Car Sprint Fiji Style

[Stagecoach]

Having had a go at panning cars a couple of months ago I had the chance today to attend a sprint meeting of the Fiji Car Club at a local runway. It's a quarter mile length I believe.

An enjoyable afternoon and although only achieving approx a 5% keeper rate I have certainly learnt more. Weather conditions could not have been worse, brilliant sunshine, roasting hot and a choice of getting the sun directly into the lens or blowing out the cars as they were level with me.

Here's a selection;
1/60, f14, 82mm

1/125, f10, 135mm

1/200, f8, 24mm

1/200, f7.1, 20mm

1/160, f10, 24mm

1/250, f8, 27mm

1/250, f7.1, 62mm


Lessons learnt,

a) Do not choose a position where the cars are accelerating at their greatest rate. The shutter speeds I used to obtain adequate sharpness to deal with this acceleration were to fast to obtain a good background blur. In future go nearer the end of the run for the smoothest panning shots.
b) Close may seem good and fun but I had better results when I used a longer focal length previously.
c) The D300 metering handled the lighting condition superbly in full auto.
d) Wear a cap.

Comments welcome as always.

Grahame

[John 2]

Nice series Graham. Not as easy as you might think is it? I have tried one or two hill climb events and ended up with about a 2% hit rate the first time. I have since worked out that panning to catch up with a car is easier than trying to match its speed. That way the BG moves through the frame more quickly but the car moves only at the rate of catch up.

[Stagecoach]

John,

Thanks for viewing and commenting. You are right, it's not easy and it may be that I'm attempting too much trying to deal with the accelerating period. I took a number of standard panning shots at 1/60s as they returned back down track doing a constant speed and these turned out very well.

Grahame