Drag Racing

[660Photos]

Looking for suggestions on a lens, need one the can do far away zoom shots, and can potentially do close ups as well! I try to stand about the 60ft mark. Just looking for suggestions on a lens, looking to spend under 1k. I have a small budget.

[snyderman]

Like any other sport, a good 'go-to' lens for drag racing is the 70-200 f/2.8L IS. I realise it is over budget, but really does the job. And since drag racing is outdoors, the 70-200 f/4 L might be excellent as well. Used price definitely within budget as well.

Not to intentionally try to break your budget, but here's on shot early this summer with the 2.8 IS version of the 70-200:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a310/dsnyder160/DPP_12297TIF.jpg

dave

[660Photos]

Whats the difference between the is and non is versions?

[Jim M]

I would say my most used lens for drag racing is the 70-200 2.8L IS followed by the 24-70 2.8. If you are doing a lot of night work, a large aperture is really nice for being able to focus.

IS refers to an Image Stabilizer. This is very handy, but you can get along without it, especially shooting moving objects. However, I normally have mine turned on since I'm tracking cars coming at me most of the time. For drag racing, if I had to make a choice between an image stabilized lens or an f2.8 maximum aperture (vs f/4), I would select the f/2.8 aperture over image stabilization. Luckily, I was able to choose both.

I edited this to note that it also depends on whether or not you have access to shooting trackside. Where you can go would make some difference in lens selection.

[660Photos]

I do have acess to trackside shooting at all of my local tracks. I knew what IS stood for, but does it make that great of a deal of difference?

I do shoot A TON at night, so i guess that makes a bit of a difference.

[Jim M]

Sorry. I misunderstood your question. I used to shoot with a 200mm f/2.8 prime and got away with it. If I had to drop the shutter speed much, it got iffy. Of course, I shoot more than motor sports and it's kind of hard to remember how often that happened under what circumstances.

I'm hard pressed to advise you about whether or not a lens would be the best thing to purchase next or whether a second flash and light stand would be the best next pieces of equipment. Actually, getting set up for using two flashes off camera would be my personal choice. I'm sure you've noticed a few shots where the flash lights up hanging smoke when the wind isn't cooperating to blow it away. You get this over all grayish cast to everything. When you get the flash off camera, that effect is significantly diminished. If you haven't been experiencing that, then on camera flash is fine, except that a second flash is still very useful. Check out jimken6's night shots using two flash units - one on camera and one off camera. These days, I'm using three flash heads off a Novatron 1600 pack all way up in the air and back from the guardrail. Frankly, I might be better off with a pair of speedlites since the flash duration of the Novatrons is really too long. The speedlights would be considerably more portable, but I already had the Novatrons and 110V power was readily available at my home track. And like drag racing itself, it's hard to beat raw power when it comes to lighting up a race track outdoors.

So, to sum up this rambling post, I would suggest a second 580EX II and a light stand as your next purchase since you shoot a lot at night. Then save for the 70-200 in some form or the other. You'll love it.

[660Photos]

I have only recently started reading about the off camera flash, and i was considering that as well, i am also gong to upgrade right now i have a 1d classic, and it has such a hard time shooting at night, so i am looking at a 40 or 50 d, the rebel is mainly what i shoot with at night right now. I dont think you can do remote flash on those.

We do already plan on buying a second 580 just because we will have two cameras, so thank you for your suggestions, and maybe i will make the purcahse sooner then later. Do you have any recomendations, or possibly a dummies guide on how to use the flash off the camera (i have never tried)

[Jim M]

It depends on whether or not you want to use E-TTL or manual flash. The simplest way to do E-TTL is to use one 580EX on camera as a master and another compatible flash on a stand as a slave. The Canon manual that comes with the flash should explain how to do that. Go over to the Small Flash and Studio Lighting section of POTN for plenty of info on variations of this. There is also the ST-E2 that allows both flashes to be off camera. Both of these options require line of sight for visible light/infra red triggering and communication.

I personally use manual flash with cheap eBay radio triggers. With manual flash, it isn't that hard to figure out a standard exposure for distance and car color. Light cars take less exposure and dark cars take more. You will also figure out the exposures for the far lane since there is some light fall off from the near lane to the far lane. If you want to follow my path down the radio remote trail, I would suggest the relatively new Yongnuo RF 602s as the cheap eBay alternative to the better units that cost far more. They are supposed to have more range and better reliability than other cheapos on the market. My own cheap remotes have proven to be remarkably reliable compared to what I hear others saying, but the range pretty much sucks. Your objective will be to light up the side of the car with one light and the front of the car with the other. This avoids the light fall off from the camera mounted flash where the front of the car is well exposed, but the light trails off down the side of the car as you look farther back. I have power to burn, so I try to move my lights back from the guardrail to even out the fall off from the flash heads. The farther they are from the subject, the less fall off they have. I'll try to find a decent example of what I'm talking about.