eos 20d action settings

hello I am new here and this is my first post . I apologize if this topic has been up before , but I couldnt find it . I have had my canon eos 20d for a few months . I am having trouble with motorsports action shots , mostly monster trucks. I am using the ef-s18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens , shutter 1/50 focal lenght 55mm , f/5.6 , iso 200 . most of the shots are blurred , on others the body of the truck is in focus but the tires and background are not . I have tried panning with the truck and a few other things but seem to always get the same result . I tried to post a pic to show you an example , but I am not sure it worked ? Any tips or help you could give would be greatly appreciated . thank you

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Welcome to the board Markham. You need a little faster shutter speed. 1/100 will work better. Closing the aperture down to f/8 will sharpen the picture up a bit as well. To get these settings to work you are going to have to turn the ISO up a notch or two.

Thanks for the help ! Maybe an iso of 400 would be better ? Do you know of a good book or dvd available that might help me with some of these questions ? thanks again

The good advice over in the motorsports forum is free.

You need to study up on Depth of Field and Motion Blur - these are the two factors that are impacting your photographs the most. DDan's advice is good - but you also need to understand why it's good.

Mark

For action/sports type shots typically you want to isolate the subject from the background. This means longer focal length lens with larger apertures. As a general rule shoot sports like the big boys (news photogs), wide open. At 55mm wide open is 5.6 ... which is still way too much DOF for a "great" shot .. but the best you can do using the equipment you have.

1/100 is also way slow of a shutter speed ... I think the minimum shutter speed for fast moving trucks will be at least 1/250 to 1/500. To attain that speed you'll probably need ISO 1600.

I suggest this methodology-
You need to shoot in manual or AV. Let's just talk manual ... set your shutter to 1/250 and your aperture to wide open (extend your zoom to 55mm then open it up). Then adjust your ISO until your meter is centered. Shoot a couple of test shots, check your histogram, enlarge an image on the LCD and look for sharpness. If the image is still blurry (as opposed to OOF), then do the above again this time with the shutter at 1/500.

I shoot a lot of sports. Remember the higher the ISO the more noise (grain) you will have. Many post processing programs will have noise reduction capabilities and there are programs which all they do is noise reduction. I strongly recommend shooting in RAW for easier color correction.

There are many ways to attain proper metering ... I just suggest one method.

Gary

PS- Not a bad pan though.
G

I think that's pretty good considering the lens and shutter speeds. Please be aware that the tires are probably rotating faster than the truck is moving, so even with perfect panning, they will probably be blurred. The blurred background and wheels/tires help impart a sense of motion to the shot.