a noob and action shots

[Shoehorn O' Plenty]

hello all. im new to the board and the whole photography hobby. i have a canon s500, i really wanted a g5, but at the time the s500 was a more practical buy. any hoo, i was wondering how do i take action shots with this camera. im mainly interested in taking shots of cars in motion, but i dont know how. any help would be great.
tia
:D

[Jon]

You'll have to use Manual mode, use the largest aperture (lowest f/stop number f/2.8 to f/4.9 on your camera) you can, then adjust the shutter speed until it "looks right" on the LCD. This will let you set the fastest shutter speed the lighting conditions will allow. You may find after the first pictures that you want to adjust the settings a little - unfortunately, there's no real reliable way of manually setting the exposure on this camera. You'll need to "pan", keep tracking the car you're photographing before, during, and after you take the picture. And there's a problem you'll run into called "shutter lag" - the camera won't actually take the picture when you press the shutter release, but a short, noticable, time after. So you'll need to anticipate when you want to take the picture by a little.

If you want the car to be clear, with a streaked background, you can get this by using a slower shutter speed, but still panning with the car.

[Saudidave]

Jon is spot on with his advice but perhaps hasn't realised that the S500 has no true manual mode, there is no choice of aperture or shutter priority, nor selection of aperture or shutter speed, thus choosing the aperture isn't an option!

I have an Ixus (S) 400 and to take action shots I use the high speed continuous shooting selection in "manual" mode. Refer to the manual!

Works a treat

Dave

[Shoehorn O' Plenty]

thanks for the replies.
like dave said, the s500 doesnt really have much a manual mode. can the the high speed continuous shooting still have the blurr in the background?
:D

[Saudidave]

yes it can if you have a wide enough aperture. In order to achieve that, keep the ISO rating as low as possible. You will have to experiment a bit

[djdino]

Jon is right on the money.

[Littlenose]

Not sure what it says in the manual, but the one thing not mentioned so far that i found extremely useful is... i found that through trial and error, that using the optical viewfinder rather than the LCD greatly improved results....

Here's one i took last year of similar subjects with my ixus400... World Superbikes (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mikeyandjo/photos/photos_worldsbk2003/pages/128_2850.htm)

[Molydood]

pah! rubbish, can't even see any flames coming out of his exhaust.

only joking, excellent shot littlenose ;-)

[Shoehorn O' Plenty]

thats some awesome pics.

i agree with the optical view finder, its so much more useful when it comes to night shots. what was your settings for those pictures?

btw my camera doesnt have an aperture setting. i wish it did, but sadly it doesnt. sucks...
:D

[Littlenose]

Heh heh, well, what cna i say MolyDood, the exhaust flames were pretty hard to catch, but i did get a couple ;-) But we won't go there, as I'll freely admit your pic of the smae subject was better :oops:

For the record, here's mine... Flame (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mikeyandjo/photos/photos_worldsbk2003/pages/128_2819.htm)

The settings i used from the EXIF info are...

Exposure 1/200th
F-Stop 4.9
Shutter Speed 1/202
Aperture 4.6

But as it was the ixus, i didn't have direct control... it was basically in manual mode, I think i set the ISO to 200, and i locked the aperture and the focus on where i expected the bike to appear [racetracks help this] so as to make the time lag shorter.

Hope that helps.

[Shoehorn O' Plenty]

did you have to pan?

[Littlenose]

oh yes, panning was required, but i think the blurred background adds to the sense of speed.

[Molydood]

Heh heh, well, what cna i say MolyDood, the exhaust flames were pretty hard to catch, but i did get a couple ;-) But we won't go there, as I'll freely admit your pic of the smae subject was better :oops:



I thought they were pretty similar, but if you insist... :)

I would always say use the slowest shutter speed you can handle, otherwise the cars look like they are stationary, which you don't want. 1/250th second will give good blurred backgrounds/wheels at 50-100mph. Or if you don't have direct control over shutter speed, try putting the ISO to the lowest number as Littlenose says. The camera will compensate for lower sensitivity (ISO) by keeping the shutter open longer, and produce noise free pictures into the bargain. Of course if you go too far (1/30th second for example) you will end up with blurry everything :x

Expect to get a lot of bad results too as it's very difficult to get the panning perfect, but when it works it's worth the effort :D

[Shoehorn O' Plenty]

ive been practicing panning with random cars driving by. i hope they dont think im some sort of perv.
my results arent very good. i can get the blurred background, but i cant seem to get the car in focus.

[Molydood]

hehe.. good idea.
try increasing ISO until you can get some pictures with the car in focus, and then work your way towards the lower ISO shots. Like I say though, it's not easy so just keep trying it, and make sure you use the viewfinder not the LCD. Post some pictures when you get one :P

[Littlenose]

hehe.. good idea...., and make sure you use the viewfinder not the LCD. Post some pictures when you get one :P

how may of the same picture should he post then?

*chuckle*

*ROFLMAO*


i'll go home now... :?

[Molydood]

oh yeah! :oops: :)

[Shoehorn O' Plenty]

well i still havent gotten the action shots yet, but here are some other shots ive taken.
what do you guys think? they're nothing special


http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4d601b3127cceb49c3a6586e50000010610
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4d601b3127cceb49c2e8f86050000006610
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4d729b3127cceb670b2c3fe9d0000004610

a spoiler shot
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4d601b3127cceb49c196ac6630000004610


http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4d638b3127cceb4919f4523600000005610
[/img]

[Littlenose]

Cool pics, i like the panorama style one at the end.... if you need more help, then please do ask away... more than happy to help.

[Shoehorn O' Plenty]

thanks littlenose...ill be bugging you for help all the time now!
:D