Snow Machine Race - This Weekend

Our town is having a major snow machine race this weekend. A good friend is organizing the event and has asked me to come out and get some shots. I will be using a 5d3 with the 70-200 F2.8. Also have the 100-400 available to me.

I plan to try some panning shots and some standard shots.

Obviously I will be using AI Servo.

The question is focus points. Should I be using single point AF or AF point expansion, etc? Typically for landscape, etc I use single point so that is what I am used to.

Before anyone says it I now I am taking a risk going into this without prior experience shooting this type of stuff but the friend knows it is new to me and will very much be a learning experience. The club running the race is just hoping to come away with a few good shots for promo of next year's race.

Any thought and advice will be greatly appreciated.

Northwoods Bill wrote in post #16640850
Our town is having a major snow machine race this weekend. A good friend is organizing the event and has asked me to come out and get some shots. I will be using a 5d3 with the 70-200 F2.8. Also have the 100-400 available to me.

I plan to try some panning shots and some standard shots.

Obviously I will be using AI Servo.

The question is focus points. Should I be using single point AF or AF point expansion, etc? Typically for landscape, etc I use single point so that is what I am used to.

Before anyone says it I now I am taking a risk going into this without prior experience shooting this type of stuff but the friend knows it is new to me and will very much be a learning experience. The club running the race is just hoping to come away with a few good shots for promo of next year's race.

Any thought and advice will be greatly appreciated.

If by "snow machine," you mean snowmobile, your main challenge is going to be finding locations where you can get clean action images without being sprayed with snow. This is not a trivial consideration. You may want to hang back as far as possible and use the longest lens.

Again, assuming you're going to photograph a snowmobile race, you'll need to learn on the fly how to keep the action tightly framed. For some photographers, this is not automatic or easy.

Yes snow mobiles. Up here we also refer to them as snow machines and/or sleds. It is an oval track, 1/2 mile. 8 laps per race. The spectator area is raised about three feet about the track so it is all going to be downward angle shooting. Unfortunately the infield is fenced with snow fence all around otherwise I would plan for panning shots along the back straightaway.

Have a look at page 77 and 87 of the owners manual for case 4 and the zone system.
Will this be at night?
Best access on circle tracks is usually inside the circle. Outside and above is usually not good. Won't there be a safety fence?

The "safety fence" is a plastic snow fence. I will go up tomorrow and have another look. Daylight race. 12 - 4. I will have a look at those pages. Thanks!

Just offered permission to shoot from the inside. No safety fence so I will need to be ready to run

Should be quite the race. Track looks incredible. Also included a shot of a truck the local Ford dealer wrapped as a promo.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …hwoods_photo/12​241314065/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …hwoods_photo/12​241735124/