***Official Photo of the Day*** -- CARS

[johnrando]

Great pic!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[704sw]

Great pic!

Thanks, John!

How does one get such sharp shots? Is it the lens and panning? I don't think my shorts ever get that sharp. But I heard this lens gets pretty soft after ~150mm.

It's definitely the panning and nailing down the tracking speed. All the ones I'm going to post from this race are handheld, between 100 and 200 ISO except the paddock pictures, and range between 1/125th and 1/250th of a second. Marcin, are you using continuous autofocus? Single-point autofocus or multipoint? Multipoint might be throwing the camera off as you pan, and if you're not in continuous focus that'll definitely make a difference.

Lenses certainly can soften as you reach the minimum and maximum focal lengths, just as they are softer at their min. and max. aperture. I try not to stop down past f/11 or so, if possible, because I know this lens gets soft at f/16, but I don't hesitate to shoot at any focal length in the range. I'd speculate it's just practicing the panning technique (shooting at my track events has been really good practice for the big boy races, and I can tell a big difference between my pictures from last year and this year).

I try to pick one car for each pass (2 -3 cars if there's a good train of cars), and I track it in through the viewfinder long before I'm ready to shoot. That helps me match my panning speed with that of the car. I also try to pick something on the car to be what I'm tracking--usually the car's number, or some part of the livery with good contrast that I can see easily.

As I've gotten better I've also been more comfortable zooming in tighter on the cars while shooting rather than trying to crop in tight afterwards. Sure I'll have some pictures where part of the car is out of frame, but those are increasingly less common. My camera is only 12mp, so I lose a lot of resolution if I have to crop a lot. Letting your lens "do the cropping" will always be sharper than removing pixels.

[holyc0w]

It's definitely the panning and nailing down the tracking speed. All the ones I'm going to post from this race are handheld, between 100 and 200 ISO except the paddock pictures, and range between 1/125th and 1/250th of a second. Marcin, are you using continuous autofocus? Single-point autofocus or multipoint? Multipoint might be throwing the camera off as you pan, and if you're not in continuous focus that'll definitely make a difference.

Lenses certainly can soften as you reach the minimum and maximum focal lengths, just as they are softer at their min. and max. aperture. I try not to stop down past f/11 or so, if possible, because I know this lens gets soft at f/16, but I don't hesitate to shoot at any focal length in the range. I'd speculate it's just practicing the panning technique (shooting at my track events has been really good practice for the big boy races, and I can tell a big difference between my pictures from last year and this year).

Automatic AF or Continuous AF - automatic should kick it to continuous if it detects a moving subject I believe. The autofocus did seem to be playing up a bit, focusing on the wrong stuff at the wrong time.

I set it to shutter speed priority, so the only thing I set is the shutter speed and rarely EV adjustment.

I try to pick one car for each pass (2 -3 cars if there's a good train of cars), and I track it in through the viewfinder long before I'm ready to shoot. That helps me match my panning speed with that of the car. I also try to pick something on the car to be what I'm tracking--usually the car's number, or some part of the livery with good contrast that I can see easily.

As I've gotten better I've also been more comfortable zooming in tighter on the cars while shooting rather than trying to crop in tight afterwards. Sure I'll have some pictures where part of the car is out of frame, but those are increasingly less common. My camera is only 12mp, so I lose a lot of resolution if I have to crop a lot. Letting your lens "do the cropping" will always be sharper than removing pixels.

Yep, I've been trying to do the same focusing on one car, though I've found it rough tracking as they fly by right in front of me. I did get greedy a few times with bad results. Near 210mm (315mm FF comparative) seems impossible up close.

I guess 24MP should give me more fudge factor comparatively, which I'm sure I'll need.

Does a shot like this require panning?
https://flic.kr/p/29WwCdR

[704sw]

Automatic AF or Continuous AF - automatic should kick it to continuous if it detects a moving subject I believe. The autofocus did seem to be playing up a bit, focusing on the wrong stuff at the wrong time.

I set it to shutter speed priority, so the only thing I set is the shutter speed and rarely EV adjustment.

Maybe try forcing it into continuous with single point? I also tend to underexpose by -0.3 to -0.7, as you can also lighten shadows but you can never darken clipped highlights.

Yep, I've been trying to do the same focusing on one car, though I've found it rough tracking as they fly by right in front of me. I did get greedy a few times with bad results. Near 210mm (315mm FF comparative) seems impossible up close.

I guess 24MP should give me more fudge factor comparatively, which I'm sure I'll need.

Does a shot like this require panning?
https://flic.kr/p/29WwCdR

Nope, that shot is all about the quick shutter. I guarantee they prefocused for a spot on the track and did a burst as Bamber took the 912 through that corner. I tried a couple similar pictures of the Porsche Cup cars, but I haven’t gone through them yet.

Is your camera mirrorless or does it have a viewfinder? I couldn’t imagine panning with a camera like my parents’ Sony NEX.

[holyc0w]

Maybe try forcing it into continuous with single point? I also tend to underexpose by -0.3 to -0.7, as you can also lighten shadows but you can never darken clipped highlights.

Is that possible? Is that the focus area setting?

Is your camera mirrorless or does it have a viewfinder? I couldn’t imagine panning with a camera like my parents’ Sony NEX.

Both, mirrorless with electronic viewfinder

[704sw]

Is that possible? Is that the focus area setting?

Should be an option, or at least I’d certainly hope so.

I also had a thought just now—Sony has image stabilization built into the body, right? I wonder if panning is making the stabilization freak out. Have you tried turning it off, or checking to see if there are multiple stabilization modes? For example on Canon and Nikon there’s usually 2 IS/VR modes, one which stabilized on both X and Y axis, and mode 2 only stabilizes on the Y axis (perfect for panning).

[holyc0w]

Should be an option, or at least I’d certainly hope so.

I'll have to check, but I don't think there is a single point focus. I watched a video and learned about a new focus mode(flexible spot lock-on)....which my camera doesn't have.

I also had a thought just now—Sony has image stabilization built into the body, right? I wonder if panning is making the stabilization freak out. Have you tried turning it off, or checking to see if there are multiple stabilization modes? For example on Canon and Nikon there’s usually 2 IS/VR modes, one which stabilized on both X and Y axis, and mode 2 only stabilizes on the Y axis (perfect for panning).

Not this one. It's in the newer more expensive models. It might've been the weather and the automatic autofocus. Next time, I'll do continuous only.

[704sw]

Okay, Marcin, I did some digging online and here are my suggestions for the a6000, which is the camera you have based on the info tab on Flickr:

-Keep “Lock-On” turned off

-Force the camera into AF-C. It defaults to AF-A which will shift from AF-S to AF-C on its own, but that’s going to take a second to process and to do that. It’s fine if you’re taking pictures of a toddler running around the backyard, but when race cars are blitzing past at 150mph+ you don’t have time to wait for the camera to think. Keep it in AF-C

-Set the focus area to “Flexible Spot” mode. From there you can set the location and size of the single spot from large to small, I’d go medium or small, but I’d need to actually look through your viewfinder to know for sure. The smaller the spot, the more precise it will be.

-Spot placement is key for composition and your ability to pan. I like to keep the AF point in the center. I know that sounds backwards from ideal composition (you want more space in front of a car than behind a car, so it looks like the car has “space to move”) but I find I’m more likely to get the entire car in the frame that way. I’d rather fix composition by cropping on the computer than risk chopping off the back of the car. But if you keep it in “Flexible Spot” instead of “Center” you still have the ability to adjust the spot to where you pan and track the best, which for you might not be in the dead center.

I hope that helps!

[holyc0w]

I hope that helps!

Roger

Vertically my shots are usually centered, but horizontally depending on the timing the subject could be either left, center, or right.

[holyc0w]

Picked out a few (too many) shots from the first day (Friday) of the race weekend. I wanted to go through all 3 days, but it took pretty long to go through this one alone.

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