R/C Racing

[The Fox]

Okay, I am going to shoot the races at a local indoor track tomorrow. These are going to be running around an off road track at 30+mph and the like. I am wondering if anyone has some ideas on how to acchive good results with my 20d and 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM. I am thinking AF servo, 1600ISO or so(it is mixed under diffused sunlight and florescent), F2.8 and all the focus points.

Any other advice?
Thanks
Nick

[pastanley]

Shoot as low to the ground as you can get. Lay on your stomach if you can that way you are at the cars level.

[Tessa]

I've only shot RC cars once and outside, but I didn't use autofocus, instead I prefocused on the ground and caught the cars when they got there - those things were just too small and fast to catch otherwise. And yes, try to shoot as low as possible.

An example (I was still using Olympus then):

http://recce.pri.ee/album131/mudelauto008.jpg

[2wheeler]

Look for tricky spots of the track. Personally I like AF servo. You never know when an r/c driver will give you that good shot. Following the r/c in to and out of those tricky spots can get you some good shots.

(apologize for quality of shot. learning to post without losing quality. I'll keep trying)

[The Fox]

Well, I shot it today in between my races. I was armed with my rented 70-200mm F2.8L and on my 20D, it could barely keep up in focus speed. I found that at the end of the races I was mastering it, but it was too late for the good shots. I also found that 1/400th is very slow to stop these things, but when I strapped on a friends 50mm F1.4, it was F2.0 all the time and speeds of 1/1000th stopped many things. But again my AF could not keep up and prefocusing would not work on most of the pro class cars/trucks as they are doing less then 18 sec lap times. I will post in the photo sharing section when I get done eating and edit them.
Nick

[JDB]

Shooting RC Indoors is pretty tricky...

Pre-focusing is generally the way to go... the only lens I've used that has fast enough autofocus to do a decent job at tracking an RC car is the 300mm f2.8 IS, and that's only outdoors. The 70-200 2.8 isn't bad, but I wouldn't rely on it's AF to keep up. Use custom function 4-1, focus on a spot on the track, and pan with cars as they come by. The pro class should be even easier to shoot this way, since they're more consistent in their lines.

Try ISO 1600, f/2.8, and whatever shutter speed the available light will give you... and practice panning!

[The Fox]

Prefocusing was not an option as I was getting only 1/400th at best with the 50mm F1.4 @ 2.0. At that wide an aperture, there is too small a dof to get sharp focusing. Anyways, the AF kept up well but cropping them was hard to do in camera because they were so hard to follow with that big lens and my gripped 20D.
Nick

[black_z]

I personally think 1/400 is too fast for action shots. :) Gotta show some blur man! :)

[The Fox]

It is hard when they are going 50mph 3ft from you.
Nick

[Road_Rebel]

It is hard when they are going 50mph 3ft from you.
Nick

i know its hard mate, i havent tried shooting rc cars yet but i shoot go karts and they are also small and extremely nippy.

there was one position on the track that i kept getting wrong with my shots. the kart would always be ahead of my shot. so i panned the camera faster than i expected and it seemed to work every time (well, 9 times out of 10) and eventually i was able to bring my shutter speed down to give my self a bigger DOF

this was shot at i think 1/120th (no editing to the photo, except the addition of name)

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q77/Road_Rebel/NathPanWM.jpg

[The Fox]

Sorry for being a few months late, but a recent thread just make me remember this one.

Link to work on DA.
(http://thy-fox.deviantart.com/gallery/#RC-Racing)
I have more that I am going to upload here soon when I get back into the racing scene again.

Nick

[2wheeler]

Some good shots. Glad to see things worked out.