Help Photographing Running Race

Hi - I am new to Photo.net and am looking for some advice re: a road

race I have been hired to photograph. I have a D70 with a 24-120 3.5-

5.6 lens. In practicing, I am having difficulty getting the auto-

focus to work when someone runs by me -- I can only get a focused

pic. when standing face-to-face with the runner. Any suggestions? I

also have to begin photographing at dawn and am wondering whether I

should use a flash or push the ISO higher (I am worried about the

noise in anything higher than 200!). Thanks for any help.

Suzanne,

you should have reasonable noise at 800 or below with the D70. Experiment prior to the race to see how your camera does. If you object to the amount of noise you're getting at 800 but still need that kind of ISO to get good exposures, I'd suggest getting Neat Image or Noise Ninja. These programs do wonders in eliminating noise at higher ISO settings.

 

As for the focus, make sure your camera is set for continuous auto-focus. Then set your AF type to lock on (not sure of the specific setting on the D70 - read the manual). This will allow the camera to establish focus on your subject and adjust as you pan with the runner's change in distance-to-camera. Unlike the single-servo setting, it doesn't require the camera to establish focus before the shutter fires. Continuous is the best setting for sports and moving subjects. Combine that with shooting at shutter speed of around 1/180 or faster and you should get better results.

You're probably okay at least up to ISO 800. Dan's other suggestions above are good too.

 

Runners can go by you faster than you may think and the camera may not be able to keep up. I haven't tried your specific camera/lens combination. The newer AF-S 24-120 should focus quickly. If your AF can lock-on well, try locking it as soon as possible. If you try to lock onto a runner as they are going by, you're too late. I've shot runners with a 70-200 AF-S VR (a very fast-focusing lens) an it can be tricky.

 

Another thing you can do is pre-focus on a specific point manually. Shoot when a runner hits that point (better yet, fire a half a pace before).

 

You can use flash, and in some cases you should (that's another topic). However, you still need to keep your shutter speed high (probably at least 1/250 sec. if the runners are coming straight at you) to reduce or eliminate motion blur. Fortunately, the D70 will sync up to 1/500 sec. IIRC.

I'm betting the D70 can keep up. The tricky bit is figuring out the optimal AF mode. I'm not as familiar with the D70, having handled 'em only in camera shops, but my D2H has a baffling array of autofocusing options. After a year of almost daily use I'm still honing my skills, trying to determine which AF option works best for a given situation.

 

If you have access to little kids, recruit one to help you practice. I borrow my nephews and nieces, or just practice on 'em while they're playing outdoors. A 6-year-old at play is one of the most difficult targets for an AF camera. At least runners in road races go in one direction.

No reason the D70 wouldn't be able to keep up. I used a D100 for a couple of years (with an 80-200) to shoot hockey games and it did a good job of maintaining focus. The D70 has (I believe) the same AF engine. The only question here is how fast your lens will keep up, but unless the light is reallyt poor, you should be OK.

Thanks for all your help - you guys are great! I have another question re: flash. I have an SB-600 flash and if I need to use it during the early morning hours, should I use standard TTL or TTL-BL (fill flash) or does it not matter? Thanks!

One other tip - it's easier for the camera to keep up with focus if you start framing and focussing before the runner fills the frame and you take the shot. Use the long end of your lens, so that the runner is further away when you shoot. The closer you let the runner get, the faster the camera has to move the lens focussing elements.

Either will work, but for outside with reasonable natural light, I'd use the balanced fill flash. It should give you a natural look rather than a blown out effect. Again, experiment a little in advance of the race if you can.

Thanks again. This may be a stupid Q, but if I focus on a specific spot before the runner enters the frame, how will it be the correct focus for the runner? Won't it only focus on the object that is in the frame before the runner enters and possibly be an incorrect focus for the runner?

Suzanne, I can speak only from experience with my D2H and SB-800 but it might help you when trying to decide on how to use flash in daylight conditions.

 

In balanced fill flash mode the exposure is usually accurate. You might have to adjust the EV on the flash a little to suit conditions - reflectivity of the subject, distance, etc. The farther away the subject the less accurate iTTL-BL becomes. It tends to overexpose so I'll crank the EV down to somewhere from -1 to -2.

 

However, the problem with using full auto mode, P on the camera and iTTL-BL on the flash, is that the camera tends to default to slow shutter speeds. When shooting sports you usually want faster shutter speeds, unless you want to exercise some creativity and use motion blur to convey a sense of speed.

 

The best way to handle this in most situations is to use either Manual mode on the camera or Shutter Priority. The D70 can sync with flash at higher shutter speeds with less effort than even my D2H, which tops out at 1/250. While the D2H can sync up to the maximum shutter speed evaluating flash requires very careful consideration - it's not a point and shoot affair.

 

Set your shutter speed to a setting suitable for the available light and the focal length of your lens. The rule of thumb is that to minimize the effects of camera shake use a shutter speed that roughly corresponds with the focal length: 1/30 for a wide angle, 1/60 for a 50mm lens, 1/250 for a 200mm lens, and so on.

 

If you want to freeze the action regardless of focal length, you'll need to shoot at around 1/250 at the slowest. As the day goes on and the light becomes brighter you can adjust the shutter speed to a faster setting.

 

The problem with using flash, especially outdoors in daylight, is that unless the shutter speed is fast enough you'll get ghosting. You can think of it as a sort of double exposure in a single shot - action frozen by the short duration burst of flash, and subject blur due to using a slow shutter speed to balance flash with ambient light.

 

There's no simple way to compensate for this problem. And it's trickiest when photographing action at dawn or dusk, or indoor sports in poorly illuminated gyms and areanas, which is typical of high schools and semi-pro venues.

 

You can crank up the shutter speed to eliminate the risk of ghosting. However the background and surroundings will be underexposed. This may not matter, tho'. In some cases the effect is rather dramatic. But it works best in very dark conditions, at dawn and dusk outdoors, because there are often fewer reflective objects cluttering the background.

 

But in gyms there's a lot of clutter and usually a lot of people in the background. It can look pretty ugly. So using flash indoors can be an all-or-none proposition. If we're going to use flash we might as well go all out and light up the joint with lots of flash to completely negate the effects of ambient lighting.

 

Shooting a road race outdoors you won't have this problem. But to ensure an adequately fast shutter speed early in the day you'll probably need to set the ISO to 800. As the daylight brightens adjust it downward. Cranking up the ISO is a mixed blessing. It gives us greater flexibility but noise increases. I don't mind the noise that resembles film grain (luminance noise) but the ugly random greenish and reddish splotches (chroma or color noise) have got to go. I'll use a noise reduction utility like Noise Ninja which lets me selectively reduce chroma noise while leaving luminance noise alone. The problem with using too much correction of luminance noise is that it softens essential detail and makes the photo appear unnaturally smooth, with plasticky looking skin.

 

Okay, that's probably way more information than you wanted or needed. And I need another cuppa coffee. Good luck.

Suzanne, Here's a shot that was taken single area af, the infocus indicator lit up,it was at 1000/f.8 with a 180 2.8 so the camera will keep up.If you could give us some more info as to your setting or post a pic it would help. As the others have said, go out and try this with a car or child. Then try the dynamic af, if the runner is coming from left to right thru your viewfinder, place the highlight on the left indicator in the viewfinder and when he gets partway in the frame, hold down the shutter half way and it will track him. It's not very bright at dawn so you may have to light them up, the built in flash works well, if you can postion yourself between the rising sun and the runners and experiment with your flash you'll be ok. Dont' be afraid of bracketing. Good luck

"Should I use standard TTL or TTL-BL (fill flash) or does it not matter?"

 

This depends on whether you want the flash to fill-in (TTL-BL) or be the key light (TTL). TTL-BL adds some flash exposure compensation (~-0.7 EV) while trying to balance subject and background. TTL doesn't add exposure compensation and it makes less effort to balance the flash with the background.

 

At dawn or dusk, you may want to use the flash as the key light in TTL. During the day, for contrast and shadow reduction, you probably want just a little fill (TTL-BL). You could use TTL for everything, just dial it down for fill (-0.7 to -1.7 EV or to taste).

 

"If I focus on a specific spot before the runner enters the frame, how will it be the correct focus for the runner?"

 

It's simple, but requires a little practice. Focus at a spot where you know the runner will be. When the runner gets to that spot, fire. Anticipate, fire a fraction of a second early, use a smaller aperture for greater depth of field.

 

That said, autofocus tracking, if possible, gives you more creative options. You may be able to get two or more shots of each runner. I would practice using some of the suggestions in the posts above to get that working well as my first concern. Pre-focusing is a great back-up technique for when the situation requires or the technology fails.

You've gotten a lot of good advice - just a couple of other items:

 

Shooting early in the morning suggests this is a marathon or longer? In which case the runners should be moving reasonably slowly, except maybe for the leaders. If you can, I recommend stationing yourself on an uphill stretch, where they are likely to be going even slower, although this is secondary to composition of the photograph. I have a photograph of myself in a race, taken early in the morning in a very long race, at the top of a steep hill. I don't think the photographer had any trouble finding the focus. Anyway, the point is, the slower they are moving, the wider you will open the aperture and the more DOF you will have, which will help.

 

As for your last question, I have done something like what you suggest. When taking pictures, e.g., of the vault in a gymnastics meet, I use the autofocus to focus on someone standing right behind the buck, and then turn it off. I now have the lens focussed at the distance to a gymnast in the middle of her vault. It works better than trying to pan with autofocus, especially when I am standing right behind the buck and don't really see them unti they get right up to the buck. So you could ask a spectator to stand in the road where you want to shoot the runner, focus on the spectator, then switch to manual focus and you will be fine as long as you don't move and the runners pass by where you expect. I think that was the question you were asking?

 

At a long race, be sure to catch some of the low-lights at the finish, e.g., people barfing. That's the part the runners remember.

If it's a marathon you should have little problems with the D70. Recently I shot some images of a marathon running through my neighborhood. Your pictures will be infinatly better with fill flash to rid yourself of those nasty shadows around the eyes.

Suzanne wrote, "Hi - I am new to Photo.net and am looking for some advice re: a road race... I have a D70 with a 24-120 3.5- 5.6 ["streetsweeper"] lens. In practicing, I am having difficulty getting the auto- focus to work when someone runs by me -- I can only get a focused pic. when standing face-to-face with the runner."

 

 

And I'll bet you have the VR (vibration reduction) lens, and it's not focusing because you have it turned on: As it turns out, VR lenses don't like to pan (or to be on a tripod!), so you want to switch VR **OFF** for these kind of shots.

 

 

I'm surprised Lex missed this one!

"And I'll bet you have the VR (vibration reduction) lens, and it's not focusing because you have it turned on: As it turns out, VR lenses don't like to pan (or to be on a tripod!), so you want to switch VR **OFF** for these kind of shots.

 

"I'm surprised Lex missed this one!"

 

Maybe Lex "missed" it because it is incorrect (except for the tripod part). VR lenses are designed to pan in Normal VR mode, the only mode that the 24-120 has. Normal VR tries to damp the up and down motion of shaky hands. It's the active mode that will try to fight the panning because it also tries to damp horizontal motion.

Hmm? Sorry, I was napping. ;>

 

The 24-120 VR is just about perfect for this kind of shooting. Daylight is bright enough the slowish variable aperture won't matter. Only a midrange zoom is usually needed and this lens has a bit more reach than most midrange zooms.

 

Immediately after buying the lens I spent a couple of hours panning with a dog playing frisbee, passing cars, etc. By this time the light was fading and I was shooting at 1/30-1/60 second. It handles the panning very well while minimizing the up/down shakes that look so peculiar in blurred backgrounds. I wish I'd saved a sample photo from that session but I had to clear out the clutter from my hard drive.

 

From Volume 11 of Nikon's full product catalog:

 

"Automatic panning detection: Panning is automatically detected and compensated by VR."

 

I was skeptical. I tried it in the shop for about an hour before buying, tracking and photographing people as they walked around the shop (the owner walks very briskly). I also panned with cars moved outside. It works.

 

The catalog says the 80-400 VR is also designed for panning. I didn't test it as thoroughly but it seemed to work on passing cars. The big three VR bombs, the 200/2, 300/2.8 and 200-400/4 all claim to handle panning well. I'm too shy to ask for a demo when there's no way in hell I can afford those three.

 

Altho' the catalog doesn't specify panning detection as a feature, the 70-200/2.8 VR handles it very well. While the lens has two VR modes I found only the standard mode useful. The "active" mode has no visible effect on damping through the viewfinder. Since my hands aren't very steady, if the view through the finder appears steady, I'm steadier. If the view is shaking, I overcompensate and cause blur.

 

I was steady as a rock when I was younger and participated in rifle and handgun shooting matches and did well in offhand stages. But I haven't been able to do that for several years. Maybe Nikon will come out with a VR riflescope. That would be a trick to design, tho', to stand up to recoil.