[nater]

I have a lot of airshow photography experience, which I hope translates over to car races, but I've never been to a car race before, so I'm curious if anyone has any tips they could share? I will be at the Baltimore Grand Prix in September, in one of the upper rows of the grandstand.

Regarding focal lengths, at airshows I shoot primarily with a 70-200mm f/2.8, sometimes with a 1.5x teleconverter. I assume that will work pretty well at a car race? Last winter I picked up an 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6, I haven't shot with it much, but I plan to bring it with me. Would I need anything longer than 400mm? Will 300mm be ok most of the time?

[SlickYamaha]

Very cool that your coming to Baltimore. I plan on heading down as well. (I only live about 15 minutes from the race)
Wear your Pentax shirt, maybe we will bump into eachother

[nater]

Very cool that your coming to Baltimore. I plan on heading down as well. (I only live about 15 minutes from the race)
Wear your Pentax shirt, maybe we will bump into eachother

Cool! I'll have to get a Pentax shirt first. Or maybe a hat.

[nater]

I've been considering picking up the Samyang (Rokinon, Pro-Optic, etc.) 500mm f/6.3 lens, and was wondering if a 500mm mirror lens is useful at all for car races? I realize that mirror lenses can be tricky, what with their thin DoF and manual focus, but maybe for a car race at least they'd be usable by pre-focussing at a point on the track in advance of cars getting there, then taking pictures as the cars go through that point?

[pickles]

Are you shooting manual or auto focus?
Cheers, Pickles.

[nater]

Are you shooting manual or auto focus?
Cheers, Pickles.

Most of my lenses are AF (including the 70-200mm and 80-400mm), and obviously a 500mm mirror lens would be manual. I grew up photographing airshows as a kid with manual focus, so I'm pretty good at it, though I didn't have a 500mm lens on an APS-C sensor as a kid, so I realize difficulty will be a lot higher.

[twitch]

My tip is to use ~ 1/300ish if doing a side on shot, any faster and you'll freeze the wheels which makes it look like it's parked on the track (I didn't follow this advice myself and regret it). If the car is front on you can use whatever speed you like.

My other tip is experiment with panning (eg down around 1/100) and I really like the look of a panned wide angle lens shot if you are close.

My other tip is to use AF-C, even with a K-x I found I got far more keepers in AF-C mode than AF-S.

My last tip is to avoid debris fences, or if you can't, get real close to the fence and shoot as wider aperture as you can.

this photo I failed the debris fence test as well as the shutter speed test



I did a slightly better job here but not much, I still needed to get closer to the fence



Unfortunately F1 now is not like I remember in the 90's when I attended quite a few races, no debris fences to be seen and the cockpits were cut low so you could see more of the driver.

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Last edited by twitch; 05-16-2011 at 11:53 PM.

[nater]

Good tips, thanks - reminds me of how I have to watch shutter speed when photographing prop planes/helicopters (too high and they appear to be stopped, which ruins any sense of movement or action).

I hope to be able to get some shots from my seat in the grandstands (I'm in a top row, so I could even stand up if I want to I imagine), and I'll try to get some shots from down close to the track as well. Do they have specific areas where you can get close to the track, or is it pretty much anywhere in front of the seats where you can walk/stand at these things?

[bluebronco]

Good question!

I am going to the Nationwide race here in Iowa on Sunday.
I have been to the speedway before and during warmups, you can go down and use the "camera window." It is a little hole cut into the debris fence so you can get your lens through.

I have a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 and a 2x teleconverter.