Motorsport Photography - 1st try

[anonymous-user]

After an obscenely early start (alarm set for 04:45 ) on Sunday, I've had my first go at photographing a motorsport event - the Oakington Spring Stages clubman tarmac rally in Cambridgeshire.

As another first, I even tried some panning shots - some of which I'm fairly happy with.

I'd love to get some feedback on the pics. I really enjoyed the day and will hopefully do more, so knowing where I've gone wrong will be very helpful.

Anyway, pics are up on a temporary site (with horrible layout thrown together) at www.egatesolutions.co.uk/photography/oakington/

[simpo two]

I looked at about 10 pix and everything looks fine except that in most of them, the action is frozen. If you want some sense of movement, ie blurred wheels/background then just use a slower shutter speed. This depends on the focal length of your lens, but there is a window between 'frozen' and 'camera shake'. Try some tests next time varying shutter speed and see which one gives the effect you want.

[murph7355]

You have some very good shots in amongst that lot I think, following Simpo's advice (which is very applicable to some shots).

Few tips (and I'm the world's worst on occasion):

1) Be ruthless when editing your photos. Not sure if you discarded any that you took, but there are some that, whilst the idea was good, don't quite work - one that stands out is the Scooby taking to the grass, and a couple of pans didn't qquite work (though sometimes missing a bit of the car can add to the picture if it's framed nicely).

Quantity doesn't beat quality

2) Looks like you were unfortunate with the light on the day. Looks like an overcast day. Not sure how far away from the action you were, but might be worth trying a good flash gun next time?

3) Run some of them through a good editing program. A few would, IMO, benefit from cropping, adjustments in levels and perhaps even some colour tweaking.


On a few you've done a good "diary" of the day for the cars. These can be very nice, particularly for the owners of the cars. Good, alternative angles of the cars at stand still can set off the whole selection for the car in question.

Some good snaps though.

Get yourself off to a circuit for a test day. The setting's a bit more "race car" and it'll help get some of the techniques sorted.

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for the tips guys, I shall try my best to take it all in.

As far as editing goes, other than deleting really bad shots directly from the camera at the time, I've done nothing so far. All I did was resized the images and put them all up.

There was method to this madness, believe it or not One was just a matter of time, the other was that a couple of the drivers/co-drivers on the day asked if they could see the photos I took of them, so I put them all up for them to take a look at.

I will go through and just selectively pick out the best and run them through Photoshop to see what I can pull out of them.

As for the day, we had everything from bright sunshine to almost black sky and driving rain.

Thanks for the tips about motion. To be completely honest, I just set the camera to the "sport" mode that automagically set it up with ISO400 equivalant and as high a shutter speed as it could. So a lot of the pics were taken at 1/1500 or 1/2000.

Next time...

[gravymaster]

its totally true: The easiest way to be a better photographer is to never let anyone see the crap ones you take!

[simpo two]

LexSport said:

I just set the camera to the "sport" mode that automagically set it up with ISO400 equivalant and as high a shutter speed as it could. So a lot of the pics were taken at 1/1500 or 1/2000.

I can't beat the logic, using 'sport' to photograph sport, but you fell into a marketing pothole! Sport mode will, as you say, give you faster shutter speeds and the opposite action of wider aperture. The latter is fine as it helps to soften the foreground and background and so make the car stand out.

Guessing that you were using a 300mm lens, I'd say that a speed of 1/250 or 1/500 (ISO 100) would give a decent impression of speed. If you have shutter speed priority this is easy to set up; if not you'll have to find another way. You then pan with the motion of the car and release the shutter when the car gets to where you want it - think of a golf swing. But apart from that, your picture-taking seems fine.

[V6GTO]

Simpo, you might like to try using a bigger apature to put some of those backgrounds out of focus as they are very distracting. You were probably restricted as to where you could spectate, so a large apature or slower shutter speed & panning are the best way to go in that situation. These are really good for someone with limited experience, keep practicing.

[anonymous-user]

I wouldn't insult Simpo by linking him to those pictures if I were you... Afraid I'll have to take the criticism.

Thanks for the comments. I did think that the backgrounds let a lot of them down. As I said, I pretty much left the camera to do it's thing and just concentrated on not getting hit by Rally cars.

I shall get back out there ASAP and try using a few more manual inputs.

Thanks again for all the help guys.

[simpo two]

LexSport said:

I wouldn't insult Simpo by linking him to those pictures if I were you...

Easy to get confused when scanning threads.

[V6GTO]

My most humble appologies Simpo. Martin.

>> Edited by V6GTO on Wednesday 7th April 17:26

[ws6]

LexSport said:

I've had my first go at photographing a motorsport event - the Oakington Spring Stages clubman tarmac rally in Cambridgeshire. I'd love to get some feedback on the pics. I really enjoyed the day and will hopefully do more, so knowing where I've gone wrong will be very helpful.

Car 3 picture 1 gives a good sense of speed. Again the rest look too static, and may just as well be parked up. You'll also need the thow the background out of focus on on-coming shots and use a slower shutter speed 1/250 gives good affect when panning, although this depends on other factors.

I agree that only a small percentage of shots are likely to be any good - perhaps we should post up some of our failings ??

But heres a couple of ok ones to be getting on with..




>> Edited by ws6 on Thursday 15th April 17:11

[.Mark]

Some blurred shots can work IMHO. Here are a couple my daughter took at Thruxton a couple of years back, if the car was in the centre of the puicture they would be better but it was her first ever attempt.
The flames shot took her the whole race to get and she only caught it on the last lap, she was so happy she started running around and cheering

[V6GTO]

Sorry Marc...I can't see anything.

[.Mark]

Usual trouble.
Bet it works later!