Finally managed to sort thru the roughly 2300 photos from the MotoGP races at Summit Point Motorsports Park on the 4th and 5th of July.

These are just a small sample of the shots... All shot with the K10D and the BIGMA...

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More and larger copies available at Motorsports - CSS/ASRA Summit Point - 4-5 July 09

Mike

[cupic]

Great series ...the action must have been hot as can be seen by the fire on one of the bikes and the victory salute in another

cheers

[Sailor]

Mike, this is very impressive stuff. I don't think I've ever seen better action shots than these - including the one of the guy with his fist up in victory.

Jer

[PentaxFan]

Great shots...all of them ;-) Well done!

[MRRiley]

Your images are fantastic, but the close-up ones of the riders are too tightly cropped and central in the image. Its fundamental that you should always leave room in front of the rider so that he has space to move into, so to speak.

Thanks Pauly, I understand perfectly what you are saying about the "space to move into." You are right of course, from an artistic POV. The riders themselves, however, only care that they fill as much of the frame as possible. so since selling these is my immediate goal, I do my best to fill the frame, especially on the panning shots.

WOW! awesome shots man, Especially the second to last one. That's wonderful.

Thanks Dave... Yeah, he was pretty stoked and I managed to zoom in just right.

Great series ...the action must have been hot as can be seen by the fire on one of the bikes and the victory salute in another

cheers

Thanks Cupic! Its a very fast paced and intense sport. Naturally, I hate to see them wreck, but the riders love it when I get the shot.

Mike, this is very impressive stuff. I don't think I've ever seen better action shots than these - including the one of the guy with his fist up in victory.

Jer

Wow, thanks Jer (blush). I really love shooting these, specially since I used to be on the bike (long long time ago) rather than behind the camera. Naturally it helps knowing the sport... Sorta like you and boats (I wouldn't have a CLUE how to shoot nautical stuff)

Great shots...all of them ;-) Well done!

Thanks PentaxFan. Glad you enjoyed them.

.

[IN_Varmntr]

Thanks Cupic! Its a very fast paced and intense sport. Naturally, I hate to see them wreck, but the riders love it when I get the shot.

The getoff shot reminds me of when I got off at Mid-Ohio last year. Too bad the photographers left before it happened. The last lap of our practice session and I pushed a turn too fast... Anywho, like you, I hate to see others wreck but it sure makes a great photo.

[ll_coffee_lP]

These are awesome! Great work

c[_]

[ismaelg]

As a certified motorsports junkie myself: WOW!
Love them all, but the accident pic is my favorite. A perfect picture of a less than perfect moment for the rider....
I love motorsports. I wish I had the time to do more events.....

Thanks,

[kkoether]

Thanks Keith... Yeah, my shutter finger was darn near worn out though. LOL Btw, you do a really nice job on your Regatta racing. Those guys look tougher to pan on than the bikes (Note to self... Try to find a regatta to shoot)

Thanks Mike. Believe it or not but those 30' boats at 175mph are a lot easier to shoot than the Indycars at 225mph. Check out the link below for the APBA Region 4 homepage. They have a regatta coming up in Cambridge, MD next weekend. They won't have the big Unlimiteds but they should have quite a few of the smaller classes running


Region 4 Homepage

Thanks again,

[MRRiley]

These are awesome! Great work

c[_]

Thanks!

As a certified motorsports junkie myself: WOW!
Love them all, but the accident pic is my favorite. A perfect picture of a less than perfect moment for the rider....
I love motorsports. I wish I had the time to do more events.....

Thanks,

They are a blast Ismael. Check out www.ccsracing.us for the nationwide schedule...

Thanks Mike. Believe it or not but those 30' boats at 175mph are a lot easier to shoot than the Indycars at 225mph. Check out the link below for the APBA Region 4 homepage. They have a regatta coming up in Cambridge, MD next weekend. They won't have the big Unlimiteds big they should have quite a few of the smaller classes running

Thanks again,

Thanks for the info Keith. May have to see if I can make it over to Cambridge...

Mike

[jbrowning]

Great shots Mike. You did a really great job on panning. One of my favorites is the one doing the wheelie.

Jim

[emilf]

Very nice shots. The panning and framing in no.2 turned out really nice. I also like the close crops in 8 and 17, and as you say these guys really like seeing themselves. There's no doubt that they are A type personalities which no. 11 and 17 prove. On the cool down lap it seems like everyone goes crazy when they see a camera I also like no. 16 because it shows that even if you are off a bit with the timing when you are panning, you can still get a good shot out of it (I'm assuming that the rear of the bike isn't in the original).

I'll most likely be shooting some more races and track days in the future, so a I have a couple of questions. Are there any particular focal lengths you tend to use more than others, or is it pretty much spread out across the whole 50-500mm? I have a Tamron SP 80-200mm F2.8 on the way, and was thinking that on its own or combined with a 1.4x or 2x TC that it would work out pretty good. If that is not the case I might have to sell it and see if that and my Viv S1 105mm can get me the cash I'd need for a Bigma.

Also, when you are panning, what is your typical ratio of keepers? And is the AF fast enough to be of help? So far I've done all my racing shots fully manual and am not sure how much, if at all, AF would help.

[kkoether]

emilf, I tried several teleconverters with my K200D. While they do OK but I've found the images lacking in sharpness. I currently use a 70-300mm manual zoom left over from my film days. I find that as long as my focus is good I can crop my images to get larger sharper pictures than I get with the teleconverters.

[Irek J.]

Incredible action shots, technically demanding but it looks like you did and excellent job.

[MRRiley]

Great shots Mike. You did a really great job on panning. One of my favorites is the one doing the wheelie.

Jim

Thanks Jim... These guys do love to show off!

Very nice shots. The panning and framing in no.2 turned out really nice. I also like the close crops in 8 and 17, and as you say these guys really like seeing themselves. There's no doubt that they are A type personalities which no. 11 and 17 prove. On the cool down lap it seems like everyone goes crazy when they see a camera I also like no. 16 because it shows that even if you are off a bit with the timing when you are panning, you can still get a good shot out of it (I'm assuming that the rear of the bike isn't in the original).
I'll most likely be shooting some more races and track days in the future, so a I have a couple of questions. Are there any particular focal lengths you tend to use more than others, or is it pretty much spread out across the whole 50-500mm? I have a Tamron SP 80-200mm F2.8 on the way, and was thinking that on its own or combined with a 1.4x or 2x TC that it would work out pretty good. If that is not the case I might have to sell it and see if that and my Viv S1 105mm can get me the cash I'd need for a Bigma.

Also, when you are panning, what is your typical ratio of keepers? And is the AF fast enough to be of help? So far I've done all my racing shots fully manual and am not sure how much, if at all, AF would help.

Emilf,

#16 (in fact all of the shots) are straight out of the camera. And, yeah, I over shot him by a smidge, but it still worked out for a nice shot.

The 80-200mm combined with a 1.4 TC should work nicely. I find that most of my panning shots are done between 200-300mm (depends on how close I am to the track of course). You MAY find yourself wishing for something wider though if there is a shootout going on thru a corner. I often find myself at 50mm in order to get both bikes in the frame.

I typically run between 25-50% keepers (depends on the corner and how tired I am). A large part of this is picking a good corner where the speeds are sonsitent. Don't position yourself at a corner entrance or exit as the speeds change too quickly and will make panning much harder.

And finally, NO, with my K10D, AF is pretty much useless... for my shooting style anyway. I prefocus on the apex of the turn, try to adjust for the spot in space where the rider's head will be and then select a rider and follow him into the turn and hit the shutter just before he reaches my mark (to allow for old slow trigger reflexes). My fingers are usually on the zoom ring ready to fine tune the framing if necessary. I'm hoping the AF proves more useful though with my new K20D.

Incredible action shots, technically demanding but it looks like you did and excellent job.

Thanks Irek.

[RonMexico]

pic 17 = Judas Priest - Breaking the Law!