Trackside Photography (F1)

[sejtur]

Hey guys, I'm going to the GP of Germany, the Nurburgring this year. I'm bringing my digital mirror reflex with me, a Sony A100 DSLR. It's a pretty nice camera, and I have a tele-lens on it. I want to be as well prepared as I can be, so that when the moment comes I can shoot some nice pics.

I don't think I'm going to be on the move while the GP is running, and I'm sitting next to a relatively slow corner, the Dunlop Kehre, at T7.

If anybody has expieriences with trackside photography, feel free to give some tips. (I'm particularly worried about getting the object 100% focused, while it's coming closer or moving away from me.) If there already was a thread for this (which I didn't find) please point me there.

Thanks in advance!👍

 

[Radracing]

If you are worried about your camera not focusing fast enough the next best thig would be to turn off the autofocus setting and use manual by setting the focus on a particular point on the track that you are shooting and wait for the car to get to that point and take the shot. Make sure to take the shot at the smallest aperture of your lens to get more "dept of field" meaning the point of focus in the lens covers a wider area. Depending on the lighting and ISO setting be careful not to have too slow of a shutter speed or your pictures will be blurred, unless of course that is the effect you want in your shots. If blurred shots are what you are after then panning your camera will be a good idea. Don't limit yourself to one section of the track you may want to venture out on different sections if you can and the paddock is a great place to shoot too so you can get upclose and personal with the cars and drivers. When taking photos of the drivers try going for candid head shots walk around them and get the best lighting you can. Shoot as much pics as you can so that you will get as much chances of landing some really great ones....Good luck and have fun!

 

[sejtur]

Thanks for the reply, Radracing. Unfortuantely, I don't have the money to be able to access different sections of the track (and not the paddock either), and I don't have a photographer card or whatever is needed to get to those special spots for photographers. So I'll be limited to that corner. Thanks for the tips so far!👍

 

[Roo]

With regards to F1 in particular, when I went to the Britich GP in 2005 I found that if you want a spot with a decent view of the track and you don't have a grandstand seat, you have to get there early and you can't move or you'll lose your spot. That means, on raceday, you have to stay rooted to the same place all day - throughout the support races until the GP is over. In some ways, this will be helpful as you'll be able to get your eye in and work out how to get the best results during the support races.

If you're there for the whole weekend, then yes, it's best to move about to add some variation to your shots.

In 05 at Silverstone, the general public weren't allowed inside the circuit, let alone into the paddock. I doubt you'll see any drivers outside of autograph sessions, unless one stops on track in front of you.

Otherwise, as Radracing said, pick a spot, focus on it and snap when the car drives over it, and take GBs of pictures - if you come home from races day with less than a thousand shots you haven't worked the shutter button hard enough

 

[GilesGuthrie]

I checked it out on YouTube, and it looks like a hard place to get good shots. If you close down the aperture to get motion blur, you'll bring the fence into focus. A Neutral Density filter will help there if you can finance it. And that fence will confuse your AF, so if you're behind the fence you're in manual focus territory. Try to get shutter speeds in the 1/250 to 1/60 region. The longer the shutter's open for, the more the scenery is blurred, but the better you have to follow the cars.

If you're shooting straight-on to the cars, it'll be hard to not make them look like they're parked. Try to get action shots, with drivers a bit sideways, or with locked wheels

Remember, F1 cars stop much faster than you think, so panning a decelerating car can be harder than one that's accelerating.

 

[sejtur]

Thanks for all the tips, I hope I will not be sitted behind a fence, but I think I will. I will anyways bring my videocamera, so I hope that will cover alot of action if I don't want to make pictures with the fence in the way. IF I'm going to take pics, I think that I will focus on a spot on the track, I think that's the best option. But we'll see. It's only less than a month away now - can't wait!

 

[wfooshee]

I always shoot shutter-priority for action events. Shutter speed is king in determining the type of pictures you get. You want the fastest shutter speed you can use without actually completely freezing the subject. It's a hard place to find, sometimes. Shutter speed too high and you freeze the subject, which can detract from the image, and sometimes just doesn't make sense, like this shot of the Blue Angels C-130.
Frozen propellors? Puh-LEASE!!!

Shutter speed too slow and all you get is motion blur, but if you pan perfectly, you can get stuff like this. This was 1/250th. You'll get perfectly good pics at 1/500th or even 1/1000, so shoot several at each and see how it goes. Keep an eye on your resulting f-stop, as depth of field will drop with the faster shutter speeds because of the needed larger (smaller f-number) aperture.

Notice that I'm not posting the other 35 pictures that didn't work.

Also, don't be disappointed when you images come back and the subject is a small area at the center of the frame. Crop your images when you get home. That shot above was just the center of the actual frame.

Main thing to remember, use shutter priority, make sure your shutter speed doesn't put your f-stop out of range for your selected ISO. I've done better using autofocus with my D50. My previous film camera, an n8008 did not focus fast enough, and guessed wrong on the initial adjustment about 1 in 4 tries, so I manually focused with that camera. The shots above were auto-focused, but I had no fences to deal with.

Oh, yeah: Use center-weighted metering, or even spot, not matrix. Matrix metering usually leaves areas of your subject too dark since it probably won't be enough of the frame. The pavement and sky will bring the exposure down.