How 'bout some Ferraris

[Itheone]

Great looking ride Gian, let me know next time you're in ATL so we can get some better pictures of it. []

[George Slusher]

Superb! Were these handheld or did you use, say, a gimbal head on a tripod?


Great use of a moderate shutter speed (compared to focal length) to get the slightly-blurred background + crystal-clear car.


The 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS lens is my most-used lens for nature photography.

[ShutterbugJohan]

Wow! I wish I could drive those cars!

[Itheone]

Thanks for all the comments guys.


George, these were all taken handheld, panning with a tripod on objects this fast would be close to impossible.

[Jack M.]

Awesome!! Looks like you nailed the shutter speed!

[MOF_Sydney]

OK, I'll play.


Here's four Ferrari's and (just to be provocative) a Lamborghini.


Taken at the practice day for the Australian round of the A1 GP series at Eastern Creek Raceway, in western Sydney. Not commercial, they were just taken from the public side of the fence. Canon 1D MkIIN with 70-200 f2.8 IS.


(I do like the completely sideways Porsche in the first shot).


Cheers,


Michael


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And the Lambo []


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[MOF_Sydney]

Just noticed the shape. These were 900x600. I thought I'd saved them as 600x400. Hence the "chopped" noses as the site crops them to 800 wide. My mistake in not noticing the size.

[George Slusher]

Nicely done! I'm not a racing fan, but these could be good ads! Unfortunately, it looks like the EXIF data didn't survive the scaling-down process. Contrary to some, I really don't care much about the little details--most of the time, exposure information is pretty useless, though, in this case, the shutter speed might be helpful. What I'd like to know is the lens you used and if you used AI-Servo autofocus. Most of the shots have the cars traveling across the field of view, rather than toward or away from you, but, given the speed, AI-Servo might work better. I'm usually shooting something that's not moving QUITE that fast (a moving horse), but may be moving toward or away from me. Birds in flight, well, that's a skill I haven't come close to mastering, yet. It's hard enough just keeping them in the frame.

[MOF_Sydney]

George,





All five of those cars were taken at 1/200th second (on Tv) For a race car that is slow enough to give some background blur and blur the wheels to give the sense of motion. The first time I took racing cars I used 1/4000th sec - the result was that 300 km/h race cars looked like they were parked in the middle of the track, so completely did that shutter speed freeze the action.


The lens was a 70-200 f2.8 IS and I put the the IS switch on the lens to "panning" mode. I used AI Servo focussing because you tend to pick them up in the viewfinder as they come towards you and release the shutter as they pass, to give the best sense of movement.


Here's another photo from practice. This is one of the open wheeler A1 GP cars. They are faster than the sports cars but in this case he was accelerating out of a slowish corner. This one is taken at just 1/60th second. The effect is good but the hit rate (for me anyway) was pretty low. You really do have to be panning accurately to get a sharp view of the car.


The open wheeler was taken at 176mm. The sports cars at 100-125mm.


Cheers,





Michael





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[Oren]

Now that is sweet!