Panning, Night - Motorsports

[JSPhoto]

This shot was taken with a Canon 1D, Sigma 70-200 f/2.8, at night No Flash. Camera settings: Exposure Time 1/60, F/2.8, Manual, ISO 1250, Shutter Speed 1/64, Aperature Value 3.0, Metering Mode - Center wieghted average, Focal Length = 135.0mm. \
This was taken during figure 8 qualifying. File unedited except image size taken from original size to 640x480.

[froldan]

Very nice shot.
did you use a tripod/monopod?

[JSPhoto]

Very nice shot.
did you use a tripod/monopod?

No, I rarely use a monopod, boght one, used it once in a year. This particular shot was taken after holding the camera for about 3 hours. I found that with the heavier camera and lens I have a lot more control than with a lightwight camera and lens.

[Photo-John]

I love super slow pan shots - when they work. How many bad ones did you take at 1/60th? I think it's worth the throwaways to get one like this. But at 1/60th, I know I'd get a ton of bad ones.

[JSPhoto]

I love super slow pan shots - when they work. How many bad ones did you take at 1/60th? I think it's worth the throwaways to get one like this. But at 1/60th, I know I'd get a ton of bad ones.

Hi John, I took a look at all of the shots, I never think about the "bad" shots since I use digital I am not wasting film, just hard drive space. Anyway I had 20 shots I can not sell, 59 I can. In reality I could get a few more but since I already have good shots of those cars it's a waste of time fixing the bad ones that are fixable.. Oddly enough very few of the bad shots are due to bad panning but are due to excessive light where the track lights shine directly on the track & car at the time I took the shot. A couple are in underlit areas of the track as well. I think panning is easy for some, difficult for others. I have had three years of practice, shooting 90 + races a year helps though. Now to go from race mode to baseball & softball & back to race mode all in three days time. Now that gets tricky, each sport has different timing and to be able to switch, even on the same day is a real trick. About like the day I went from gymnastics to basketball, with only an hour drive between them.
Thanks John

[Ouvinen]

I too find panning at racecars pretty easy. 1/60th aint that hard and with a telephoto lens the succes rate is pretty high. Something like 1/15 gets interesting and the amount of bad ones becomes really high. But the good ones are generally very nice as we all know about panning blur. The more the merrier. =)

I kind of find car racing easy to shoot in terms of exposure and stuff. In bike shots you're always shooting against the sky, in the forest or something and there's so much to think about the exposure and lighting. I find that when I'm shooting racecars I can concentrate much more on the composition...

[another view]

Great job with the pan. What needs to be sharp is right on, and the background is smooth.