camera

What sort of cameras are good for motor racing photos? Nothing ridiculously expensive but i'm just curious.

Aysedasi, looking at your website you seem quite handy with that camera!! Some of those night shots are fantastic!

Can't come up with any names, but if you can afford it, look for an autofocus SLR with follow-focus. Failing that (budget wise), use a manual focus SLR and pre-focus on the area of track from which you want to take the photos. Then it's a matter of practice at clicking the shutter at the right point as you pan the camera with the car. If you use a long zoom lens, be aware that it will compress perspective so that a group of cars will all appear to be closer to each other then they are.

i have a nikon f65 with a 50-500 lens (*smug*) and that comes up with some very good pictures. however, i would reccommend something like a nikon fm for a first slr camera - mine was great until it died nastily at the british grand prix in july...

What sort of price was that?

Paulzinho, thanks for the comment. My gear is along the lines Paul C suggests. I use a ten year old Canon EOS 100 with 28-80 and 100-300 zooms. I traded up 10 years ago from a Minolta X300 (I think it was) because my eye-sight is far from brilliant and I had heard how good the Canon autofocus system was. I have to say it is brilliant. I also use a 2x converter (which gives me 200-600 on the bigger zoom). I lose autofocus and a lot of light, but on sunny days (or tripod days!) it's great for looking into pit garages from the Le Mans tribunes!

For motorsport pics, you have got to get to grips with the panning shot and the use of different shutter speeds for a variety of effects. To be honest, the night shots are easy, use a tripod (obviously), go for plenty of depth of field and just leave the shutter open. The EOS will allow me to use shutter speeds of say 10-20 seconds, so it will do most of the work for me - a concept I am very happy with!

The EOS 100 was discontinued a few years ago, but there are later models in the EOS range which will do anything my camera can do. I can speak for any other camera manufacturers as I haven't tried any of their gear.

:rotate: :rotate:

Most action photography does not require the use of very expensive camera bodies, but for pics like you see inmagazines it does require the use of very expensive lenses. I use a Canon EOS Rebel, their least expensive SLR in the EOS family. I could not afford a fast and long lens so I make do with a 90-210mm f4.5-5.6 Tamron and a 2X extender. However, with the lens zoomed with the extender on the fstop usually drops to f5.6 and sometimes f8.0 late in the evening. Because of this you must pan because the pictures are too dark for stationary camera work with the slower but better film. I would love to own a 600mm f2.0 lens but $6000 is far too expensive when considering my Tamron cost $189.00.

I shot this picture at Hallet Motor Racing Circuit with Fuji Provia 100F professional slide film, at about 200mm zoom, f5.6 at 1/350th second.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=388586&size=md

The lighting was not the best as it was about 4:00pm, and the image also suffered some vignetting at the corners because of this. I desperately need a good parabolic flash unit to provide some fill light.

my nikon f65 including 25-80mm lens (i think) was £300. for a second hand fm you're looking at about £250.
my old 300mm lens for my fm was £90 new. second hand would be around £70. if you want to do reasonable shots, you're looking at around 300mm lenses, zoom would be nice.

my 50-500 sigma lens was £900 brand spanking new. it works a treat! (see hyla breese's website for my best efforts :))

basically, be prepared to invest seriously if it turns out you're pretty good at pictures. as kc says, a body isn't so much money, but a good lens that works is a hell of alot of money...

kc, check out sigma if you want a reasonably priced lens. theirs are really very good indeed, and priced nicely...

I was also pricing Sigmas when I bought the Tamron on closeout. Even our used camera prices are too high here in the US. I'd love to own a older Nikon or Canon fully manual camera but they want as much as my Rebel was new.

When shopping for used lenses take great care. If you can use the lens for a roll of film on something ewasy to focus on and look for any aberrations. A mislaigned lens from it being dropped is expensive to fix and usually not worth the replacement of the lens.

I've used three different cameras and an assortment of lenses for motorsport photography. I started off with a Fuji STX2 (fairly old now) and used that with a Tamron 70-210 (with x2 convertor) or Tamron 300mm mirror. I've also used a Minolta X300s with the tamron lenses, until the Minolta met with a high speed accident on a road in Hampshire (never trust fathers with cameras, trying to drive off with one still on the roof of the car is not a good idea;)) Anyway, after the demise of the Minolta, I replaced it with a Pentax MZ5n which has a Pentax 80-320mm lens and this season has been used with my new acquisition, a Sigma 170-500mm - definitely a good investment:) You can see photos taken with all three cameras on my site.
If you're looking at Sigma or Tamron lens, the older Tamron lens are better than the older Sigma, but now Sigma are ahead and make better lenses than Tamron.
It's all down to personal preference, but I've never liked Canon cameras. I'm seriously thinking that my next new camera acquisition will be a Nikon of some sort. At the end of the day, it's whatever camera you feel happy with and the quality really comes from the lens you choose.

You could take a look on the Jessops website to give you some idea of what's available. For a basic starting point, a number of cameras are sold bundled with something like a 28-80 and 80-300 or similar which gives you a good basis to build from if you decide you really are into photography.
I'm only mentioning Jesops to get an idea of what's available, there's plenty of smaller camera shops where you can get a better price. It really does pay to shop around on cameras, the price variation can be quite substantial.
If you've got a London Camera Exchange in your area, I'd recommend them, certainly their shop in Winchester is very good.

Yes, LCE are excellent. I've been using their Southampton branches for about 15 years. (We're obviously relatively near neighbours, Carrie!).

:rotate:

Well, we might have been near neighbours once. I spent my uni days in Winchester, never get as much chance as I'd like to get back there now.
I believe LCE have a website now, found it a while back when I was getting the Sigma lens. I've always found them a shop willing to do that little bit more, like doing an instant repair on my old twin lens when the shutter jammed open. I happened to be near the LCE, so popped in and they soon had it fixed. They're also knowledable about cameras, something which you don't always get in camera shops (or photo developing places). The best I ever encountered was Boots for developing. "Could I get this developed please" "erm, what is it?" "it's a film" cue shop assistant shouting through the back to another of the Boots staff "ere, I've got a woman here reckons this thing is a film". They obviously don't encounter many 120 roll films in Boots:laugh:

Ditto that, the LCE in Fareham, Hants is very good - but prices can be a touch on the high side.
I have a Minolta 505Si Super with 28-80mm and 80-300mm lens, and a Minolta X-700 with 50mm lens, and Tamron 80-210mm lens, + 2x converter. The 505 is AutoFocus, but the X-700 is MF. About 1K's worth of equipment there!!

I would honestly recommend a converter for an SLR for those just starting in motorsport photography. I got mine for £10 second-hand - a great buy!

Andrew

PS. Nice site Aysedasi - keep up the good work.

Thanks a lot Andy (did you sign the book?!).

Another "'ampshire 'og"? :rotate:

I think Carrie you and I ought to be getting some kind of kickback from LCE!!

I swear LCE should have been paying me commission when I was in Winch. One time I was stopped on the High Street by an American tourist who wanted to know all about my camera. It was a bit embarassing, standing in the middle of Winchester High Street telling this guy all about the Minolta, Kai decided it was too embarassing and left me to it:rolleyes: Anyway, sent him off to LCE, went round to see them after he'd left and he had indeed bought himself a Minolta and lenses:laugh:
Andy, I've always found LCE to be very reasonable, certainly with the 170-500, they were price matching our local camera shop which specialises in grey imports. If our local shop hadn't been able to get the Sigma lens in for me, I'd been seriously considering getting it from LCE (it's only 240 miles from where I live) and using it as an excuse to spend a weekend in Winchester again

Not much to do with cameras, Carrie (nothing at all, actually!), but I used to live in Winchester - Harestock. My dad worked at the Castle.

Small world, as they say.

;)

Do we need a Winchester / Hampshire topic;) I spent a very short time living in Ottersbourne - eek, at a time when it was most definitely on the wrong side of the Twyford Down roadworks for getting into Winchester. Soon moved onto the Battery and then spent most of my time in Winchester living in Weeke, just off Stoney Lane, so I knew Harestock reasonably well:) I used to spend a lot of my time in Stockbridge as well.

I'm Hampshire born and bred. Born in Emsworth (where my father was born and his father before him). Then Havant, Winchester (Harestock), Bishopstoke (Eastleigh), West End (Southampton) and now Lymington in the lovely New Forest. Apart from some time studying in central London and Manchester, that's where I've been and where I now hope to stay!

:laugh:

I'm in Kent about 20 minutes from Brands hatch. Suits me down to the ground!!!

Aha! That's a good location - accident or design?

:cool:

Well I've lived in Kent all my life so accident!!

The Uni I want to go to is about 15 minutes from Donnington and that is most definitely a big factor in my choice, other than the academic stuff of course!

I just want to bring this up again, because now I'm considering a purchase. :)

i'd go for the f65, or maybe the canon equivalent. they're good enough to give you seriously decent pictures if you can get the hang of it. i know it's a lot of money, but get a 300mm lens too. you'll get far better pictures and won't have to scan them in and hack them up to make them decent ;)

on an entirely smug personal note, my new nikon d100 digital camera (about 6m pixels or whatever..) is due to arrive in the grubby hands of the kind people at kp photographic any time now. might go in and check on an arrival date today....

My old SLR died on me last week, and so I had to buy a new body. Jessops had a "Centon" with lens for £114. It is an old Minolta body (in fact it is the same body but with a bit of a re-wirking), and as my old camera body lasted over 10 years, I'd say it is durable.

Additional lenses can be as cheap or expensive as you like, I have bought 2nd hand, and to date not had a problem with them. The only thing to remember is that if you buy 3 or 4 lenses, they get heavy after a day walking with them!

Any help?

the problem with having one lens that does everything is that when you're trying to do shots that don't really need a zoom it's a bit daft, and the longer lenses aren't half heavy.

old cameras are best for working out how it all works. lack of autofocus is a b*tch though.

Originally posted by bella
i'd go for the f65, or maybe the canon equivalent. they're good enough to give you seriously decent pictures if you can get the hang of it. i know it's a lot of money, but get a 300mm lens too. you'll get far better pictures and won't have to scan them in and hack them up to make them decent ;)

Is it really worth it for a beginner though? At the moment I don't want to go overboard as i'm just a beginner looking to do it as a bit of a hobby maybe.

there's no point having a lens any smaller than a 300. especially at silverstone. you're so far away from the track you only get the standard fan pictures. if you want to take some good pictures, go for a non auto focus camera and a low budget 100-300 lens like my vivitar.

Is there any reason why it should be non auto focus? Is it easier or harder, or just the difference in price?

Auto focus is great for panning shots, if the subject (ie car)is kept in the centre of the frame then the car should always be in sharp focus. This does depend on aperture, but it stars to get tecnocal then.

With manual focus, as has been already mentioned, the best thing is to aim for the car to be in a certain part of the track, and set the camera to be in focu on that point, then as you pan, take the photo as you reach a pre ordained spot, this takes practice, but then so do all panning shots.

Originally posted by jasongore
My old SLR died on me last week, and so I had to buy a new body. Jessops had a "Centon" with lens for £114. It is an old Minolta body

If I remember rightly, that Centon is in effect a rebadged Minolta X300 - as the X300 was my first SLR (the first of only two bodies in 17 years), I can vouch for it being a thoroughly decent camera. Mine served me well for 7 years before I traded it in for my EOS 100. I only went AF due to my eyesight, which has been something less than 20-20 since I was about 6 years old! Now I wouldn't be parted from my trusty EOS (unless someone wants to donate a new version.....?






.....no, I thought not. :(

I do hope these threads don't turn into a "my ones bigger and better than your one" . Let me tell you from experience there is nothing more off putting for people beggining photography than peole telling you "yes your camera is O.K.but" you really should upgrade to this or that and then you get the "digital" its the only way, now if you have not long started traditional photography then my advice is learn your craft first as the digital bug is worse than any class A drug, because of the technology the products on offer are out of date before you have taken them out of the box and the lust for more pixels just goes on and on amd sooner or later you will see a digital junky hanging around street corners begging for money to satisfy his lust for pixels. So i think the de-criminalisation of soft photography (film print & slide) will only encourage more people to experiment with digital and before you know it you will be a addict and your P.C. hard drive will be bursting with images and then you will have to book it into a clinic for therapy, where it can unburden its hard drive. and learn that putting a film into the back of your camera walking to your local film prossesor and eagerly awaiting the return of your prints can be a enjoyable.

On that note:

Mine is a Chinon CE-4 (uses Pentax K-mount). I have a Pentax 50mm, a Sun 70-200 f3.something, and a 28 by someone else. All are decent, not spectacular, glass. I don't use the 28 nearly enough.

I just got a 2x multiplier to try on the Sun, 'cause as bella noted, you're not very close to the cars when you aren't credentialled.

I'm on the incremental upgrade program, and since I have a (hopefully repairable) Ricoh as well as this Chinon, I'm staying for now with K-mount lenses. I'm still trying to get the most out of the equipment I have, before I start pouring serious money into new equipment.

As with my other long-term motorsport goals, all this changes when I win the lottery. ;) (Oh, wait, you have to actually buy tickets to win, don't you?)

I use the Sony F707, I upgraded it last year and gots some great results at a Silverstone test session. The max shutter speed is 1/1000 which is a bit slow for F1 cars but its a great camera and a good price for what you get. Sony have the F717 now so that has driven the price of the F707 down.

Steve.

Paul, look into the Minolta Maxxum (Dynax) 5 as well, it should be about the same price as the Nikon F65, with a few more features and in a smaller, lighter package. It's pretty durable too, but probably not as much as the F65. Both the F65 and the Maxxum 5 would be great "starter" SLR cameras... you can use them as point and shoots at first and gradually experiment...

I bought a Maxxum 5 late last summer, so far it's been great, (still learning though...). I need a 300 lense... Not too expensive though... I was thinking of Sigma's 28-300 f3.5-6.3 "Hyperzoom" lense as sort of a compact universal one... Anyone have any experience with this one or something similar?

Originally posted by jasongore
Auto focus is great for panning shots, if the subject (ie car)is kept in the centre of the frame then the car should always be in sharp focus. This does depend on aperture, but it stars to get tecnocal then.

Well it depends on your requirements. To me the satisfaction comes with manually focussing and achieving a good shot. And it is very possible with a manual if you set the aperture correctly. If the subject is too dark take a different type of picture. However it would need to be very dark because a panning shot is usually taken at 1/125th or possibly slower. That gives you the blurred background.

Originally posted by jasongore
With manual focus, as has been already mentioned, the best thing is to aim for the car to be in a certain part of the track, and set the camera to be in focu on that point, then as you pan, take the photo as you reach a pre ordained spot, this takes practice, but then so do all panning shots.

Agreed but that's where the satisfaction comes in. And as I said with the aperture set correctly you can get a good few metres grace on the target.

Also the head on or corner shot makes for a much more difficult scenario because you really do need to guess at the focus point and don't forget the camera is static whilst the subject is coming towards you. Minimum shutter speed for a head on would be around 1/500th. (Snapper could give us help here).

For me a manual beats an auto hands down but it does depend on what you want the pictures for.;)

i'm with you there. haven't used a manual setting on my slr for yonks. it's far easier (and more fun) being able to adjust it to the effect you want.

An autofocus camera is fine for racing shots, although it can mean just flicking the switch to 'manual' for on-track shots. I find the quickest way for me is manual focus on track, but use autofocus in the pits and with driver head-shots.

I started with a Zenith EM, which was an old antiquated Russian camera, followed by a Minolta X-300. Since then it has all been autofocus Canon, first with the EOS600, then the 50E, followed by a 5.

Technology and magazine reports = digital, since the pro's like to have their stuff downloaded before the day is out. It's a bit more difficult with 35mm. If I'm on a job that needs immediate magazine results, then I will use digital, but if time is on my side, the easiest option is to have the 35mm developed onto a CD. Boots in the UK do a good job in this respect, saving the film in both low res. and high res. format, the latter being around the 800kb mark. Quality is excellent.

I started with a Zenit EM. Wasn't it seriously heavy? Then moved to Canon AE1 and stayed there. I've got two bodies and loads of lenses which means I'm still hauling around serious tonnage. But as I don't do much photography amymore it doesn't matter really.

I also have an EOS300 which is a great camera. But I found that in temps of below minus 10C it gets sluggish and finally stops unless you keep putting it somewhere warm. The AE1 never had that problem because the battery didn't have to work to much of the camera.

Mind you not much motorsport happens at minus 10 and below.

Oops sorry I forgot about Silverstone on any summers day!

Talking about AF, I still have my trusty EOS 100, but I rarely use the AF for panning shots.

at the moment i´m thinking about buying a new lense for daddys canon eos 300...
the thing is the money, is a 300mm worth the money or will a 200mm do?
if i buy a lense i want one to have for a loooooooooong time, so if i buy a 200mm i´ll have to use it for years...so if it is better to have a 300mm i should buy it now or never...
aaaaaaaaahh...i´m confused :confused:

200mm is probably ok around the paddock but not really for on-track use at most circuits. Definately go for the 300.

mmh...okay, so i´ll save my money for a used 300mm :)

i'm with redshoes, definitely save up and go for a 300mm :)

yeah, I'm in the same boat as *formula3*, I'm also considering whether it's worth spending the extra money for a 'universal' type lense that's 28-300 or just getting the cheaper 70-300 zoom type lenses. That would probably mean carrying 2 lenses everywhere instead of 1...hmm...

Depends on what sort of photos you want to take and how much you use the shorter lens. When I got my last camera I only brought the 70-300mm as it was all I could afford at the time. Managed to survive for ages without every wanting or needing anything smaller. I've since brought a 28-80mm which is small enough and light enough to be dropped in the bag or pocket without getting in the way but even now it doesn't get that much use.