the picture.
You can overcome some of the delay problem through a lot of practice. I haven't taken any race photos with my digicam, but I've gotten pretty good at shooting kids and cats. With both subjects, the action is quite unpredictable. At a race, the action flows pretty much in a predictable sequence, so you should be able to get good race photos - after a lot of practice.
So, would I recommend a digicam for your next F1 visit? Well, if you've gained lots of experience with one, that long-lens stabilized Olympus sure looks attractive. If you don't have a race camera yet, and you have lots of time to practice before your upcoming F1 race, this is well worth your consideration.
If you already have a 35 mm race outfit, but don't have the bucks for a fast, long zoom, the Oly is again a consideration - perhaps as a second camera to hang around your neck.
My personal preference? If money wasn't a consideration, the best Nikon body I could afford, one of their long, fast sports lenses, a monopod, and a press pass to the race! But I'm not in that select category
I've mentioned digicams in this thread for two reasons. First, because no one else had addressed the topic so far and second, because I'd like to know if anyone has experience with a digicam at a race, and how successful you've been.
-- F. Stop Fitzgerald
If you're willing to put up with some of the problems of digital photography at races, Olympus has a very cost-effective solution to providing a long, fast, image-stabilized zoom lens.
Their 2-megapixel camera provides the equivalent of a fast image-stabilized 35-350 mm zoom lens. A relatively inexpensive telextender will extend the maximum focal length to approximately 600 mm with little loss of speed or quality. I haven't tried the "big lens" version, but I own its little brother - a 2 megapixel camera with a 3x zoom lens. The build and photo quality are exceptional. Love it.
Now, why did I mention the problems of a digicam at a race?
One is capacity. My 2 megapixel camera puts approximately 45-50 1600x1200 pictues on a 64 MB card, and 22-25 on a 32. You'd probably want to carry more than two 64 MB cards to a race, and these are still fairly expensive. You can stuff your pocket with a lot of 36-exposure rolls of film for the price on a card. But, if you have long-term plans for your digicam, you only need to buy the cards one time.
The real killer with a digicam, though, compared to a film camera, is shutter delay. There's a short amount of delay between the instant you press the shutter and the moment the camera takes the picture.
You can overcome some of the delay problem through a lot of practice. I haven't taken any race photos with my digicam, but I've gotten pretty good at shooting kids and cats. With both subjects, the action is quite unpredictable. At a race, the action flows pretty much in a predictable sequence, so you should be able to get good race photos - after a lot of practice.
So, would I recommend a digicam for your next F1 visit? Well, if you've gained lots of experience with one, that long-lens stabilized Olympus sure looks attractive. If you don't have a race camera yet, and you have lots of time to practice before your upcoming F1 race, this is well worth your consideration.
If you already have a 35 mm race outfit, but don't have the bucks for a fast, long zoom, the Oly is again a consideration - perhaps as a second camera to hang around your neck.
My personal preference? If money wasn't a consideration, the best Nikon body I could afford, one of their long, fast sports lenses, a monopod, and a press pass to the race! But I'm not in that select category
I've mentioned digicams in this thread for two reasons. First, because no one else had addressed the topic so far and second, because I'd like to know if anyone has experience with a digicam at a race, and how successful you've been.
-- F. Stop Fitzgerald
#7
100cc
-
- 3,178 posts
- Joined: December 00
Member
Posted 08 May 2001 - 07:21
I've taken pictures from the last 2 malaysian gp's with my dads canon eos 620 from 1988. I used a 100mm-300mm canon lens which works great, but its f5.6 so it doesn't really work well unless its sunny. I did get some great panning shots during the morning warmup when the track was damp and the clouds were still out though.
I had all my pictures on a website but unfortunately the free webspace provider vanished from existence!!!!!!
I had all my pictures on a website but unfortunately the free webspace provider vanished from existence!!!!!!
#8
100cc
-
- 3,178 posts
- Joined: December 00
Member
Posted 08 May 2001 - 07:30
Originally posted by F1Rulz
Here is some information that I snagged off a website one day. I used this technique at Indy and I think my Jag picture turned out best (check my site; Profile).
Too bad I get this message:
The server is temporarily unavailable.
Sorry, the server is maxed out now. Please try again later when the pressure lets up.
I'll have to try again later.
#9
JPMCrew
-
- 1,840 posts
- Joined: August 00
Member
Posted 08 May 2001 - 07:43
Great topic!!
Just to add to the great responses above, if you can't afford a 300-600 lens, try getting a teleconverter. I know it's not the best option, but it is the most affordable one.
I tried this arrangement last year at the Elkhart Lake CART race and it worked wonders. I already had a Nikkor 80-200 2.8D zoom lens. Since I didn't want to spend a fortune for a lens which I would only use for races, I bought a 2X teleconverter. I used fast film (800) and set the lens at 2.8 aperture (converted to 5.6) and proceeded to waste about 10 rolls of film in less than two hours
Just to add to the great responses above, if you can't afford a 300-600 lens, try getting a teleconverter. I know it's not the best option, but it is the most affordable one.
I tried this arrangement last year at the Elkhart Lake CART race and it worked wonders. I already had a Nikkor 80-200 2.8D zoom lens. Since I didn't want to spend a fortune for a lens which I would only use for races, I bought a 2X teleconverter. I used fast film (800) and set the lens at 2.8 aperture (converted to 5.6) and proceeded to waste about 10 rolls of film in less than two hours
#10
leesctcom
-
- 11 posts
- Joined: January 01
New Member
Posted 08 May 2001 - 08:41
Just a couple more suggestions about cameras, lenses etc.
First digital. More and more pros are using digital SLR's to cover sports. The digi SLR gives the advantage of being able to use your existing lenses and will emulate different film speeds (faster = more grain, called noise in a digicam). However the coverage of your lens will be different on a digital SLR compared to a film based camera. This is because the CCD (the bit that captures the image) is smaller than a 35mm frame. In effect your 400mm lens has the coverage of something like a 600mm on a digicam. The magnification is no bigger it's just that the coverage area is smaller. The digital SLR gives the advantage of being able to check and edit your shots immediately, and more importantly for pros gives them the ability to download images to agencies and publications instantly. The disadvantage to amateurs is the price. Something like US$4000 for the Nikon D1 body! (In South Africa it's more like US$8000!!!!).
A few guys I know use a teleconverter as suggested above. One thing to remember with a teleconverter is loss of f stops, the other is image loss. If you're going to go with a teleconverter you need a relatively fast lens to start with (2.8). With some cameras and lenses if you whack a 2X converter on, the lens becomes manual focus only. One option is a 1.4X teleconverter that supports autofocus and exposure coupling. Buy the best converter you can afford. It's no good having a $1500 lens and a $50 converter, you will loose a lot of quality. Good buys are the Kenko and Sigma.
Another lens option which has not been mentioned is a wide angle. A 24 or 28mm lens can give very different and sometimes dramatic views of the track, crowd etc., and if you can get near the cars it gives a great perspective effect.
Finally (sigh of relief), one of the reasons for using a slower film is cropping and enlarging. What I do is, instead of having all of my photos printed, just get the negs developed and scanned straight to CD. Whilst these are relatively low res scans they do enable me to edit and choose the shots I want, plus they're more than adequate for web usage. In addition it saves a fortune. When using this method I can crop the shots digitally, and it's amazing how much better some photos look by taking out extraneous detail. If you can't get scans done, then cut two L-shaped pieces of cardboard and move them around on the print to see what should be cropped. If you've got a half decent photo lab they should then be able to crop to your instructions. However if you use a fast film (e.g. 800) you might find that the grain is too pronounced on the cropped enlargement.
Sorry for being long winded, but I do know a little bit about the subject and enjoy passing it on. Now if you want to get into digital editing..............................
First digital. More and more pros are using digital SLR's to cover sports. The digi SLR gives the advantage of being able to use your existing lenses and will emulate different film speeds (faster = more grain, called noise in a digicam). However the coverage of your lens will be different on a digital SLR compared to a film based camera. This is because the CCD (the bit that captures the image) is smaller than a 35mm frame. In effect your 400mm lens has the coverage of something like a 600mm on a digicam. The magnification is no bigger it's just that the coverage area is smaller. The digital SLR gives the advantage of being able to check and edit your shots immediately, and more importantly for pros gives them the ability to download images to agencies and publications instantly. The disadvantage to amateurs is the price. Something like US$4000 for the Nikon D1 body! (In South Africa it's more like US$8000!!!!).
A few guys I know use a teleconverter as suggested above. One thing to remember with a teleconverter is loss of f stops, the other is image loss. If you're going to go with a teleconverter you need a relatively fast lens to start with (2.8). With some cameras and lenses if you whack a 2X converter on, the lens becomes manual focus only. One option is a 1.4X teleconverter that supports autofocus and exposure coupling. Buy the best converter you can afford. It's no good having a $1500 lens and a $50 converter, you will loose a lot of quality. Good buys are the Kenko and Sigma.
Another lens option which has not been mentioned is a wide angle. A 24 or 28mm lens can give very different and sometimes dramatic views of the track, crowd etc., and if you can get near the cars it gives a great perspective effect.
Finally (sigh of relief), one of the reasons for using a slower film is cropping and enlarging. What I do is, instead of having all of my photos printed, just get the negs developed and scanned straight to CD. Whilst these are relatively low res scans they do enable me to edit and choose the shots I want, plus they're more than adequate for web usage. In addition it saves a fortune. When using this method I can crop the shots digitally, and it's amazing how much better some photos look by taking out extraneous detail. If you can't get scans done, then cut two L-shaped pieces of cardboard and move them around on the print to see what should be cropped. If you've got a half decent photo lab they should then be able to crop to your instructions. However if you use a fast film (e.g. 800) you might find that the grain is too pronounced on the cropped enlargement.
Sorry for being long winded, but I do know a little bit about the subject and enjoy passing it on. Now if you want to get into digital editing..............................
#11
30ft penguin
-
- 2,522 posts
- Joined: January 01
Member
Posted 08 May 2001 - 11:28
Interesting topic. I am no sports photographer myself, but I have some insight into the subject. First off, most sports photographers have switched over to digital cameras. Standard cameras include the Nikon D1 or D1x (digital variant of the F5) or the Kodak DCS cameras, which are modified Nikon or Canon professional 35mm cameras. Not because of the advantages the camera itself has (immediately being able to see whether the picture is OK or not, lens elongation because of the smaller picture area due to the chip, etc.), but because the pictures can be transmitted to the newspapers immediately via a notebook or whatever. A while ago, with the standard 35mm films, you had to develop the negatives first and then scan in the pictures and transmit them or ship the negatives themselves. It's far faster now, which is important to get the pictures in the next issue of the newspaper.
As far as lenses go, if you don't have a point-and-shoot camera (digital or not) but instead an SLR camera, the standard lenses are the 17-35/2.8 for the standard pitlane shots, 80-200/2.8 for in between and the fixed tele lenses (2.8/200, 2.8/300 and upwards for 35mm cameras, for digital camera with elongation I would say the 2.8/300 is more than enough to "get close", it should be the equivalent of a 400-500 mm lens for a Nikon D1 or a Kodak DCS).
As far as film goes, use whatever you need to get the faster times with your lens. Depending on whether a car moves directly towards you/away from you or from left to right/right to left in front of you, you need different shutter speeds. Towards you/away from you needs lower speeds to avoid visible blur in the picture. If you can get 1/500-1/1000, you should always be on the safe side, though, if you do not try to shoot a car moving at 360 km/h one metre in front of you. Keep in mind the "1/lens length" rule of thumb. You need at least that speed to avoid blur due to lens shake. So a 300mm lens needs at least 1/300 s to avoid shake. Digital cameras have the advantage that you can adjust the "ISO rating" before taking a picture, i.e. you trade high shutter speed for general picture quality (noise). With a standard 35mm camera, you cannot really do that. There are exceptions (e.g. the black-and-white Ilford XP2 film can be used with a variant of ISO ratings on one and the same film without having to push/pull develop it), but normally you are stuck with whatever you decide when doing the first shot. With a standard camera and no ultra-expensive high speed lenses, you basically are stuck with 200-800 ISO colour negative film. Slide film is not that good when you buy the higher ISO rating ones, and I have yet to see a good 400 ISO one ...
If all you do is pit lane photography and no fast moving cars, you might try the Fuji Velvia, though. It has an extremely high colour saturation, and so things like e.g. tight-fitting red leather pants of the grid girls look very interesting Use it at ISO 40, though, not at the 50 ISO it says. I do not really like the skin colour it gives, though. Not the film to use for portraits. As for colour negative films, I personally prefer the Fuji ones. Kodak is also good, but they overdid it a bit with the colours.
As for consumer digital cameras (the point-and-shoot ones, not the halfway decent SLR digital cameras like the Canon D30), in most cases the autofocus is pretty slow. I would suspect that when trying to take pictures of the F1 cars on track, you will have quite a lot of problems getting them into focus, and of course the "shutter lag" is also a problem. Some cameras take the picture a whole second after you press the shutter.... If possible, try to use manual focussing. Focus the camera on a certain spot on the track, and try to shoot the car when it is at that point (or a bit earlier if your camera has shutter lag). "Real photographers" don't take one picture at a time, they fire series. Reason is that when you shoot ten pictures of one scene, there will always be one in there which is halfway decent, and film is inexpensive. If you shoot only one picture, it could be crap and then you lost. Digital cameras allow you to delete pictures after you have taken them, so take advantage of that feature. Shoot lots of pictures, you can always delete. Some consumer digital cameras thus have a "series" feature, they can take 4-5 pictures real quick by storing them in a buffer before writing them onto the flash card.
As far as lenses go, if you don't have a point-and-shoot camera (digital or not) but instead an SLR camera, the standard lenses are the 17-35/2.8 for the standard pitlane shots, 80-200/2.8 for in between and the fixed tele lenses (2.8/200, 2.8/300 and upwards for 35mm cameras, for digital camera with elongation I would say the 2.8/300 is more than enough to "get close", it should be the equivalent of a 400-500 mm lens for a Nikon D1 or a Kodak DCS).
As far as film goes, use whatever you need to get the faster times with your lens. Depending on whether a car moves directly towards you/away from you or from left to right/right to left in front of you, you need different shutter speeds. Towards you/away from you needs lower speeds to avoid visible blur in the picture. If you can get 1/500-1/1000, you should always be on the safe side, though, if you do not try to shoot a car moving at 360 km/h one metre in front of you. Keep in mind the "1/lens length" rule of thumb. You need at least that speed to avoid blur due to lens shake. So a 300mm lens needs at least 1/300 s to avoid shake. Digital cameras have the advantage that you can adjust the "ISO rating" before taking a picture, i.e. you trade high shutter speed for general picture quality (noise). With a standard 35mm camera, you cannot really do that. There are exceptions (e.g. the black-and-white Ilford XP2 film can be used with a variant of ISO ratings on one and the same film without having to push/pull develop it), but normally you are stuck with whatever you decide when doing the first shot. With a standard camera and no ultra-expensive high speed lenses, you basically are stuck with 200-800 ISO colour negative film. Slide film is not that good when you buy the higher ISO rating ones, and I have yet to see a good 400 ISO one ...
If all you do is pit lane photography and no fast moving cars, you might try the Fuji Velvia, though. It has an extremely high colour saturation, and so things like e.g. tight-fitting red leather pants of the grid girls look very interesting
Use it at ISO 40, though, not at the 50 ISO it says. I do not really like the skin colour it gives, though. Not the film to use for portraits. As for colour negative films, I personally prefer the Fuji ones. Kodak is also good, but they overdid it a bit with the colours.As for consumer digital cameras (the point-and-shoot ones, not the halfway decent SLR digital cameras like the Canon D30), in most cases the autofocus is pretty slow. I would suspect that when trying to take pictures of the F1 cars on track, you will have quite a lot of problems getting them into focus, and of course the "shutter lag" is also a problem. Some cameras take the picture a whole second after you press the shutter.... If possible, try to use manual focussing. Focus the camera on a certain spot on the track, and try to shoot the car when it is at that point (or a bit earlier if your camera has shutter lag). "Real photographers" don't take one picture at a time, they fire series. Reason is that when you shoot ten pictures of one scene, there will always be one in there which is halfway decent, and film is inexpensive. If you shoot only one picture, it could be crap and then you lost. Digital cameras allow you to delete pictures after you have taken them, so take advantage of that feature. Shoot lots of pictures, you can always delete. Some consumer digital cameras thus have a "series" feature, they can take 4-5 pictures real quick by storing them in a buffer before writing them onto the flash card.
#12
leesctcom
-
- 11 posts
- Joined: January 01
New Member
Posted 10 May 2001 - 08:55
Quick one on slide film. Fuji have some interesting new films out. They have just introduced Provia 400F, with the F standing for fine grain. It's really not too bad but you lose a bit of saturation with Provia being quite a neutral emulsion anyway. The other good one is Fuji MS100/1000 which can be rated anywhere from 100ASA to 1000ASA. It works best at about 200-400 but is still acceptable at 800. As stated by Penguin, try and rate your film a stop lower than indicated, e.g. for 400 ASA rate at 320. The manufacturers are quite optimistic with speed and you usually find a better result rating it lower. A good example is Fuji NPH (neg film) which is sold as a 400 ASA film, but gives much better results at 320. This assumes your camera has DX override.
#13
HartleyHare
-
- 1,388 posts
- Joined: November 98
Member
Posted 10 May 2001 - 11:49
MattB,
Loads of good advice there - I was going to mention using the slowest possible film for maximum sharpness, and panning for the effect of speed, but it has all been done! If you have access to a decent slide scanner, Fuji MS100/1000 is an excellent choice. If it is overcast, rate it at 800+, if the weather is fine, default it to 100 and enjoy similar quality to a premium 100 slide emulsion. If you know the weather is going to be fine, try Provia F 100 which is extremely fine grained and colour neutral. As to print film, generally Fuji has the edge with the Superia range (although Kodak Royal wotsits is pretty good too). Print film is more likely to exaggerate colour (which is probably a good thing for pics of the cars) unless you use Velvia which is very, er, characterful too!
Also slide works out cheaper per shot (if you include processing) and you can just pick out the good ones and have them printed/scanned. Easier to store too. But beware - they are much less tolerant of exposure inaccuracy than negative film. Hence the advice for overexposing a little (although a little underexposure increases colour saturation). And you might find that metering off the track, a good grey surface, and storing that setting gives a more accurate exposure reading than just relying on the camera's auto settings on the fly.
As has been said, if you can afford the ticket to the GP, the camera, the lenses, etc, you should commit a bit of cash to plenty of film. If you don't get the shot you want, you can't go back tomorrow!
And you'll need a bit of practice for the panning shots at slow shutter speeds - just follow cars through on dummy runs, keeping the car centred and then do exactly the same movement when you actual take the picture, for a part of which time your view will be obscured by the mirror, of course! Try speeds from risking camera shake, i.e. slower than the reciprocal of the focal length, right down to really slow, like 1/8. You never know. And if you are really clever you can employ the same principle with a head on shot, zooming to keep the car the same size but creating a bloom of speed blurs around it. Or even combine the two at a three-quarters angle....
Enjoy, mate! I'll be off photographing brooding Swans this lunchtime.
And post the web address when you are all set, mate! Good luck!
Loads of good advice there - I was going to mention using the slowest possible film for maximum sharpness, and panning for the effect of speed, but it has all been done! If you have access to a decent slide scanner, Fuji MS100/1000 is an excellent choice. If it is overcast, rate it at 800+, if the weather is fine, default it to 100 and enjoy similar quality to a premium 100 slide emulsion. If you know the weather is going to be fine, try Provia F 100 which is extremely fine grained and colour neutral. As to print film, generally Fuji has the edge with the Superia range (although Kodak Royal wotsits is pretty good too). Print film is more likely to exaggerate colour (which is probably a good thing for pics of the cars) unless you use Velvia which is very, er, characterful too!
Also slide works out cheaper per shot (if you include processing) and you can just pick out the good ones and have them printed/scanned. Easier to store too. But beware - they are much less tolerant of exposure inaccuracy than negative film. Hence the advice for overexposing a little (although a little underexposure increases colour saturation). And you might find that metering off the track, a good grey surface, and storing that setting gives a more accurate exposure reading than just relying on the camera's auto settings on the fly.
As has been said, if you can afford the ticket to the GP, the camera, the lenses, etc, you should commit a bit of cash to plenty of film. If you don't get the shot you want, you can't go back tomorrow!
And you'll need a bit of practice for the panning shots at slow shutter speeds - just follow cars through on dummy runs, keeping the car centred and then do exactly the same movement when you actual take the picture, for a part of which time your view will be obscured by the mirror, of course! Try speeds from risking camera shake, i.e. slower than the reciprocal of the focal length, right down to really slow, like 1/8. You never know. And if you are really clever you can employ the same principle with a head on shot, zooming to keep the car the same size but creating a bloom of speed blurs around it. Or even combine the two at a three-quarters angle....
Enjoy, mate! I'll be off photographing brooding Swans this lunchtime.
And post the web address when you are all set, mate! Good luck!
#14
Cole-B
-
- 119 posts
- Joined: July 00
Member
Posted 11 May 2001 - 09:34
>
>And if you are really clever you
>can employ the same principle with a head on shot, zooming to
>keep the car the same size but creating a bloom of
>speed blurs around it. Or even combine the two at a
>three-quarters angle....
>
"Me 'at's off to the guv!"
This would be an *exceptional* trick - pulling something this complex off in the heat of battle would qualify you for the *photography* WDC!
>And if you are really clever you
>can employ the same principle with a head on shot, zooming to
>keep the car the same size but creating a bloom of
>speed blurs around it. Or even combine the two at a
>three-quarters angle....
>
"Me 'at's off to the guv!"
This would be an *exceptional* trick - pulling something this complex off in the heat of battle would qualify you for the *photography* WDC!
#15
mclarenmerc
-
- 65 posts
- Joined: August 00
Member
Posted 16 August 2002 - 23:30
Has anyone used polarizing filter for color saturation in race-car photography?
#16
regenmeister
-
- 303 posts
- Joined: April 99
Member
Posted 17 August 2002 - 00:44
I spoke to a Belgian Rally Photographer a few years ago at the Swedish Rally. He said he always used the Fuji 800ASA. Though rally cars drive during conditions with much less light so maybe it,s not as useful for F1 as Rally.
He shared some quite daunting tecniques on how to take good close range photos, but you just had to be careful so the car didn't hit your lens.
He shared some quite daunting tecniques on how to take good close range photos, but you just had to be careful so the car didn't hit your lens.
#17
KenC
-
- 2,254 posts
- Joined: August 01
Member
Posted 17 August 2002 - 04:38
mclarenmerc, if you want saturation, consider using a film like Fuji Velvia, or something similar.
The nyip comments on good racing situations to shoot is useful, also remember damp/wet days are brilliant, because you can freeze the action, and yet the tirespray will indicate motion.
As for digital, the D-SLRs like the Canon D60 and the Nikon D100, just released, have bodies that sell for about $2000! And, if you already have a family of lens for a Canon or Nikon film SLR, then you can leverage your investment, as they will fit your new D-SLR.
Cole-B mentions his Olympus, presumably a UZI-2100. An impressive digital camera with an image stabilized 10x zoom lens for $400. Though I don't recommend using digital zoom, if you do, that extends your zoom range to around a factor of 30, allowing one to zoom from 35mm to over 1000mm!!!
However, for sports photography, one should also consider the EZI, the Olympus E-100RS. It's similar to the UZI, but meant for fast sports photography, taking 15frames per second!!! It uses the same image-stabilized 10x zoom lens. And, it also has pre-capture, meaning that when you release the shutter, it stores the 5 frames before you released the shutter!
The biggest weakness of the EZI is that it has a small chip, only 1.5megapixels, so prints are not likely to be useful above 5x7. However, they include a copy of Genuine Fractals, a Photoshop plug-in, that is supposed to allow you to enlarge a small file to any size with minimal loss of quality. All this, for around $400 to $500.
If the E-100RS is interesting, but the chip seems small, consider the Fuji S602, which is loosely based upon the E-100RS, but has a 3.1megapixel chip, for about $650, but only a 6x zoom. And, then there's the supernew Nikon 5700, which is even more loosely based upon the Olympus, but has a 5megapixel chip, for about $1200, and a 8x zoom.
Seeing as you are in Montreal, you should consider going to the CART race in Montreal, and get the photographer's ticket, which will allow you to go to designated photo areas, and use the photo holes to shoot thru fences at the best corners. I know someone who gets the photographer's ticket at Long Beach, and it's not that much more than a regular ticket, and the access is superb. Street and temporary circuits are particularly good, because you often can get the crowd into the photo as a blurred background.
The nyip comments on good racing situations to shoot is useful, also remember damp/wet days are brilliant, because you can freeze the action, and yet the tirespray will indicate motion.
As for digital, the D-SLRs like the Canon D60 and the Nikon D100, just released, have bodies that sell for about $2000! And, if you already have a family of lens for a Canon or Nikon film SLR, then you can leverage your investment, as they will fit your new D-SLR.
Cole-B mentions his Olympus, presumably a UZI-2100. An impressive digital camera with an image stabilized 10x zoom lens for $400. Though I don't recommend using digital zoom, if you do, that extends your zoom range to around a factor of 30, allowing one to zoom from 35mm to over 1000mm!!!
However, for sports photography, one should also consider the EZI, the Olympus E-100RS. It's similar to the UZI, but meant for fast sports photography, taking 15frames per second!!! It uses the same image-stabilized 10x zoom lens. And, it also has pre-capture, meaning that when you release the shutter, it stores the 5 frames before you released the shutter!
The biggest weakness of the EZI is that it has a small chip, only 1.5megapixels, so prints are not likely to be useful above 5x7. However, they include a copy of Genuine Fractals, a Photoshop plug-in, that is supposed to allow you to enlarge a small file to any size with minimal loss of quality. All this, for around $400 to $500.
If the E-100RS is interesting, but the chip seems small, consider the Fuji S602, which is loosely based upon the E-100RS, but has a 3.1megapixel chip, for about $650, but only a 6x zoom. And, then there's the supernew Nikon 5700, which is even more loosely based upon the Olympus, but has a 5megapixel chip, for about $1200, and a 8x zoom.
Seeing as you are in Montreal, you should consider going to the CART race in Montreal, and get the photographer's ticket, which will allow you to go to designated photo areas, and use the photo holes to shoot thru fences at the best corners. I know someone who gets the photographer's ticket at Long Beach, and it's not that much more than a regular ticket, and the access is superb. Street and temporary circuits are particularly good, because you often can get the crowd into the photo as a blurred background.
