First Motorsports attempt... (Autocross)

Well, I went out to a local event yesterday and tried my hand at some Autocross. The idea in my mind was to do a bunch of panning shots just to try it out, seeing as how I'm newer to photography, this was also my first attempt at panning.

I read a tutorial by one of the members here on how to shoot motorsports.
It was something along the lines of 1/250 to start with and F/4 to get a good depth of field I believe. There just wasn't enough blur at 1/250 due to the cars going to slow maybe? Also, at 1/100 I had to use a higher F-stop in order to get the somewhat correct lighting.

Any suggestions on what I could/should be doing better? Did I do something wrong? Could I get a better blur in the background by doing something different?

The following seem to be the better of my pictures. Ended up doing a lot of spray and pray

Canon 350D
kit lens

ISO-100, 1/100, F/13, 55mm

nice panning. I have not shot any all white cars before, makes it kinda brutal on the expose

I think those are really good shots. I would suggest you shoot in shutter priority (Tv) mode though, not full manual. This will set the aperture for you and be one less thing to worry about.

-Scott

Well, thank for the compliments.

I searched through the motorsports section for other panning shots just to see the settings other people used. I may just try around 1/100 and maybe work my way down for these slower vehicles.

Thanks for the tip Swalter. I'll try that out.

Man those shots are sharp. JPEG or RAW?

Shot it in JPEG because I only have a 512mb card. I didn't want to keep running home to empty the card. That and I went out shooting for myself just to have some fun and to learn my camera better.

Very good for first try......

I will be trying out my camera for the first time ( 30D and 70-200 IS lens ) Saturday at a small road course event around Edmonton. I hope I can get some decent shots.... hoping the sun comes out too..... too much dam rain.

Panning with trees or sky is ok..... but the buildings ... signs distorted ... not sure on that for background.

I will be taking some autocross shots around here later in the summer.

practice and more practice...... that god it is with digital and not film... ha ha.

Brian