[gorillagirl]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply, it is much appreciated.

I am shortly moving up to a K3, I did have my sights set on a K5ii until the K3 was announced, at which time I knew I go for the K3. The K7 is pretty limited and it's holding me back as it doesn't handle a high ISO all that well and the AF is frustratingly slow at times. I should be grabbing a K3 in about a month's time so I'll still keep practising on my K7 when new opportunities come up. I'm actually travelling slowly back to Brisbane from SA and had the chance to go to the races so it was a good opportunity to practise a really challenging sport. I hung around with the official photographer and he always pans because he is only after the winner, I'm not bad at panning but I specifically wanted to try to stop motion on some very fast subjects and get more than one per race. The other problem was the races start at 4pm then a bloody big storm came across and stole all the light

dms - I've shot other dog sports and have stopped motion well but they aren't going at a million miles per hours like these greys!

calson - I need to girder my loins and learn how to use Focus Magic it looks quite awesome! Is it compatible with CS5? In this case I prefocused and went manual because there is no way I'd get anything with using AF.C in this situation. I do use it when I'm following or tracking animals but because I was aiming at a particular spot instead of following the dogs the focus would lose it's mind when I kept the shutter down for multiple exposures and probably go hunting for the next few minutes

RGlasel - See above, I focused and then set it to manual. I had tried this on dock diving and it worked well but the dogs were heading more towards me rather than running across my field of view.

Jon404 - You've hit on something I'm a bit conflicted about. I need a better birding lens and wildlife are my main subjects. I'd love a 300/F4 but when shooting animals that are moving around a bit a prime can be a bit of a drama. But I'm also considering the new HD teleconverter to get a bit more reach, in which case I could get a faster higher IQ zoom that goes to 200. Sports aren't my main focus, I just want to be able to master more areas than just portraits, which I'm good at. I have another lens that probably would have been better for this exercise but I didn't know how close I could get since it was the first time I have been to the races so went with the wide zoom 55-300. You'll probably read me agonising soon about my upgrade and which tele zoom is best!

I was also in TAV btw, it's the best thing since sliced bread, just set ap and SS and let the ISO float, great for variable subjects and changing light. I've found that I've had to stop down a lot more than I am used to with the 55-300 as well, more than I like to get a decent DOF, which I suspect is due to the adjustment needed in focus.

D-sims - I usually use centre and lock focus and recompose, or zoom out a bit then crop the subject to where I want them. I have to confess I did shoot the first race in jpeg but then lost my nerve because once you go RAW it's painful to go back I'll resize a few different pics including one of the jpegs tomorrow to show comparisons. I did go up into the stands and also shoot the dogs coming around the turn and focus was better as they were coming towards me but there just wasn't the opportunity to get the positions I wanted to shoot from, it's not set up well for photogs.

[Michaelina2]

For the initial camera setup, consider turning everything off that might impede the camera's image processing speed (SR, lens correction, etc.). Use AF-C with focus priority, really up your shutter speed, select one animal in the pack as your subject, then fire away while panning its approach/passing/away motions. Follow-up by crop/correcting for composition, noise, exposure, dynamic range, etc. in post...


Expect every series to be full of throw away images (and throw them away), but if the light is good, you should get several (out of 100's) that will be fine.


...my 2 cents...


Cheers... M

[DSims]

I am shortly moving up to a K3, I did have my sights set on a K5ii until the K3 was announced, at which time I knew I go for the K3. The K7 is pretty limited and it's holding me back as it doesn't handle a high ISO all that well and the AF is frustratingly slow at times. I should be grabbing a K3 in about a month's time so I'll still keep practising on my K7 when new opportunities come up. I'm actually travelling slowly back to Brisbane from SA and had the chance to go to the races so it was a good opportunity to practise a really challenging sport. I hung around with the official photographer and he always pans because he is only after the winner, I'm not bad at panning but I specifically wanted to try to stop motion on some very fast subjects and get more than one per race.

I have another lens that probably would have been better for this exercise but I didn't know how close I could get since it was the first time I have been to the races so went with the wide zoom 55-300. You'll probably read me agonising soon about my upgrade and which tele zoom is best!

Could you please post what equipment you have on your profile? It would help in giving you ideas or recommendations. I've put together a pretty good idea of what works well for sports, based on my own and others' experiences here. It's challenging because none of us are able to try all the combinations of cameras and lenses out. But with some help from others - especially Ron Hendricks - I've got a pretty good picture of what works well now. It will help all of us give you better input.

In a similar fashion, I'm sure others can (or already have) help(ed) you with the birding aspect.



The bottom line for sports AF, however, is this:

1) Unlike many other manufacturers, Pentax has only one in-lens motor that's semi-optimized for sports - and that's in the DA*300. The only third party in-lens motor that works for typical sports shooting is in the latest Sigma 70-200/2.8 OS HSM (a few other Sigma HSM lenses may work in certain circumstances).

2) Pentax has significantly improved AF performance - especially screw-drive AF - in the last 2 generations of bodies (K-3, K-5 II/IIs, K-50, K-30), with the K-3 being the best. Because of this, in most cases you'll get the best performance by using a screw-drive lens on a recent body.

Tonight (and possibly tomorrow) I'll get a chance to use both the DA*300 and Sigma 70-200 OS HSM for sports for the first time. So I hope to get a better idea of which is actually a bit faster - one of those or my screw-drive primes.