Motion blur

[Saldo1981]

Worked on taking pictures of cars moving today. Thoughts, tips?

[staplermofo]

Those are great.

I don’t have any tips, unless you’re the one on 2? wheels.

[anneb]

I like the second one best, the background works better for me, and you can see the driver a little more. Great job with the panning, too! What shutter speed?

[Saldo1981]

2nd picture info

ISO: 200
F/22
Exposure time: 1/60
Metering: spot

[Claff]

You gotta have steady hands to get away with 1/60. I’d go 1/250, maybe even faster, shooting in shutter speed priority mode.

And while I like the thought of VWs on three wheels, I wouldn’t shoot much at that first photo’s place just because the sun is not cooperating and you’re taking pictures of the shadow side of the car. That pic would be epic with the car coming right at you all twisted out of shape like it is, but they might not let you stand in a good place to capture that.

With the Miata, the obvious “oops” is that you lopped off the front bumper. We have a photog out of Vermont that we used to deal with whose name is Leif. When he shot film he was notorious for not getting the whole car in a frame, so much so that when we do it here we say we “Leifed it”; the next thing we do is delete it.

Don’t see anything to complain about with the pic of the Integra except that it’s not me driving it.

[anneb]

You gotta have steady hands to get away with 1/60. I’d go 1/250, maybe even faster, shooting in shutter speed priority mode.

I disagree, esp. if you’re panning intentionally- I had decent success panning at my son’s roller hockey at much slower speeds and the 210mm f4, shutter preferred, something like 1/4 or 1/8- I do not have bionic wrists, and could NEVER get a good still shot with that setup. When you’re moving the camera to follow your target, you don’t have the same shake problems as when you’re trying to hold a camera perfectly steady.

With these, the cars are moving much faster than little kids on skates, and they don’t wobble side to side, like skaters do when they stroke. 1/8 would clearly be way too slow, since you’d not get any shape to the background. You might try following some cars at 1/100, though, and see what comes of it.

I’ve gotten some decent football pans at 1/125, too, but they’d probably do better at 1/60 or so, which would mean me doing it intentionally, not having it happen on accident. 😉

[Saldo1981]

I’ll have to try the shutter priortiy. I was in manual and setting everything myself (crazy as I have very little clue what I’m doing). I think when the season starts back up I will have the storage to experiement as I’m stuck with a 1 gig card right now. I’m hoping to have at least a couple 2 gig cards before the autocross season starts back up. As far as the VW on 3 I wish I could have been on the exact opposite side but I got run off by the safety patrol. Something about not being safe to stand where cars can go “oops”. Just joking I told them I signed the waiver but still moved. The car with the front cut off I know it’s bad but I was looking for the overall car vs background and I do go back and look at the settings I used to get the effect.

As for the Integra I think that was one of my best shots of the day too bad it wasn’t of a far superior car, the Mazda Miata. They were so fast I couldn’t even catch them in the frame as you could tell by the 2nd picture being cut off.

I will take everyone’s advice and play around. I might even share my progress, that’s if I remember I said this in a few months when everything starts back up.

[Saldo1981]

The local SCCA decided to have an event this January before their awards banquet. I tried to use the suggestions I got here and I have a few more photos. I did a lot of shooting in shutter priority. I’ve attached a few examples.

For any car people here the silver miata is a v8 conversion and was very loud, very powerful, and sideways most of the time not to mention was very hard to shoot because it was fast! For the non car people the miata (of that year) was equiped with a 4 cylinder engine with about 130 horsepower and this one was putting out well over 350 horsepower.

[staplermofo]

How the heck do you fit a V8 in a Miata?

[millera9]

Believe it or not, there have been people making “Monster Miata”‘s for years now. They’re pretty badass!

Nice shooting Saldo. The yellow bimmer is the best to my eyes, but I’m no expert. They all show improvement from the originals you posted!

[Saldo1981]

I think the bimmer is my best shot of the day. I really need to get a laptop that’s worth a damn so I can take a few photos, dump them on to the laptop and check them out in full screen to see what looks best. I’m still learning and that small screen isn’t the best for looking at pictures.

There is another autocross Feb. 3rd in the same lot so I will be looking to set up for the first couple runs in the same spots I was when I took the bimmer picture then I’m going to find me a spotter and look for a more creative spot, maybe on the course somewhere. I haven’t ventured on to the course because I never have a spotter but I’m sure there will be someone there that wouldn’t mind watching the cars while I photograph them to make sure I don’t get taken out.

For some reason I don’t have an engine picture of the V8 miata but it would surprise you how much room is actually left over after the conversion.

[Claff]

I’d like to see the pics bigger, and possibly cropped closer to see more car and less background.

My dad has a Miata that I’ve been trying to convince him would be a lot more fun with a V8 but he’s resisting. He seems to think a low mileage box stock allegedly limited edition yellow ’92 will have some collectable value down the road. Well, that, and he’s already got a machine with plenty of brute force (Factory Five plastic Cobra) that he doesn’t need two. He just doesn’t get it.

[anneb]

Agreeing with millera9- I like the yellow one, best, and I think they’re all far improved from the last batch!

The silver car is just going to be a harder candidate- if you don’t have really intense daylight, the metallic color has more trouble differentiating itself from the background. Especially this time of year, when the plants and background are so much “grayer” on their own, and the sun isn’t as high in the sky. The lighting on the third shot is actually pretty good, considering- but the angle from the camera seems a bit high or something.

[Saldo1981]

I’d like to see the pics bigger, and possibly cropped closer to see more car and less background.

My dad has a Miata that I’ve been trying to convince him would be a lot more fun with a V8 but he’s resisting. He seems to think a low mileage box stock allegedly limited edition yellow ’92 will have some collectable value down the road. Well, that, and he’s already got a machine with plenty of brute force (Factory Five plastic Cobra) that he doesn’t need two. He just doesn’t get it.

I don’t blame him for not wanting to molest the yellow (sunburst yellow to be exact). They already fetch a premium on the market over a exactly equipped car of other colors.

I was thinking of cropping, maybe I’ll take a few, the bimmer plus a couple of different shots and crop them. Maybe I will learn what looks good and get good enough at shooting these moving objects to the point that I can frame the shot up so there is no cropping needed.

[Claff]

Talk about ironic, my Tiburon is also “Sunburst Yellow”.

but I digress.

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