Dear friends,

I wanted to share some photos I took at the FIM CEV Repsol 2015, at the Circuit de Barcelona - Catalunya, on saturday.

For those of you that does not know about that championship I will explain you that this is a motorbikes championship similar to MotoGP, and it is a step down to it. It is used for riders who will be in the future at MotoGP to learn and to be discovered there. So many teams from the MotoGP championship have their junior teams at that competition.

It usually was known as CEV until 2015, CEV means Campeonato España de Velocidad (Spanish Speed Championship), and it has been used during many years to promote new born stars. It has almost the same categories as MotoGP: Moto3, Moto2, and then instead of MotoGP there are the Kawasaki Trophy and the European Superbike Championship. From 2015 and on, it is part of the FIM wich is the same competition that rules MotoGP and, in some races, they even race together.

Here I let you some pictures taken on saturday with the Sigma EX DG 100-300mm F4 with the Sigma 1.4x Teleconverter, and I cropped the photos, by cutting them to make them more spectacular. I might admit I made a mistake by choosing shutter speeds, it was my 2nd time shooting at motorbikes (I normally shoot at cars) and thought the 1/80 speed and above was fine, but I made a mistake, so not many of those 1500 photos taken where good enough to keep them. Anyway, some where good I believe, and I hope you like them.














Cheers

---------- Post added 06-28-15 at 02:00 PM ----------

I was missing that one

[RobA_Oz]

Those are very good photos, especially considering the limitation you imposed on yourself with the shutter speed range.

Panning is something I've never had much great success with, but I promised a friend of mine that I'd shoot some photos of him on his motorcycle at the local circuit, so I need to get my technique right. While I understand the basics, I imagine that using a panning head or gimbal on a tripod is probably a more effective technique than hand-holding. Were these shots hand-held or not? Any other advice would be welcome, of course.

[red5isalive]

Thank you RobA_Oz

Yes that was a big mistake.

Those where hand held pictures, I have never tried a monopod, wich probably is helpful.
As an advice I will say go out and try even in the streets of your city, practice does the master, and panning is no different.

There are some rules I like to use. Whether the less zoom I use, the lower shutter speed I can use. I mean, I found like there are 3 important parameters for a good panning a part of a good place. I consider the speed of the vehicle (it's easier if you do your photos in a slow corner than in a fast straight line where the bikes or cars are speeding up!), I condiser as well the distance of the vehicle (the closer you have it, the less speed I give to my shots. Let's say you can pan at 1/125 at a certain range between you and the vehicle, but if you close up, I believe you should go up to let's say again as an example, 1/200, and if it is way far away you probably go down to let's say 1/60, it all depends on how far is it from you). And the last one I will say is feeling comfortable with the speed you are shooting at. I mean, some are comfortable at 1/20 and others at 1/500, it is just a matter of you, you know yourself after panning some times, and so do what you find more comfortable with and after having some good shots, you can start going down in the speed. Just to try how well can you do it.

I remember last year for the F1 grand prix in Austria. I started panning at 1/125 wich I feel comfortable normally, and there was quite a good distance between the F1 cars and me so I could use it right, and then I slowed down my shutter speed down to 1/15. Of course, by any 1/15 picture of that day that was good, I had let's say 40 blurried and out of focus! But you know, it's just a matter of trying if you have the chance.

Oh! One more thing that might be helpful, even tho I thought professionals that use it are not so good (wrong), if you can shoot in speed burst shooting (is that right? I just googled that and I am not sure), I mean the mode in wich you take more than 1 photo when shooting at the time if you keep pressing your camera button; this is really helpful because you'll have 4 or 5 similar photos but it might be that 1 or 2 of them would be good

Hope that helps

[LeDave]

Beautiful photos! I love them all, especially the third one, it's got something special to it that I cannot describe =P

[red5isalive]

Beautiful photos! I love them all, especially the third one, it's got something special to it that I cannot describe =P

Thank you Dave, I think the word you are looking for is sharp. I think this is one of my sharpest photos of that day.

[RobA_Oz]

Hope that helps

Indeed it does, thank you. I hadn't considered burst shooting, but, of course, with digital it's a great advantage. My past experience was pretty much all with film (even though I had a motordrive camera - the K2DMD).

As you say, practice is the key. All the best to you, and, as an aside, I see that you are in Barcelona, which is a wonderful place from which to travel to these events in Europe, and in which to live - I was there for a short time last year, and look forward to travelling back there, some time.

[red5isalive]

Indeed it does, thank you. I hadn't considered burst shooting, but, of course, with digital it's a great advantage. My past experience was pretty much all with film (even though I had a motordrive camera - the K2DMD).

As you say, practice is the key. All the best to you, and, as an aside, I see that you are in Barcelona, which is a wonderful place from which to travel to these events in Europe, and in which to live - I was there for a short time last year, and look forward to travelling back there, some time.

Thank you It's nice to hear you had fun. Yes, Europe (and Barcelona in that case) is great fun for cars/bikes races. I actually do track marshalling at the racetrack we have, for the past 8 years. But when I have some spare/free days I like to go and take some photos

Yes, digitals have that great advantage that I feel without it, I'd have never ever learnt how to do panning photography. In my very firsts days I was doing it all wrong, I can't name how many bad pictures did I took.

Best wishes as well, I haven't had yet to Australia unfortunatelly. But I wish I could had the time and the money to get some big holidays!
Sometime I guess, because I have to see those big V8 races live sometime! And, to be honest, travelling around Europe you find many Aussies and I always had great experiences with them.

[Kerrowdown]

I take my hat off to you, you've certainly got this panning technique mastered, well done indeed.

[red5isalive]

I take my hat off to you, you've certainly got this panning technique mastered, well done indeed.

Thank you very much Kerrowdown !

I see you are from Scotland and I am doing a week trip around your country on August, can I ask you for some recomendation if you have any?
Maybe by MP if you have the time, please?

Thanks in advice

[Kerrowdown]

can I ask you for some recomendation if you have any?

I aye crack on, I'll help if I can.

[red5isalive]

I aye crack on, I'll help if I can.

Thank you very much, no rush on that