Photographing high speed subject

[va_connoisseur]

Greetings All,

 

I am new to the forum and Digital SLRs. I have recently purchased a D50 body.

The lenses I currently have are 28-80, 70-300 and a 18-200, all Nikkor, AF,

non-VR lenses. I am looking for suggestions for a lens to shot RC cars. For

those that don't know, these cars are about 18inches long, run on asphalt tracks

outdoors. So there will be plenty of natural light. Their speeds range from

18-25 mph in the tight corners to over 65mph on the longer straight aways.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[bruce_margolis]

How close are you to the cars? Do you use a tripod? Do you use a flash? Are you looking for a wider or longer lens? BTW, are you sure the 18-200 is not VR?

[bill_clark___minnetonka_mi]

Do you want to show movement with your images?

[bruce_margolis]

Guess I should have asked why you don't feel your current lenses will work. Also, do you have a budget in mind? Even better, do you know what focal length you would like to work with?

[va_connoisseur]

The 18-200 is the new Tamron. Don't believe it has vibration redux. Range will vary from 5 to 20 meters. The furtherest away when they are exiting the corners heading down the back straight towards me, where they will be reaching top speed. Since I am outdoors, will not use a flash. I want to show motion on the high speed and stop action in the corners.

 

Thanks for your suggestions. Like I said, I'm pretty new at this. My thoughts were:

 

Shutter - 1/800

F14

ISO - 200

 

For sunny days. Increasing the shutter speed for the corner section to stop the motion completely.

[bruce_margolis]

Sorry, I thought you were talking about the Nikon 18-200. Also, I thought you might be looking for a prime lens but if your range is 5-20 meters, that's pretty big.

 

Since you are outside, why won't your current 18-200 work for you? Another possibility, you could kick up the ISO if necessary. There are faster lenses, of course, but then you need to decide how much you are willing to spend.

[ShunCheung]

The Tamron 18-200mm is f6.3 on the 200mm end. At f6.3, AF is going to be very iffy, especially without AF-S and the body is a D50.

 

While you might not need to shoot at f2.8, a lens that let a lot more light in will greatly assist focusing, be it manual or AF.

 

James' situation is somewhat limited by his equipment. It might work fine as the way it is, but a body and a lens that have better AF capability will likely help shooting high-speed subjects.

[bruce_margolis]

Ah, I think I finally got the picture of this. Outdoors with good light but tiny subjects that move at an outrageous speed.

 

I don't think I would even bother with the 18-200. At only 5 meters, you could just about fill the frame with one car at 200mm. At 20 meters, you could probably fill the whole track.

 

I would try to make the best of the 70-300. Even stopped down as much as possible, it still probably won't be fast enough but hopefully you could increase your ISO to make up for some of that.

 

Another choice, pick up the Nikon 200-400VR. It's a bit of a monster lens but it is faster and the range sounds ideal. It will set you back about $5,000(US) but you would have photos that would be the envy of everyone.

[va_connoisseur]

Shun is there a lens you would suggest? And keep in mind, my camera is hobby so a $2000 pro lens is not what I am looking for. I respect you guys that make a living with your cameras but this for me is a hobby.

[ShunCheung]

First of all, I have no experience shooting small model race cars. I would imagine that it can be very challenging even for the best AF camera such as a D2H.

 

I would rather not recommend something for a situation that I am not familiar with. To get the best AF Nikon has to offer, you will be talking about some D2 and a fast AF-S lens. You might be able to find a used D2H around $1000, but everything else is going to be expensive.

 

So why don't you give what you already have a try first? It might give you good enough results. If not, it'll depend on how much you are willing to spend.

[carl_becker2]

I shoot large RC planes with the slow focusing Nikkor 180 AF-D. I usally use Ap priority because I want DoF while panning and try to capture the moment. You might try this or find a predetermined focus point and capture the moment when the object arrives. Sounds like you will be changing shutter speeds to show motion or freeze action. Continious fire may be of some benifit also.

 

Carl

[va_connoisseur]

Thanks, Shun. I bought the camera more for travel and vacation pics but since the track opened not far from my house I figured I would give it a shot. I will take some photos over the weekend and let you all know what my experience was. It the shutterbug bites me, maybe I will step up the equipment.

[bsd230]

That would be the best thing in good light you can get away with slower lenses. Try what you have and then if it's not working we can suggest some other options. One that comes to mind would be the Sigma 70-200 2.8, its fast and good for action shots.

[mark u]

I suspect the trick here is to locate yourself on the inside of a bend near the centre of the curve radius so that the cars will be at a distance from the camera that changes much less. Pre-focus on the track. Pan with the cars using your 70-300, following through with the pan as you press the shutter button. You'll need to experiment a little with shutter speed and aperture, but don't use too fast a shutter speed, otherwise it will look as though the car is parked for a modelling shot - a little background blur due to panning motion and some blur in the wheels will give your shots much more impact. Shoot from a low angle so it doesn't seem as though you are in a helicopter. Try to frame so that there is some space in front of the car, but with the car otherwide filling much of the frame, and with either a side on or three quarter profile front view. This kind of shooting requires a lot of practice, but persevere and you'll get some great shots.

 

For shots down the straight, focus manually where the cars will be slowing up as they approach the corner, and time your shot so the car is caught as it reaches the pre-focus zone (requires pressing the shutter slightly in advance - and again practice will help). Again, try to fill the frame from a low angle and allow a little motion blur. Don't attempt to shoot the cars at the far end of the track.

[sandra_schaffer]

At 20 meters you don't NEED AF.. you can just focus at infinity and go or am I missing something?

[frank uhlig]

Is there any penalty for not "just trying" this yourself, James?

 

If the pics come out blurry, you need to up ISO, in order to use faster shutter speeds. If they still come out blurry, you need to use flash to stop the motion. (But I wonder if you really want that; then you might as well just position your cars and shoot them standing.)

 

So what you really need to learn and practise for realistic partly blurred shots is to pan your camera! Set it on a monopod and learn keeping the cars in your viewfinder (this will take some weeks to perfect!) and let the burst mode run in Continuous Focus mode and then learn some more.

 

New lenses are not warranted unless you see a need after a lengthy training period for you.

Good luck and learn well!

[va_connoisseur]

No penalty for trying, Frank. Just want to accelerate the learning curve with some suggestions from the pros (or at least folks with more experience them me). The info from Mark U would have taken me a month of weekends to learn. Now I have a better idea of where to start. But with any hobby, the learning is the fun part.

[sam_thompson2]

"At 20 meters you don't NEED AF.. you can just focus at infinity and go or am I missing something?"

 

If you want to fill the frame with the car, you have to shoot with a long lens. Long lens at 20 meters means narrow depth of field.

 

65 mph for a 1/10 scale car will be over 600 miles per hour in terms of scale speed. Filling a frame with an RC car will be like filling a race car that can go 600 miles an hour.

[va_connoisseur]

FYI: 65 mph for a 1/10 scale car is the same as 65 mph in a Buick on I-95. Think of it like a sparrow flying 30mph and a Hawk flying 30 mph.

[klix]

TRAP FOCUS. I don't have a D50, so i don't know exactly which buttons to set, but here's the idea:

 

1) Lens must be on autofocus.

 

2) Body must be set to autofocus.

 

3) Set AE-L/AF-L to "AF"

 

4) Set AF-Area mode to "Single Area"

 

5) Maximize DOF by shooting a smaller apertures.

 

6) Compose by focusing on s specific target on the track, then press the AE-L/AF-L button near the viewfinder. This will set the lens into focus.

 

7) Press and hold down the shutter release button.

 

8) As soon as a car something gets into the trap focus range, the shutter will fire.

 

For other effects, you might want to mount a flash unit and drag your shutter.

 

Good luck.

 

KL

[tatephotography]

Yes the absolute speed is the same (65mph), but a frame filling shot would be harder due to the greater speed ~relative~ to the size of the object. Think in further extremes... a full frame shot of 747 at 65mph is easy, a full frame shot of baseball at 65mph is nearly impossible.

 

If you want to use the Buick analogy, shooting the 1/10 scale car at full frame would be like getting the tire of the Buick full frame at 65mph. It's possible, but you need fast everything to improve your chances, and even then it would be a slim chance that everything would fall into place perfectly.

 

The way I see it is you have two options. Get as close as possible to the track, and as low to the ground as you can and use your 28-80 to pan with the cars. Knowing that a full frame will not be possible, but a full track shot is more doable. Or if your AF is up to the task (I doubt it is), try the same low angle but in the straight away head on.

 

You will probably want to shoot at 1/60 or 1/125 or so to have some blur on the panning shots.

 

Ultimately though you are looking at what is probably one of the hardest action type of shots out there. Small things moving quickly. I don't think it gets any harder than what you are trying to do. And on top of that you are using a slow focusing and slow FPS camera, with slow focusing and slow aperture lenses.

 

You are fighting a very steep uphill battle in a headwind with the sun in your eyes. Pre-focus on the track try different shutter speeds, be prepared to shoot hundreds of photos to get 3 or 4 good ones.

 

Best advice: know the limitations of your equipment. Then push them right to the edge of what they can do.

[va_connoisseur]

You guys are great. I have a ton of suggestions to get me started in the right direction. And the baseball analogy is perfect, trying to catch a baseball in flight full frame would be difficult.

[jay_hector]

You have all the tools right now to shoot award-winning magazine-quality photos of RC cars racing. What you lack and need to acquire is technique. Technique comes from practice and research, not from VR, AF or flash. All an RC race is, is a Formula 1 race in reduced scale (regardless of what body is on an RC car). The first step is to go right here on photo.net to where Bob Atkins (IIRC) has an article on how to shoot auto racing, and then search the 'net for similar articles (there are plenty). The information you find will lead you to the technical skills needed. You will need to practice the skills you have to develop, such as panning, and you don't even have to leave the property where you live to practice panning. You have an endless supply of cars going by in front of your house to practice on. It's the same thing for cars in corners, find a location by your house where cars go around corners at various speeds and practice some more.

 

If I were going to teach you to shoot the RC cars, I'd make you turn off auto-focus, vibration-reduction and even auto-exposure, which are actually distractions to learning the proper technique.

 

But, what do I know. Well, <a href="http://www.jaypix.com/pix/bss.jpg"> here's what I know </a>.

[va_connoisseur]

Thanks for all the advice. I have loaded one photo in my gallery that shows how I am progressing. The shots are getting better.