First of all, a disclaimer:
I do not shoot much action or sports and am not real good at it. It is fun, however, so maybe I will try and shoot a bit more in the future.
Below are 3 from the recent Amgen Tour of California that was held in Folsom, CA, but first the details:
These were shot after one in the afternoon with the sun very high overhead and quite bright. It was very hot as well.
I shot with the K3 and 2 lenses:
Sigma 70-210 f2.8 (older screw drive version)
Sigma 50-150 f2.8 HSM.
I played with various AF settings, including center point, expanded area, back button AF and half-press AF. Most around F8 or so due to the very bright conditions and very bright clothing worn by the riders. I did play with some fill-flash along the way as well. SR was off (mainly). The camera was in its highest frame rate setting, and I would normally fire off 3-5 shots as the rider passed by.
All shots were hand-held, no tripod or monopod.
These were shot during the time trial on a long straight road before the turn-around. One way was slightly downhill and therefore the riders were much faster and they arrived in this area from a crowded turn, so tracking was trickier and there was less time to acquire focus. Coming back they were on the other side of the road, moving a bit uphill, so slower, and could be seen for quite a ways away.
I apologize if these are too big, but my only other option seemed too small to be able to see much detail.
Downhill Direction
Uphill Direction
Uphill Direction - Fill Flash
My Observations:
Center point seemed to work best in this situation. I think this is because often the riders are closely followed by cars, motorcycles and many other high contrast moving objects such that the expanded area options could not easily distinguish the subject, especially when starting tracking at a distance.
Continuous focus on the K3 does not seem to be a smooth servo focus. The focus stuttered and lost lock a bit even when the rider was being tracked in a very linear path with consistent speed. Now, to be fair, my technique probably did not help as I am sure focus lock will be lost with very little camera movement when tracking the rider starting at a far distance. The HSM lens seemed a bit better in this regard than the screwdrive, but it is also smaller and lighter to hold.
The K3 acquires focus much quicker than the K5, however.
My keeper rate was not great, maybe (being generous) 60%. In this regard, and with the same lenses and photographer (me) my K5 classic did almost as well in similar situations.
My biggest problem by far was keeping focus when the rider transitioned from more or less heading at me to passing by. Since this was where I really wanted to capture an image, it was a bit of a let down, but still fun.
With the sun overhead, the faces were well shadowed, and no matter what anyone says about the K3 being as good in overall DR as the K5 per area, I did not find that to be true. The faces were quite noisy even at low or moderate ISOs.
Lastly, in this much light, I have no idea how anyone gets a very shallow DOF while still having a slow enough shutter speed to show some motion, at least on the wheels? I guess one could us a ND filter, but that has its own drawbacks.
I welcome any comments or pointers to try for my next venture into action shooting.
Ray