Hello from a newbie!

Hi all,

I finally built up the courage to join the forum. I shoot mainly glamour stuff and rarely get a chance to shoot motorsports. This set is from the ALMS at Road America. First try with a 300mm f2.8 + 1.4 extender, and Rebel could not process the files fast enough! Let me know what you think.

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Hey Alex,

I never seen a 300 + 1.4 on a Rebel before. I bet that was a handful.

Your shots are nice and crisp. Good going there.

Normally you want to slow the shutter speed down and pan with the cars. The Flying Lizard Porsche you almost got it, but the rest of them are a little too static. You can get away with that if you do some real tight crops and you don't see much of the tires or the background. Usually around 1/160 or slower will give you more motion blur and depending on the speed of the cars, usually 1/250 will blur the wheels fairly nicely, but not hide the background as much.

I used to have an XT and it couldn't lock focus quick enough and the frame rate too slow so I know what you're going through.

So you borrowed or rented the 300? If so, it would have been hard for me to return it.

As above the FL Porsche is the best shot. The other static shots have distracting backgrounds.

sastein wrote in post #6921400
Hey Alex,

I never seen a 300 + 1.4 on a Rebel before. I bet that was a handful.

Your shots are nice and crisp. Good going there.

Normally you want to slow the shutter speed down and pan with the cars. The Flying Lizard Porsche you almost got it, but the rest of them are a little too static. You can get away with that if you do some real tight crops and you don't see much of the tires or the background. Usually around 1/160 or slower will give you more motion blur and depending on the speed of the cars, usually 1/250 will blur the wheels fairly nicely, but not hide the background as much.

I used to have an XT and it couldn't lock focus quick enough and the frame rate too slow so I know what you're going through.

So you borrowed or rented the 300? If so, it would have been hard for me to return it.

Thanks for the feedback.
The 300 was rented, and yes it was very hard to return it. Yeah, the poor Rebel had smoke coming out of it by the time the race was over!!
The year before I rented a 70-200mm 2.8L and got really good panning results (like you said) around 1/160 or so. My focus this time was getting close into the corners. Thanks again.

Welcome to POTN

Alex,

Yeah, coming out of the turns with a long lens is tough getting a slow enough shutter speed and still have some features in focus due to the rotation of the car. I'm still practicing that with the 400mm and I try to stick the center point focus on the grill if they're coming at me almost head on or on the driver if it's an open cockpit car.

Indy cars (and I imagine F1 cars) you can get away with a bit faster shutter speed but the background still will be too much in focus.

As for the XTi, there's some great shots I've seen from people who post here and other sites using the Rebels, so it's not all frame rate that gets the good shot. I have both a 5D and 30D, so I tend to use the 30D for the long lens and the 5D for the 70-200.

Jamie Holladay wrote in post #6925598
Welcome to POTN

Thanks.

sastein wrote in post #6929470
Alex,

Yeah, coming out of the turns with a long lens is tough getting a slow enough shutter speed and still have some features in focus due to the rotation of the car. I'm still practicing that with the 400mm and I try to stick the center point focus on the grill if they're coming at me almost head on or on the driver if it's an open cockpit car.

Indy cars (and I imagine F1 cars) you can get away with a bit faster shutter speed but the background still will be too much in focus.

As for the XTi, there's some great shots I've seen from people who post here and other sites using the Rebels, so it's not all frame rate that gets the good shot. I have both a 5D and 30D, so I tend to use the 30D for the long lens and the 5D for the 70-200.

Steve,

I'm not dissing the Rebel. It's a great camera for what it is, and I get great results with my glamour photography. It was just funny. In continuous shooting mode after about 4 frames, the camera would not let me take another shot until the buffer was finished! After a while, I got tired of waiting, so I went back to single frame shooting.

No worries, Alex. Just think if and when you upgrade to a new camera the latest have bigger buffers in them.

You're giving me ideas about renting a 500mm for Sebring this year. Where did you rent your 300 from?

Not bad!

sastein wrote in post #6935734
No worries, Alex. Just think if and when you upgrade to a new camera the latest have bigger buffers in them.

You're giving me ideas about renting a 500mm for Sebring this year. Where did you rent your 300 from?

I rented the lens from Calumet Photo here in Chicago. 500mm? Can't wait to see those. Which race at Sebring?

vermaak wrote in post #6922343
As above the FL Porsche is the best shot. The other static shots have distracting backgrounds.

+ 1 on the Porsche shot.

AxxisPhoto wrote in post #6938734
I rented the lens from Calumet Photo here in Chicago. 500mm? Can't wait to see those. Which race at Sebring?

ALMS http://www.sebringrace​way.com/12hour.lasso March 18-21. My in-laws have a winter home in Sebring, so lodging will be cheap.

sastein wrote in post #6947564
ALMS http://www.sebringrace​way.com/12hour.lasso March 18-21. My in-laws have a winter home in Sebring, so lodging will be cheap.

Damn! I'm so jealous! I'd love to shoot the 12 hours of Sebring race. Good luck, and post those images up!

Thanks for the link to this thread from mine Alex.

You've captured some great photo's there Alex, especially based on your limited motorsport photography experience (based on your comments above, not the quality of your photo's I will just add).

For me, #2 with the two Audi R10 chasing each other is great. #3 with the Corvette head on, and #4 with the Aston Vantage being chased down by the RS Spyder is also very good.

The pan of the Flying Lizard Porsche is very nice though - a very sharp image, with good wheel and background blur.

You certainly made good work of the 300mm f2.8 Canon lens & extender on your Rebel. Overall a very nice set to look through

Good job on the racing shots.