Night photography help required

[webby74]

Can anyone give me some help,advice or hints for taking good night racing photographs. Attending le mans again this year and would really like to get some good shots. Only have a modest sony alpha 200 camera with a tamron 70-300 lense.

[Kermit power]

1. Make sure your tripod is suitably solid.

2. If you can, get to where you want to take your shots whilst there's still a reasonable amount of light so that you can focus on the appropriate point of the track, then set the focus to manual so it won't change.

3. Get a remote shutter release so that you won't rock the camera by pressing the button. Self-timer is useless for your purposes, as you won't be able to time the exposure accurately.

[markmullen]

With light levels variable (due to headlights) I found shooting manual helped, then there was no unexpected exposure changes.

As light levels are low at night it lends itself to a slow exposure and panning with the cars to blur out the background.

My Le Mans 2010 pics are here, you can see what I mean. http://www.flickr.com/photos/markmullen/sets/72157...


Le Mans 2010 219 by mark_mullen, on Flickr

[gary71]

It's really hard. Does that help

I abandoned attempts at night panning this time around at the Classic and went up above the pits late at night to catch the (better lit and slower moving) action there. You do have to dislocate your back through the safety fence and be willing to wave 2kg of camera at arms length, but it's worth it!


Le Mans Pit Lane by Suggs, on Flickr


Jaguar by Suggs, on Flickr