Need some suggestions, PLEASE

[photobuff]

My first post on this site.....and it is straight into a question :lol:


I picked up a Digital Rebel in January in the kit (18-55mm lense) and picked up a 75-300mm lense to plink around with. This camera is AMAZING! I have probably taken around 1500 pictures of a wide variety of subjects...drag racing, skylines, animals, sporting events, flowers, tripod work,etc, etc....heck, I have already FRAMED a handful of my favorites :wink:
I am drag racer and enjoy taking pics of it almost as much as the actual racing. Here lies the problem/question. NIGHTTIME ACTION.....I need advice or help in pointing me in a direction of settings or an IS style lense to use for that type of shooting. I always tried it with a consumer style camera and got skunked. These cars are launching very hard, so its very fast movement and I see the pros taking pics of this type of shot, so I know it can be done successfully. I am assuming an aftermarket speedlite is in order?
I am not scared to put out the money for an "L" lense, if neccessary.....although, it is hard giving up that kinda coin for a hobby :?
A fireworks show is also coming up in a couple weeks so the same situation would apply....NIGHTTIME ACTION......dusk and dawn are a mutha, too.

Thanx for the help in advance :wink:

Steve

[vvizard]

I'm shooting a dragrace a girl I know shall race in this Saturday, so I'm also looking for as much info about shooting dragraces as possible right now :) For night-shots of fast cars, IS won't help you much. It'll reduce camera-shake, but your problem will be motion-blur from the subject, and for that, IS can't help unfortunatly :( You need fast lenses!! That means lenses with as low f-number you can get.. 2.8 or preferable even lower for night-shooting. You also need high ISO-speeds (800 or 1600 if you have to). If you're close, you can use a Flash, if your far away, it will only make things worse. Try, fail, and try again ;)

[photobuff]

Thanx for the reply :D

Yeah, I knew the IS would be useless when the darkness set in...that is why I added the "dusk to dawn" deal. Figured the IS would help me for the dusk but night comes quick at the drags(6:00pm it opens).
Yeah, you brought up another thing I was getting at....close with a flash, screwed if you are far away. Another reason why I brought up the fireworks. I am really in trouble with those. What is the lowest F-number out there? I have seen 2.8 but not sure if I have seen the lower ones. Any specific Canon model #'s you would reccomend? And having 800-1600 ISO's is going to be quite noisy, isnt it? Might not have a choice in the matter, huh? :cry:

Thanx again for the input,

Steve

[robertwgross]

First of all, why would I.S. be useless at dusk?

I.S. helps if you are handholding, so it helps whether it is day or night.

Next, if you are allowed to shoot with a flash, and if you have to cover a long distance, then you need to get a flash unit with the biggest Guide Number possible, then use a fast lens, and then goose up the ISO until you get it. Note that in some locations, you are prohibited from using a flash. But then, if you are trying to shoot night fireworks, forget anything about flash.

If you get high ISO settings and get too much color noise, then you can reduce most of the color noise problem with a program like Neat Image.

What is the lowest f-number for what? A Canon EF lens? Or EF-S lens?

Theoretically f/1.0 is the best you can get. Practically, f/1.4 is getting to the end of the affordable limit for mere mortals.

---Bob Gross---

[photobuff]

Thank you, Bob.

You are obviously light years ahead of me with Photography. I will have to investigate into the flash unit point you made. Honestly, I am alittle confused about the guide # comment you made so that is something I need to study up on. I normally shoot in the day so that is a whole other animal to tackle for me :wink:

I would be referring to EF lenses...I was just so happy to find a forum that has a section dedicated to my camera I guess I kept it alittle general :) Would YOU have a model # to suggest for a fast lense to do the things I described?

Thanx Bob,

Steve

[vvizard]

70-200mm f/2.8 is a quite usable range if your pretty close. You can get those with f/2.8 for ~ $700-1000. (Sigma or Canon). If you need longer lenses, it will become a lot more expensive. If you're closer, you can get 85 f/1.8 quite cheap. I got a 50mm f/1.4, and the light-sensitivity on 1.4 simply rocks, but it's not a good sport-lens (way to short)..

A guide-number is a number telling you how powerfull your flash will be. For example the 550EX have a guide-number of 55 (I think, at least let's assume, the math will still be right). This means at ISO-100, the flash will be effective for 55 metres when fired at full power. At higher ISO's it will be more effective. Not quite sure if this in good ISO-tradition doubles the flash-range for each step you bump the ISO, but at least it'll give you some significant new amount of range for each ISO-step you take. Hope this helps a bit.

BTW: Be sure to check out if a guide-number is given for metres or feet before you buy. The math will be the same, but the result will be in feet/metres depending on what scale was used for the guide-number.