Motorsports with the Rebel

[Wayne02]

We will be shooting some scca road racing this weekend with our rebel, and the 70-200f4L + 1.4 extender when needed. This track has really only two places that are accessible to shoot from, and both are relatively low speed points on the track. This track has no fencing, only short concrete barriers which are fairly close to the racing surface.

One spot has you looking "up track" and the cars coming directly towards you as they go through the slalom type S part of the track. You can track the cars as they come directly at you, then make the turn almost directly in front of you, and then accelerate away from you.

The second location is a slow very sharp left hand turn ( almost like an auto-cross) you can pick up the cars as the exit this turn and come toward you, then pass in front of you, and right away they make a hard left again and go up the main straight.

I've read a bit about the hack for ai servo, however, because we are very new at this I think I'll wait on that and just use sports mode for this time out. There will be no tripod use, so we will be trying to get a solid stance and lock the elbows down to steady the camera.

I've found in the bright sunlight that the lcd is near useless to view a shot and look for areas to improve. I need to learn more about reading histograms, but many times I simply cant see the darn thing in the daylight.

I've also been frustrated by the multi-point focus system in that it seems to focus on everything but the points I want it to focus on. So I think we will use single point focus for this trip.

I would appreciate any tips on using the rebel in this application. Focusing, settings, panning etc.

Thanks
Wayne

[tommykjensen]

I'll just listen in here as I am going to see Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix (http://www.chgp.dk/english)this weekend. Would be nice to get some tips on the subject.

[rpmx]

Well, I'm very new here, and pretty new to DSLR racing photography, but I do have several nights at several dirt tracks, photographing winged sprint cars. These cars are coming into the corners around 100-140 mph, depending on the series, and coming out of the corners, from 70-100. Ive had some good nights out, and some not so good. The more I think I learn, the more confused I get. hehehe. I finally discovered histograms, just yesterday, adn need to learn lots more, no doubt. I turned the brightness up on my view window, and found that I wasnt getting that kind of picture in real life, Wasted the last night at the track last Sunday.

I am using only manual focus, as the autofocus is just too slow and not accurate, in my opinion. Im shooting with a Canon 55-200 Ultrasonic Ef lens. Most of my shots are in the 55-70 mm range for zoom. I have been chatting with a guy on the west coast with a rebel that shoots sprintcars in the sports mode, butI have been less than happy. You may be alright, because of the speed of the cars. The autofocus is a problem, and:

To quote a great sprint car photographer in the east :

The Rebel is very similar to my 10D, and in fact has the exact same sensor, so both yield the same quality images which is excellent. It does lack a few features of the 10D which I use and would miss not having, but they are not essential, just very useful for me. I do have a few problems with the camera however. The main one being that the auto-focus is totally worthless, and I am forced to use it only in manual. The auto-focus gets it wrong almost every time and usually focuses behind the subject. This seems to be a common problem in both the 10D and the Rebel and something that Canon will not admit. There are exceptions, and you may just be one of the lucky ones that may have a camera that actually works as it should.

I recommended the Rebel to a good friend mine but warned him of the focusing problem. He got lucky and his does work decently most of the time. You will just have to see if yours will work as well. If the track lighting is fairly low, you'll have trouble anyway, because his will not work right in poorly lit areas.


Im shooting in the M mode, Iso 400 and 800, (playing around between the two) 5.6 f stop, and a shutter speed of 160 -200 depending on flash conditions.


If you want to take a look at what I have done:
http://imageevent.com/okoboji_images

[KartGirlsMom]

I just tried my 10D with a 70-200 f2.8 with a 2x extender for the first time at our kart track (http://www.hogdalturf.com/SKCPhoto.htm) last weekend. My biggest mistake was shooting too slow. I underexposed/blurred about 90% of my photos. I didn't even think to look at the histogram (being so new to digital), but with my polorized sunglasses, it is very hard to see the LCD anyway. I used to generally shoot 1/500 with film the same lens and same ISO and that was underexposed with the 10D. I'm going to try to shoot much faster next weekend. My husband has a car race (SCCA) in two weeks, I hope that with another kart weekend under my belt, I will be able to get some photos of him.
BTW--what track? Portland?

rpmx--you have a picture labled as Rager--is Roger Rager still racing???

[PhotosGuy]

I posted two threads in "Share" this week on "Club Racing in Michigan"
GENERALLY, ISO 800, 1/800 sec, f-11-16, & shoot RAW.

See also "Not bad for 800 ISO" for noise comparisons in the thread.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=38635

[rpmx]

Yes, Roger Rager is still racing. I have seen him in a winged 360, and 410, and in a non wing 360 show also. If youre in the right corner, he can really give you some great pics.

[defordphoto]

rpmx: Your quote from the alleged "great sprint car photographer in the east" is quite odd. I shot motorsports with the 10D for about a year while using exclusively auto focus with quite marvelous results. I know many other here have also. Is this photographer using the Drebel? I (also) find that kind of odd as the Drebel is definitely not the choice of any motorsports photographers. It's just not the camera for that type of photography.

And before any Drebel fans blast me on this, you'll notice I am also a Drebel owner. And yes, I use the hacked software.

I am not saying a person cannot photograph motorsports with a Drebel, but if you do, it does seriously handicap your shooting due to its slowness, near non-existent buffer and FPS, and that even the hacked software lacks true AI Servo focus.

[rpmx]

No, he does not have a DRebel, but a 10D is my understanding. Almost every pro photog that I see in this area is carrying some kind of Nikon

Jim, Could you take a look at my post regarding a Sunpak 622 flash and the Drebel compatibility and try to give me a little advice?

http://photos.imageevent.com/okoboji_images/jacksoniranmra/websize/6R.jpg

[friscomgm]

I found it extremely difficult to shoot motorsports with the DRebel. No AI Servo and the crap buffer are huge limitations here. The hack lacks true AI Servo support as well.

This shot was a rare one where the focus was dead on - I found that of all the shots I took on the track, less than 25% were worthy of showcasing.

http://www.friscomix.com/homepage1.jpg

In shooting drift events - the idea is to never freeze the car - thus you can hardly ever shoot above 1/200th if you want to get a nice streaked background with rims/tires blazing and smoke bellowing..

Motorsports can certainly be done with the Rebel, but I'd kill to get my hands on a MKII for serious Motorsports duty..

[PhotosGuy]

to RFMSports:
Jim, I agree with you up to a point - the 300D doesn't fit the workflow that you've developed.
OTOH, I shot 2 Gigs last weekend & never ran out of buffer by choosing my shots.
As to, "it does seriously handicap your shooting due to...".
Well, I'm an old film guy, & I never missed what I didn't have before! Except for the fact that you have to hold the lens on focus 'cause it's too loose on MF to stay where you put it.
So, I did what I'm used to doing, where you might have quietly (or not!) gone nuts!
All equipment has limitations & we just have to learn to work around them when we're stuck for a feature we wish we had.
I like your work a lot, & I can easily see the difference between your shots & mine. But, with a bit of work in P$, the guys were glad to get them, so my "clients" were as satisfied as I'm sure that yours are, & that's really the bottom line, isn't it? :wink:

[Cadwell]

To quote a great sprint car photographer in the east : The main one being that the auto-focus is totally worthless, and I am forced to use it only in manual. The auto-focus gets it wrong almost every time and usually focuses behind the subject.



Utter nonsense I am afraid. I use a 10D for motorsports photography and have had no problems with autofocus. Nearly all my shots have been taken in AI Servo using the centre focus point and focus is rarely off. If this "great photographer" is having a problem then he either a) Has a very defective camera or b) doesn't know how to use the features of the camera properly.

Examples are in my gallery.

[rpmx]

I have no reason to start a beef, nor would he, as he is using a 10 D. He would have no reason to tell me anything different that what he truly felt. I am shooting with the center focus point only, and am experiencing some of the things he told me I would, so I tend to agree with him. I know nothing about photography,( as evident in the quality of my shots) and am painfully trying to learn under fire, not for professional use, but only to claim a few personal shots to be proud of, and to give to my friends that race. With that said, he did say that there were exceptions to the issue.

I realize that expecting to come on here, and get exact settings and such from a professional would be expecting too much, and I certainly dont expect that, but its frustrating to be trying to figure things out on one end of the camera,(dial settings) when it appears the other end is not functioning(focusing) to my expectations(low)

(please ignore my ignorance here) When you say AI servo mode, are talking about the green box for fully automatic.

[defordphoto]

Part of the reason that you will get some OOF shots is that when shooting AI Servo, the shutter will fire whether the subject is in focus or not. The key is the focus point. With the 10D most will use center. I always did. If your focus point is off, you'll get an OOF. It's the nature of the beast. It will happen. You really have to concentrate to keeping the center point on the subject.

Now that I have the MKII, I use 7/11 focus points and I rarely get OOFs. It uses 7 focus points and expands to 11 if it needs it so I can follow my subject almost anywhere on the screen and it's being tracked. A huge advantage for sports shooters.

[KennyG]

I posted two threads in "Share" this week on "Club Racing in Michigan"
GENERALLY, ISO 800, 1/800 sec, f-11-16, & shoot RAW.

See also "Not bad for 800 ISO" for noise comparisons in the thread.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=38635

Too fast. Stops the action and gives that frozen look. If you like frozen action then fine, but you do lose that feeling of speed.

The DRebel has one big drawback - AI Servo! That's where the 10D beats it for action photography. On the circuits where I work I rarely see anything other than Canon and, believe it or not, a lot of 10D's being used by Pros.

If the light is OK then ISO200 is fine. You can go to ISO400 which will help with the DOF. Head-on shots should be no faster than 1/500 (1/400 is better), even for an F1 car. You can still see the wheel blur in head-on shots. Pan shots at 1/250 or thereabouts until you feel comfortable going slower.

Cadwell has made a great success of using the 10D for motorsport photography and yes, it is great to have a 1 series to work with, but the 10D can do a good job too. I ran 2 x 10D last year and had a lot of work published. The 300D just isn't suitable for any serious work in this area (I have donned my Nomex in readiness for the flames).

Pan shot with a 10D+70-200 2.8IS at 1/250 ISO200:
http://www.motorpix.co.uk/images9/op-16.jpg

Head-on shot with a 1D+300 2.8IS+1.4TC at 1/400 ISO200:
http://www.motorpix.co.uk/images18/op-019.jpg

[Wayne02]

Kartgirlsmom,
This scca race was at Bremerton Motorsports park in WA. It is a "temporary" road coarse set up at an abandoned airport.

Just got back from the race and man was it hot, the temperature that is. My wife got a few shots of me on track here:
http://waynef.smugmug.com/gallery/179883/1/6787738

I tried to go out and take some shots after my race, a couple here:
http://waynef.smugmug.com/gallery/179897

I had planned to shoot more after my races were complete, but I was just to tired after all the car prep, the race, and loading the car, to relax and take some pictures. This race and photog on the same weekend doesn't seem to be working out to well. I guess I need to go to a race where I'm not running and just concentrate on photography.

I will say that it sure is nice to have a "real" zoom lens after trying to use a point and shoot for motorsports in years past. I realize the rebel is not the best for sports, and the 70-200 + extender is not the greatest in terms of reach for motorsports, but it will have to do for now. BTW, when in sports mode using the f4L the none of the focus points light up. Why is that? How do I tell what it is focusing on?

At least my wife got a picture of the most important moment of the weekend... receiving the checkered flag after winning the race.
http://waynef.smugmug.com/photos/6787738-M.jpg

[ron chappel]

I'm not very experienced yet with using AF but i find focus speed a serious limitation for motocross :?
I used to use manual focus cameras prefocused with a fair bit of success.
However when i use the 300D in either normal focus or sport (focus tracking) mode ,there sure are alot of throwaways :shock: .Even my fastest focusing lens (50/1.8) can't hope to nail the focus on an oncomming bike so i still use pre focus or prefocus and hope the AF can grab it from there


And as everyone is including pics in their post i may as well too? :D

This is my best one from yesterday.The dust was incredible-so much so that none of the pictures are really clear of it.In this one there is fine dust reducing the colour and contrast :cry:

http://members.dodo.net.au/~l8r_ron/pages/006%20%20%2075-300@300mm%20f5.6.html

[tommykjensen]

And before any Drebel fans blast me on this, you'll notice I am also a Drebel owner. And yes, I use the hacked software.

I am not saying a person cannot photograph motorsports with a Drebel, but if you do, it does seriously handicap your shooting due to its slowness, near non-existent buffer and FPS, and that even the hacked software lacks true AI Servo focus.

I have a 300D and I do think I got decent results this weekend with this camera and the 70-200 mm F4 L lens. See here. (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=38899&highlight=) I tried slow shutter and panning on a few shots and did manage to get a few in focus with blurred background. I got 11 shots this way and maybe 2 or 3 was good, I would have tried more if I could have gone back on day 2 of the race.

Also I tried to catch the cars as they were turning which succeded in many cases and in those shots even though the action is frozen You still can feel some speed and movement as the cars leaned to one side as they turned.

Yes the buffer is limiting but I think my biggest problem was that I didn't have enough room for a long pan. I may be wrong but it appears to me that to be able to pan You need to be a certain distance from the track with along lens. If You are too close it is not so easy to pan?