[pentagon]

Hi,

I am new to here and photography. Just like to know if anyone could share experience and tips on sports/car racing photographing.

Two weeks ago, I tried to shoot a few photos on a kart racing competition. My outcomes are totally miserable. The cars in photos are extremely blurred.

Should I use fully manual focus and control of the aperture and shutter for such scenarios? As the auto-focus function on my Olympus E-PL1 seems too slow to capture fast-moving objects.

Thanks in advance!

[Alberts]

Hi!

I have not shot sport events. So I cannot give qualified recommendations. However, I think that reason for blurry photos might be too slow shutter speed. Cars are fast moving objects. So you need to shoot by fast shutter speeds, especially if you use large focal length (for example telephoto lens). Check your photos EXIF information about shutter speed. I cannot say the appropriate shutter speeds for sport events. May be more experienced members could give advice?
The second potential reason might be problem with focusing. The possible solution is pre-focus camera before planned shot. It might be done both by AF and MF. MF is quite complicated. So I recommend using it only when AF does not allow achieving proper focussing.
For shooting sport events you can try Tv (shutter speed mode) or Sport mode. Tv mode will allow you to achieve higher control over camera than Sport mode.

[pentagon]

Hi Alberts,

Thanks. You are absolutely right. The zoom lens that I used gave me maximum F4 on aperture side and fastest 1/100 sec shutter speed which as you said could be too slow for fast moving cars.

I think Tv/Sports mode will worth to try and a faster lens might be helpful also.

[pickles]

I used to do quite a lot of Motorsport photography...I'm no expert, but I did it with an LX, & manual focus!
So, a bit of advice. Don't try to achieve too much too soon. I'd be trying to frame the picturs properly first....take a few easy shots....stationary cars, slowly moving cars etc etc.
Don't get too close to the action initially, build yourself up to using longer lenses after you've become proficient wth a standard lens.
Practise "panning"....can be quite difficult, but extremely rewarding. I have a framed photo enlargement on my wall at home of our motor racing legend Peter Brock at the Phillip Island Circuit.....Peter was going down the main straight at around 260kph....I panned at about one sixtieth of a second.....result..pin sharp image, wheels & background blurred.....PERFECT......but I had a lot of failures too!
As you become more proficient, slow down your shutter speed so that you can keep the moving car sharp, but blur the background.
When I was doing my stuff, most of us used 36 exp film rolls & I remember one pro guy said to me, sometimes you only get ONE really GOOD shot from a roll.....I found that sometimes too......so just keep "mucking around" & be patient........If I can do it with manual focus, you'll eventually have no problem with your gear!
Cheers, Pickles.

[dosdan]

The zoom lens that I used gave me maximum F4 on aperture side and fastest 1/100 sec shutter speed which as you said could be too slow for fast moving cars.
.

1/100s is far too slow for motosports unless you're good at panning. What ISO sensitivity did you use?

Dan

[Nuff]

First of all you would want your shutter speed to be around 1/500+ closer to 1/1000.
The way to achive that is to bump up the iso or open up the lens.

I did a fair bit of motorcycle racing (faster and smaller than cars) and most photographs that I've of myself are around 1/1000+

Since E-PL1 has IBIS (tough it's crippled version). You can switch it to panning mode, I've forgot which one it is, so refer to the manual.

[steve1307]

Again I'm no expert but have played with motorsport on occasion.

To freeze the action you need shutter of at least 1/1000s. This might mean bumping up the ISO or opening the apeture, but this gives you shallower DOF so slightly more difficult to nail the focus.
If you camera's continuous AF is not lightning quick then it is handy to pre-focus at the correct distance, switch to MF and the snap the shot when the car passes that point.


1/1250 f4 (wide open on a DA55-300)

The problem is with freezing the action is that it doesn't give you the sense of speed.


Panning works well for that . It's about getting the subject or at least the important part of it acceptably sharp and having the scenery & wheels blurred due to motion.
Depending on the speed of the subject a shutter speed of 1/15 up to maybe 1/100 may work.

Slowing the shutter speed to 1/30 or 1/60 gives the oppurtinity to have a smaller apeture and therefore greater DOF which gives more latitude with the focus and camera to subject distance.
The only was to work out the best shutterspeed is to test it. Not enough background blur then use a slower shutterspeed. Can't get a reasonably steady shot of the subject then use a faster shutter.

Here's some I did in one outing, using 1/40, 1/50, 1/60. I had significantlylower keeper rate at 1/30 and pretty much none at 1/15. This is down to my limited skils.
It is pretty much down to technique rather than equipment. Some say that panning is smoother/easier with a heavier lens. A couple here were with a D55-300 and others with DA70.
.

1/40 s f10
.

1/50 s f 6.3
.

1/60 s f8 (in reasonable light)
.

1/30 s f4 (simlar shot in pretty poor light)
.

1/60 f8

[Alberts]

Hi!

I presume that you should try with shutter speed about 1/000 to get sharp pictures with “frozen” cars. If the day is sunny, the necessary exposure value will be about 15 EV. At shutter speed 1/000, aperture F8 (should provide quite good DOF and sharpness), and ISO 200 the exposure value will be about 15, too. So, you can try such parameters in sunny day. If the day is not so sunny, you should use lower exposure values: 12-14 EV. 14 EV can be achieved either by increasing ISO to 400 or by opening aperture to F5.6. In order to achieve exposure value 12 EV, you should either increase ISO much more or widen aperture much more or combine both things. For example, ISO 1600, aperture F8 and shutter speed 1/000 corresponds to 12 EV. 12 EV also can be achieved by ISO200, F2.8 and 1/1000 or ISO400, F4 and 1/000 or ISO800, F5.6 and 1/000. So you can several combinations of exposure parameters. You should find the best trade-off between high ISO noise and wide aperture’s shallow DOF. Before you switch to faster lens I recommend trying different combinations with your current lens. Faster lens might not solve your problems because wider aperture will decrease DOF and it will be harder to focus camera properly.

[pentagon]

1/100s is far too slow for motosports unless you're good at panning. What ISO sensitivity did you use?

Dan

Hi Dan, it was ISO 200 set by the camera's auto ISO mode.

[pentagon]

Hi Pickles, I feel lucky to learn with a digital camera so that I can take more photos and review of the work instantly. The photo of Peter Brock sounds really cool. really like to see if you have a digital copy.

Hi Steve, nice photos and great explanations. The cars taken at 1/40s and 1/60s look quit sharp. Two weeks ago, when shooting kart racing, I really don't know what i was doing there. But I got some sense on what to do now.

Hi Albert, thanks for the suggestions on the Ev and shutter/aperture/ISO combinations.

Cannot wait for the coming weekend to try all these out.

[dosdan]

Hi Dan, it was ISO 200 set by the camera's auto ISO mode.

If you were using 1/100s, f/4, ISO200, that's only LV 9.6. That's far too dark to do this kind of stuff unless you're really good at panning and maybe have a faster (lower f-number) lens.

Use Tv exposure mode for this stuff, so you can set a decent shutter speed.

Let's say you tried 1/800s on that day to get less motion blur. That's 3 stops faster:
1/100s -> 1/200s -> 1/400s -> 1/800s.
So you would have to raise ISO 3 stops to compensate (you can open your lens aperture any more):
ISO200 -> ISO400 -> ISO800 -> ISO1600.

3 Stops faster shutter speeds = 1/8th of the motion blur (2^3 = 8) of 1/100s. That may still not be enough, but with a bit of panning it might work.

With a smaller sensor camera this would have been far too noisy. (A four-thirds camera is 0.8 stop down on SNR compared to APS-C just because of sensor size - but sensor technology can make the difference even bigger.) It would be doable with a K-5/D7000 due to the good noise performance of this particular Sony sensor at ISO1600.

Now look at a sunny day: LV 15-16. Take LV 15. You could use:
1/2000s, f/5.6, ISO200.
If it was really bright (LV 16), you could use:
1/2000s, f/8, ISO200.

I shoot junior soccer at 1/800s & 1/1000s if the light permits. Even at this speed there is still some blur with the moving ball (although I'm only pan-following the players, not the ball), so you might want as fast a shutter speed as possible for high-speed motosports. (1/2000s).

Another way is to concentrate on front-on and near-front-on shots in the corners to reduce the angular motion component.

It is important to understand exposure & stops. Here's an article:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/photography-articles/126203-stops-shutter...nsitivity.html

You'll find a Light Value calculator here:
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/photography-articles/88197-excel-2003-lv-...alculator.html

Dan.

[Alberts]

Hi pentagon,

As I understand, Olympus E-PL1 is not a DSLR but so-called mirror less interchangeable lens camera. I presume that your camera is equipped with a kit lens 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 L ED. According to this my assumption, I have tried to make some exposure calculations for you although I have not done sport photographing by myself .
According to the online specification, the fastest shutter speed for your camera is 1/2000. This shutter speed will allow you to achieve the sharpest image of cars (without panning). I presume that you will use your lens’s maximum focal length – 42mm to achieve the best zoom. At focal length 42 mm the widest available aperture is F5.6. Such an aperture and such a focal length provide quite a large DOF. The hyperfocal distance will be 20.8 m. So you should get sharp photos for distant objects (in sport events there are objects located quite far). I assume that a smaller aperture (larger F number) might provide sharper image but F 5.6 must provide acceptable sharpness.
According your camera’s specification, the range of available ISO is 200-3200 (even ISO 100 and ISO 6400 are available in manual mode). However, I do not know the maximum ISO at which the noise becomes not acceptable. I have prepared the combinations of ISO speed, aperture F5.6 (the widest aperture) and shutter speed 1/2000 (the fastest shutter speed):
- ISO 200, F 5.6 and 1/2000 corresponds to EV 15. EV 15 is for very good sunny day.
- ISO 400, F 5.6 and 1/2000 corresponds to EV 14. EV 14 is for not so sunny day.
- ISO 800, F 5.6 and 1/2000 corresponds to EV 13. EV 13 is for cloudy bright day.
- ISO 1600, F 5.6 and 1/2000 corresponds to EV 12. EV 12 is for heavy over cast or areas in open shade.
- ISO 3200, F 5.6 and 1/2000 corresponds to EV 11. EV 11 is for some lower light than overcast.

I presume that ISO 3200 might be too high and produce too much noise. If you have to shoot at EV 11, the alternative is to lower shutter speed to 1/1000 at ISO 1600. Nevertheless, the shutter speed 1/1000 might not fully “stop” cars in image and some blurriness could be.
If you want to shoot sport cars in night race, the necessary exposure value is at least about 9 EV (according to Wikipedia). To reach EV 9, you should either boost ISO to 6400 and reduce shutter speed to 1/000 or use ISO 3200 at shutter speed 1/500. In both cases the image quality might be quite poor due to noise and blurriness. So for night race the only alternative is to shoot at lower shutter speeds (that will allow using lower ISO) and panning (allows slower shutter speed).

I recommend the following websites for additional information:
Online Depth of Field Calculator
Exposure value - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ultimate Exposure Computer

[dosdan]

Don't use ISO100 on this Olympus model. It's not a true ISO extension. See the ISO Sensitivity curve under the Measurements tab here:

DxOMark - Compare cameras side by side

Stick to a minimum of ISO200 and you'll be fine. I've updated the LV 15 & LV 16 examples above to use ISO200.

Dan.

[pentagon]

Hi Dan,

Many thanks for the calculator! It is really a nice piece of work that can help many people. I usually try to stick with ISO 200 - 800 as E-PL1 sensors will product some obvious noise for ISO above 800.

Hi Albert,

Appreciate. You are right again(: I do have a 14-42mm kit lens with my e-pl1. I will practice those combinations as your suggested over weekend on street cars (:

[Alberts]

Hi Pentagon,

Did you manage to practice shooting sport cars and trying faster shutter speeds ? Was something useful from our recommendations?