Cars - DoF - Help!

[Boring_Chris]

I've been to the Ring a few times now and I've enjoyed taking my camera as much (if not more) than actually traipsing around the circuit. Last month was the third time Ive been and I was really rather hoping that my photography (mad) skillz might have improved... but they haven't.

I'll pick out the best examples of where I'm going wrong. All taken with a Canon 1200d, with the boggo 70 - 300mm telephoto lens.

First year (2015):

Untitled by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

So, at first glance it's quite a nice photo, and I was really happy with it at the time, but now (as I'm sure anyone here will have already noticed) the rear of the car is totally out of focus. To be honest, even to get the front of the car that clear was more luck than judgement, but whatever - it was my first bash so I wasn't complaining.

2016:

_MG_6503 by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

So, off I go again and, working from what I liked about last years, I concentrated on slow shutter (circa 80 - 120) and focused on the front of the car. Again, the same result; the rear of the car is totally out.

2017:

_MG_8606 by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

So, this time I try to increase the aperture to circa 8/9/10 to open up the depth of field. I up the ISO to compensate for the lack of light getting in and off I go... but it's exactly the same! Even on this sodding bike - which is tiny - the rear of the vehicle is absolutely out of focus!

Even other styles;

_MG_8241 by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

... the DoF is paper thin. The photo isn't a bad one, but when I was aiming for getting the whole car in focus, and STILL got only a couple centimetres of whichever side I focused on, it left me feeling really quite deflated. I don't feel like a man in control of his hobby! Haha.

Can any of the photography masters here (and I know there's plenty on this forum - the standard here is incredible) offer any advice on how to better my car photography?

Thanks,
Chris

Edited by Boring_Chris on Tuesday 9th May 15:07

[KarlMac]

Following with interest as I'm pants at moving subjects!

[thebraketester]

That's not a DOF issue. It's due to the differential in movement between the front (focus point) and the rear of the car.

[Boring_Chris]

thebraketester said:

That's not a DOF issue. It's due to the differential in movement between the front (focus point) and the rear of the car.

I did wonder that but none of these cars (with the obvious exception) are going sideways - they're all traveling in a straight line and quite settled under acceleration (so very little weight transfer going on)

The 'pros' (i.e. regulars around the circuit) seem to have it nailed;

IMG_6491 by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

[TartanPaint]

Not sure what you're asking specifically, as you've already correctly identified that you're at the limits of DoF for your equipment.

If what you're asking is how to increase the DoF then read on...

Have a play with a DoF calculator (Google for one, e.g. http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html or download one of the many free apps).

A full-frame sensor will help, but that's not particularly helpful advice. I mention it only in case you're trying to replicate results by pro photographers, which you won't manage with your crop sensor and kit lens, so don't beat yourself up.

The best you can do with what you have is stopping down to a smaller aperture, but that will in turn require higher ISO. Also, a nice sunny day can add a stop or two (your samples are quite dull days).

Notice in the DoF calculator that there's a bit of useful DoF in front of the focal point, as well as behind it. So once you get enough DoF, don't focus on the very front of the subject (e.g the front number plate if the car is coming towards you), but a bit further into it (manually if you need to) so that you're not wasting your near-limit DoF.

Ultimately, to get a larger DoF with the same gear, you need: smaller aperture, higher ISO to compensate, and because you want motion blur as well you're going to probably need to shoot full Manual mode to control all three.

As always, it's a trade off.

[thebraketester]

Pretty much side on. Hopefully that demonstrates what I meant.

f11 so plenty of DOF

It can also be due to not panning the camera perfectly level with the cars direction and slightly rotating in.

Edited by thebraketester on Tuesday 9th May 15:36

Edited by thebraketester on Tuesday 9th May 15:40

[Boring_Chris]

TartanPaint said:

Not sure what you're asking specifically, as you've already correctly identified that you're at the limits of DoF for your equipment.

If what you're asking is how to increase the DoF then read on...

Have a play with a DoF calculator (Google for one, e.g. http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html or download one of the many free apps).

A full-frame sensor will help, but that's not particularly helpful advice. I mention it only in case you're trying to replicate results by pro photographers, which you won't manage with your crop sensor and kit lens, so don't beat yourself up.

The best you can do with what you have is stopping down to a smaller aperture, but that will in turn require higher ISO. Also, a nice sunny day can add a stop or two (your samples are quite dull days).

Notice in the DoF calculator that there's a bit of useful DoF in front of the focal point, as well as behind it. So once you get enough DoF, don't focus on the very front of the subject (e.g the front number plate if the car is coming towards you), but a bit further into it (manually if you need to) so that you're not wasting your near-limit DoF.

Ultimately, to get a larger DoF with the same gear, you need: smaller aperture, higher ISO to compensate, and because you want motion blur as well you're going to probably need to shoot full Manual mode to control all three.

As always, it's a trade off.

That all makes sense, thank you.

I really pushed the ISO up as far as I wanted to. Things become a little soft the further you go. Was shooting in full manual already.

It would be nice to think that I've reached the limit of my equipment but I can't really afford to replace any of it at the moment and I'm sure the camera can do better. I just need to try harder!

Edited by Boring_Chris on Tuesday 9th May 15:49

[Boring_Chris]

thebraketester said:

Pretty much side on. Hopefully that demonstrates what I meant.

f11 so plenty of DOF

It can also be due to not panning the camera perfectly level with the cars direction and slightly rotating in.

Edited by thebraketester on Tuesday 9th May 15:36

Edited by thebraketester on Tuesday 9th May 15:40

Side profiles seemed to be going OK:

_MG_7887 by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

_MG_6372 by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

But yeah perhaps my tracking was way off... I should have experimented that that more.

What do you mean by 'rotating in'?

(I'll be standing by the side of the nearest motorway trying to get the perfect shot of a Ford Focus soon enough)

[TartanPaint]

I think thebraketester's point about direction of travel relative to the lens movement has some merit too. Try different vantage points with the same settings/weather.

Also, try moving further away from the subject. Obviously you won't fill your frame so won't get any keepers, but you'll get a greater DoF and at least prove if it's DoF or motion blur.

EDIT: Those side-ons look good.

[thebraketester]

Slightly rotating the camera will mean that the periphery will be blurred.

[Lynchie999]

Boring_Chris said:

thebraketester said:

That's not a DOF issue. It's due to the differential in movement between the front (focus point) and the rear of the car.

I did wonder that but none of these cars (with the obvious exception) are going sideways - they're all traveling in a straight line and quite settled under acceleration (so very little weight transfer going on)

The 'pros' (i.e. regulars around the circuit) seem to have it nailed;

IMG_6491 by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

its nothing to do with DOF .... (ie. F-stop)

its to do with, as mentioned earlier... the parts of the car moving relative to your camera and which point you focus on... either do parallel pans or faster shutter speed (as with the "pro" shot.. the wheels have little movement) to get the whole car sharp... for what its worth the whole car doesn't need to be "sharp" ... sort of defeats the point in panning...

shot 3 and 4 are pretty decent tbh...

[Super Slo Mo]

Lynchie999 said:

Boring_Chris said:

thebraketester said:

That's not a DOF issue. It's due to the differential in movement between the front (focus point) and the rear of the car.

I did wonder that but none of these cars (with the obvious exception) are going sideways - they're all traveling in a straight line and quite settled under acceleration (so very little weight transfer going on)

The 'pros' (i.e. regulars around the circuit) seem to have it nailed;

IMG_6491 by chris_obrien1982, on Flickr

its nothing to do with DOF .... (ie. F-stop)

its to do with, as mentioned earlier... the parts of the car moving relative to your camera and which point you focus on... either do parallel pans or faster shutter speed (as with the "pro" shot.. the wheels have little movement) to get the whole car sharp... for what its worth the whole car doesn't need to be "sharp" ... sort of defeats the point in panning...

shot 3 and 4 are pretty decent tbh...

I agree with this. It's because while you are tracking the part of the car that you are focussed on, the rest of the vehicle is moving slightly towards or away from that point, hence why you have blur.

To be honest, I prefer most of your photos to the one of the Vauxhall above, yours all convey the feeling of movement, and lots of it, whereas the Vauxhall could almost be stood still, barring a tiny bit of blur in the wheels. Really the difference is down to artistic preference. That 'pro' shot of the Vauxhall is probably running at a much higher shutter speed, which gives the more or less static look.

Photographing moving subjects is hard at the best of times, I am not terribly good at it.

[burton_ii]

I agree with above.

The pictures convey a sense of speed with the rear slightly out of focus.

[richelli]

When I started shooting planes I struggled with getting the aircraft to move as below

https://flic.kr/p/Sf9gsC


I'm still not great but am getting better as below.

https://flic.kr/p/UfpfXG

Side on is easiest but what I would say is slow shutter speed is the way and good panning. Shoot shutter priority and Just keep slowing the speed as you get better. Just practice a lot. Maybe just go and stand on a motorway bridge and try it on passing cars or at the side if a road somewhere. Objects moving at an angle are harder for sure. Just practice a lot

Edited by richelli on Wednesday 10th May 23:59

[droopsnoot]

I've been having similar issues, and slightly worse in that while I have accepted that I can often only get one bit of the car in focus because of the location, I'm not always in control of exactly which bit is in focus. I have many hundreds of shots where only the back wheel area is sharp, or just the doors, but that doesn't often look as good as having the front in focus.

I can see what's "wrong" with the first set of photos, but taken overall as images I'd be quite happy with them, and I'd agree with SSM that they do at least convey the sense of movement much more than the VX shot. I did speak to some pros at various events and was heartened to hear that in many cases they're also taking on "hi-speed continuous" to maximise the chances of getting a decent image, and while it's nice to be able to not have to do that, the reality is do you want the image, or do you want to do things the "best" way and risk missing it?

At least with circuit racing there are many opportunities - I often try to go out and photograph steam locos as they pass, and I have stopped "risking" trying to get motion blur because I basically get one chance to get a few shots, then that's it for a few more weeks until another is near.

[Boring_Chris]

richelli said:

When I started shooting planes I struggled with getting the aircraft to move as below

https://flic.kr/p/Sf9gsC


I'm still not great but am getting better as below.

https://flic.kr/p/UfpfXG

Side on is easiest but what I would say is slow shutter speed is the way and good panning. Shoot shutter priority and Just keep slowing the speed as you get better. Just practice a lot. Maybe just go and stand on a motorway bridge and try it on passing cars or at the side if a road somewhere. Objects moving at an angle are harder for sure. Just practice a lot

Edited by richelli on Wednesday 10th May 23:59

They're great - I've tried planes once before and the best I could do was a blurry grey silhouette.

[ukaskew]

I've messed around with this a lot (for about 10 years now). As others have correctly mentioned it's absolutely nothing to do with Depth of Field, in fact you're more likely to notice it when slow shutter speed panning, which probably means your depth of field can be measured in metres.

1/10th, f22 pretty much side on so pretty much the entire car is sharp even at a crazy slow shutter speed...

One Tenth by Chris Harrison, on Flickr

1/15th, f14 this time, but the slight change of angle (the car isn't parallel to me) means at least three quarters of it is blurred...

Silverstone 24hr by Chris Harrison, on Flickr

You could pretty much remove the effect by shooting at a much faster shutter speed, such as this:

1/160, f8..

Goodwood FoS 2015 by Chris Harrison, on Flickr

Which you prefer is up to you, but there is nothing inherently wrong with having a 'blurry back-end', it's just a side effect of slow shutter speed panning. Personally I'd take some blur over a static looking shot, although obviously it doesn't need to be the extremes that I've shown!

Depth of field is rarely (if ever) an issue when motorsport panning, everything comes down to the movement of your lens and the movement of the subject.

1/30th, f22. So more than enough depth of field but the rear car is blurred to bits, that's simply because I panned on the front Fiesta, at these shutter speeds the slight change of angle and panning relative to the subject means anything else is blurred to oblivion.

Motors TV Raceday by Chris Harrison, on Flickr

In terms of figuring out how to get the bit you want in focus, that's where the fun is! It's not easy and has taken me many hours of practice, but I can fairly consistently nail it now. It's something that just becomes second nature but basically it's down to exactly where you're pointing your lens relative to the car during the pan.

For single seaters I aim for the central area around the driver, as it has more interested than the nose:

1/30th, f16...

Goodwood FoS 2014: Benetton-Ford B192 by Chris Harrison, on Flickr

For tin tops etc, I aim for the front end as it's the natural focal point:

1/15th, f22...

Britcar Seat Leon Cupra by Chris Harrison, on Flickr


It's also worth noting that panning has very little to do with equipment and even less to do with the relative AF performance of that kit. I've shot with everything from a D750 with 70-200mm 2.8 (blazing fast) to a Fuji X-T10 with the ultra budget 50-230mm...no difference whatsoever when panning. A good number of those photos above are with the Fuji gear.

Edited by ukaskew on Thursday 11th May 15:08

[richelli]

Boring_Chris said:

richelli said:

When I started shooting planes I struggled with getting the aircraft to move as below

https://flic.kr/p/Sf9gsC


I'm still not great but am getting better as below.

https://flic.kr/p/UfpfXG

Side on is easiest but what I would say is slow shutter speed is the way and good panning. Shoot shutter priority and Just keep slowing the speed as you get better. Just practice a lot. Maybe just go and stand on a motorway bridge and try it on passing cars or at the side if a road somewhere. Objects moving at an angle are harder for sure. Just practice a lot

Edited by richelli on Wednesday 10th May 23:59

They're great - I've tried planes once before and the best I could do was a blurry grey silhouette.

Thanks, I've still a lot to learn!

[Gad-Westy]

droopsnoot said:

I've been having similar issues, and slightly worse in that while I have accepted that I can often only get one bit of the car in focus because of the location, I'm not always in control of exactly which bit is in focus. I have many hundreds of shots where only the back wheel area is sharp, or just the doors, but that doesn't often look as good as having the front in focus.

Various factors here but I'll talk through my own considerations and see if any help. I'm no expert by the way, but have shot a fair bit of rallying and at LM24 a couple of times.

• Use single point of focus always. I shy away from the group type AF options or any kind of 3D tracking. Even very fast car movement is fairly predictable so it is easy enough to keep the a single focus point over your target, unlike shooting wildlife for example.

• I use centre point focus normally as on my camera it is more accurate than others. Worth checking the specification of your own camera on this one too. This obviously limits composition options so I leave some room for cropping and tend to refine that in post processing. I realise some will scoff at this but I'm only interested in best method of delivering what I want.

• I use continuous AF (AF-C on Nikon) with back button foucssing. So I just hold the AF-On button down the whole time to keep the camera adjusting focus as the cars moving and just use the shutter button to fire off my frame. Generally I'll use a continuous high speed shooting a fire off short bursts.

• This next bit was something I picked up from here I think but is so important. The AF system needs some contrast to work with. Road cars are tricky as they're often big slabs of the same colour so not much contrast to work with, but number plates, headlights, door handles, wheels etc offer a bit of contrast for the camera to lock on to. Race cars are normally plastered in decals and numbers so there is normally something to pick out and track. When panning, I'll very often use the number on the side of the car and just stay on it.

Hope this isn't teaching granny to suck eggs and is of some use.

[droopsnoot]

Not at all, any and all advice is always welcome.

Actually my biggest problem is I tend to read (and sometimes post) in threads like this when I notice them, and then it's so long until I actually go somewhere to take some photos that I've either forgotten what was suggested, or remember there was a thread but can't find it. And, much like financial advice, it all makes perfect sense while I'm reading it here, but as soon as I'm actually stood in a field trying it out, it's all gone.

I suspect practice is the main thing I'm missing. And I'm on a fairly basic dSLR that's getting on a bit now, but I'm always reluctant to blame the equipment as I'm sure it's capable of much better than I'm currently getting from it. I don't do much over winter, so I'm looking forward to getting back out somewhere and taking some pictures. Although browsing through the "random photos" is a mixture of pleasure and something else I can't quite think of a word for.

Edited by droopsnoot on Friday 12th May 11:05