Your favourite motorsports events

[Valvebounce]

Hi Tom.
Yet another great shot. I'm sure you only share the best, but I'm curious as to what percentage of keepers you get with your slow shutter panning, I'd guess my keeper rate when panning is <10%, possibly even <5%! :-[ Even then they are seldom of the quality of yours.

Cheers, Graham.

1965 2.0 Porsche 911 Classic GT Cars (pre '66)

Heres another from Silverstone Classics 2016.

Nothing more thrilling than watching a 911 drifting through Abbey, the first bend at Silverstone Classic. Especially when your only a few feet away! One of my favourite cars of all time especially as the sun goes down in full attack mode! Fantastic race.

Canon 7DMKII 24-70 F2.8

50mm F5.6 1/100th ISO 100

 

[tomscott]

Hi Tom.
Yet another great shot. I'm sure you only share the best, but I'm curious as to what percentage of keepers you get with your slow shutter panning, I'd guess my keeper rate when panning is <10%, possibly even <5%! :-[ Even then they are seldom of the quality of yours.

Cheers, Graham.

1965 2.0 Porsche 911 Classic GT Cars (pre '66)

Heres another from Silverstone Classics 2016.

Nothing more thrilling than watching a 911 drifting through Abbey, the first bend at Silverstone Classic. Especially when your only a few feet away! One of my favourite cars of all time especially as the sun goes down in full attack mode! Fantastic race.

Canon 7DMKII 24-70 F2.8

50mm F5.6 1/100th ISO 100

Thanks graham! Appreciate it!

It really depends on the situation in this case the cars are coming down the international Pits into abbey so the cars are probably traveling at 120-150mph depending on the car, at this speed and being right on the corner getting the shot exactly where you want it is really tough and depends when you start focusing on the car as the difference between it coming in and being at the apex is a split second then your at a full side view to the rear so the camera does struggle so in this case it's really quite difficult especially with the car coming toward you. But the 7DMKII is much easier to use than my 5DMKIII because it shoots so quick meaning you get more chance and the focus points are spread much further in the viewfinder. It also depends on what technique you use the car above was literally 10ft away so the speed at which you have to move the camera is much more violent the closer you are making it much more difficult.

On this occasion it's maybe 10% and a lot are binned to get the right shot but thankfully there are plenty of laps to get one of each car. But it depends what you class as a keeper as I don't really shoot to document I shoot with the idea of creating a more artistic visually stimulating image so sometimes the blur adds to the image. Sometimes not.

Side pans are the easiest and I get probably 85% depending on how the car is traveling whether it's accelerating decelerating etc and how fast they are traveling. Also depends on the cars the group C and F1 cars are the most difficult because they speed up and slow down so quickly making even the best AF system struggle.

But like I say it's all dependant on distance and when your track side your much closer which sometimes makes life more difficult. At the same time the faster the car and being closer means you can up the shutter speed and still get nice images. There is a correlation between the corner, entry speed and distance and it does take a while to work it out. I was shooting the above at 1/60th and got absolutely nothing worth while looking at upped it to 100 and got some nice images and even at 160 got some really nice images. So depends on the situation and getting it right is hard!

But the newest tech really helps first time shooting an automotive event with the 7DMKII and it blew me away too many keepers! The 100-400 MKII really helped too it's IS is amazing.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Tom.
Ok now I'm blown away, tracking these speed demons at 10ft away (btw green with envy at you being that close) I feel I should be backing away whilst bowing graciously to such talent. I had trouble (as in I was afraid I would injure myself) panning the Goodwood revival cars from 3 or 4 times that distance as they passed me on the Lavant straight, probably doing about that speed, couldn't manage it and had to move up to Woodcote corner braking area to have a chance of keeping them in the frame.
With regards to the 7DII, I find that I get a lot of missed focus shots and would love to hand it to someone like yourself who has good success with their 7DII so that you could take some shots then hand it back and say it was definitely me not the camera that had the issue, I'm reluctant to blame the camera (poor craftsman always blames his tools) but I have heard so many "I have focus issues" reports that I'm not convinced. I would be happy to hear it was me as I'm sure I am the weak link in the system but uncertainty is distracting.
Thanks for an interesting expanded answer to my question.

Cheers, Graham.

Hi Tom.
Yet another great shot. I'm sure you only share the best, but I'm curious as to what percentage of keepers you get with your slow shutter panning, I'd guess my keeper rate when panning is <10%, possibly even <5%! :-[ Even then they are seldom of the quality of yours.

Cheers, Graham.

1965 2.0 Porsche 911 Classic GT Cars (pre '66)

Heres another from Silverstone Classics 2016.

Nothing more thrilling than watching a 911 drifting through Abbey, the first bend at Silverstone Classic. Especially when your only a few feet away! One of my favourite cars of all time especially as the sun goes down in full attack mode! Fantastic race.

Canon 7DMKII 24-70 F2.8

50mm F5.6 1/100th ISO 100

Thanks graham! Appreciate it!

It really depends on the situation in this case the cars are coming down the international Pits into abbey so the cars are probably traveling at 120-150mph depending on the car, at this speed and being right on the corner getting the shot exactly where you want it is really tough and depends when you start focusing on the car as the difference between it coming in and being at the apex is a split second then your at a full side view to the rear so the camera does struggle so in this case it's really quite difficult especially with the car coming toward you. But the 7DMKII is much easier to use than my 5DMKIII because it shoots so quick meaning you get more chance and the focus points are spread much further in the viewfinder. It also depends on what technique you use the car above was literally 10ft away so the speed at which you have to move the camera is much more violent the closer you are making it much more difficult.

On this occasion it's maybe 10% and a lot are binned to get the right shot but thankfully there are plenty of laps to get one of each car. But it depends what you class as a keeper as I don't really shoot to document I shoot with the idea of creating a more artistic visually stimulating image so sometimes the blur adds to the image. Sometimes not.

Side pans are the easiest and I get probably 85% depending on how the car is traveling whether it's accelerating decelerating etc and how fast they are traveling. Also depends on the cars the group C and F1 cars are the most difficult because they speed up and slow down so quickly making even the best AF system struggle.

But like I say it's all dependant on distance and when your track side your much closer which sometimes makes life more difficult. At the same time the faster the car and being closer means you can up the shutter speed and still get nice images. There is a correlation between the corner, entry speed and distance and it does take a while to work it out. I was shooting the above at 1/60th and got absolutely nothing worth while looking at upped it to 100 and got some nice images and even at 160 got some really nice images. So depends on the situation and getting it right is hard!

But the newest tech really helps first time shooting an automotive event with the 7DMKII and it blew me away too many keepers! The 100-400 MKII really helped too it's IS is amazing.

 

[tomscott]

Its certainly not for the faint hearted but thankfully that corner is a long, wide and fairly well protected as the cars should naturally spin away from you! haha you hope anyway!

I've read lots of unfair criticism of the MKII some I agree with some I don't. I have found it to be a fantastic adversary and use it a great deal. Its been in some very inhospitable places, I took it across africa for 2 months through rain forrest harsh dessert and then through south east asia through rainy season and it didn't miss a beat and I barely missed a shot. Although I have had the odd image that has been out of focus I generally haven't had many problems. I shot a wedding using it as a second camera and did have a couple of images which were OOF which were questionable but every camera i have owned has done that at some point. Silverstone was a good test, over the 3 days I shot around 10,000 images with the 7D and apart from panning the camera didn't really miss. Setting the camera up properly is essential with the 7DMKII as the focus points cover so much of the frame the focus mode really does determine the outcome much more than the 5DMKIII. The 5Ds focus points cover much less of the frame so when shooting motorsport most of the points cover the subject so its much easier for the system to track exactly what you want. The 7Ds on the other hand I found it would catch where gravel turns into grass etc so is much more sensitive.

I did have a few problems in Africa but it was more because at 600mm and over the atmospheric issues become a much bigger problem with heat rising so that was a learning curve for me as I was using the 100-400mm with a 1.4 at times which is nearly 900mm on the 7D. The heat was making the camera struggle to focus and when it did the animal was distorted and OOF. But that was me not the camera.

It depends, I've read a lot of people saying that the 7DII just won't focus rather than it focusing on the wrong area of the frame, but I would argue that the above with people using FF cameras that is their problem. The points are also a lot bigger on the 7DMKII in comparison to the frame so its easier for the camera to misinterpret at small apertures. Im not sure if there is problems with certain cameras or not but it just doesn't make sense to me with how mine has performed.

Its definitely a camera that needs practice to use and has its quirks.

What sort of issues have you been having? Also what lenses have you been using? Because of the MP the camera is much more susceptible to movement than the previous 7 and a really good 4 stop IS lens really makes the difference especially in mode 2 and 3 for motorsport!

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Tom.
Unfortunately crashing cars don't always abide by what you think they should do, be safe out there.

As for the camera, even with high shutter speeds that should eliminate tracking error and aperture that should provide sufficient depth of field it seems that the first shot (AI Servo) can be oof, next sharp, next couple oof (or not as sharp), then some sharp. I know that with the 70-200 f2.8 II this camera can catch a target lightning quick for a snatch shot, I also know that for tracking one should try to give the camera time to establish a good focus lock before the first shot. I have AI Servo 1st shot set to focus not speed, 2nd shot focus not speed. Things understandably get worse with the 2xIII on the 70-200, and my older Σ150-500 is a lot slower to AF and often just goes walkabout of its own accord if the contrast is low so I don't take any real notice of its behaviour.
I also noticed last weekend at the Bournemouth Air Festival that when I was tracking planes keeping the plane as close to centre as possible the AF boxes would seem to fall off the back of the plane, only way to get them back on was to stop AF and start again, back button method. Initially I put this down to the light, cloud and the colour of the planes being similar to the clouds, but then the Red Arrows came on and gave the same problem. I have the EOS iTR AF enabled as it seems this should help in pretty much any situation.

Cheers, Graham.

Its certainly not for the faint hearted but thankfully that corner is a long, wide and fairly well protected as the cars should naturally spin away from you! haha you hope anyway!


What sort of issues have you been having? Also what lenses have you been using? Because of the MP the camera is much more susceptible to movement than the previous 7 and a really good 4 stop IS lens really makes the difference especially in mode 2 and 3 for motorsport!

 

[StephenHopkins]

Absolutely loved looking though this thread. I particularity loved the v8 supercars photos several of you have posted, photos from the AGP and Phillip Island were awesome! Very great stuff!

 

[Mickat]

Absolutely loved looking though this thread. I particularity loved the v8 supercars photos several of you have posted, photos from the AGP and Phillip Island were awesome! Very great stuff!

Here are some more then to tickle the taste buds

 

[Roo]

Absolutely loved looking though this thread. I particularity loved the v8 supercars photos several of you have posted, photos from the AGP and Phillip Island were awesome! Very great stuff!

Thanks Stephen much appreciated.

Nice shots again Mickat!

I should have more to post in a couple of weeks after the Sandown round Looking forward catching all the retro liveries.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Folks.
A couple from the Goodwood Revival, the Kinrara Trophy, an hour race run through dusk. I have only uploaded two so far. I have tried to capture two cars in each shot, one panned and sharp(ish) and the other car OOF and smeared for effect, I tried it both ways, lead car sharp chase car blurred and vice versa though I haven't uploaded any of the vice versa's yet. Does this work, why or why not?

Before headlights!
SE0A7479_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

After headlights! It is dark to try to convey the actual light level.
SE0A7526_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

Edit, just put up the right shot!

Cheers, Graham.

 

[Roo]

Hi Folks.
A couple from the Goodwood Revival, the Kinrara Trophy, an hour race run through dusk. I have only uploaded two so far. I have tried to capture two cars in each shot, one panned and sharp(ish) and the other car OOF and smeared for effect, I tried it both ways, lead car sharp chase car blurred and vice versa though I haven't uploaded any of the vice versa's yet. Does this work, why or why not?

Before headlights!
SE0A7479_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

After headlights! It is dark to try to convey the actual light level.
SE0A7526_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

Edit, just put up the right shot!

Cheers, Graham.

Nice panning work on both shots Graham! The Corvette image works a bit better for me which is probably due to the cars being in closer proximity to each other, and the thirds, rather than being at either edge of the frame. Both worked better for me with the top of the image cropped down a bit. Of course I could be wrong

Just watched that Jag and Aston battle on the Goodwood fb page...it didn't end well for the Aston.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Roo.
Thanks for your input, the edits were quick and done whilst the rest of the group we rented the house with were watching a film, I was slightly distracted by that and the fact that my mouse has a very loud CLICK and I didn't want to annoy them.
There were several battles that didn't end well, including a car, can't remember which one, that came past after the race with serious damage and flames rolling out from underneath.
Fortunately the driver realised (might have been he heard all the people shouting fire at him) and stopped right by the marshals that were looking for debris (registration plate from a Corvette) they grabbed extinguishers and tackled and extinguished the fire.
A lady near by commented on what the extinguisher powder might be doing to the paint job, my reply, stopping it from getting charred!
Hats off to the marshals for a job well done, and a big thank you to track marshals everywhere for being there so that we the public can enjoy the racing, without them (amongst others) these events could not happen.
I'm going to try to get some more up soon, got home late last night and getting sorted out then time to play.

Cheers, Graham.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Folks.
I posted some of this before, I've done some cropping so hopefully they work better this time!

A couple from the Goodwood Revival, the Kinrara Trophy, an hour race run through dusk. I have only uploaded two so far. I have tried to capture two cars in each shot, one panned and sharp(ish) and the other car OOF and smeared for effect, I tried it both ways, lead car sharp chase car blurred and vice versa though I haven't uploaded any of the vice versa's yet. I have now uploaded one of the vice versa.
Does this work, why or why not?

Before headlights!
SE0A7479_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

After headlights! It is dark to try to convey the actual light level.
SE0A7526_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

One the other way round, chase car sharp, lead car not so much.
SE0A7529_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

And now for some of the ambience,
It rained all day Saturday, lots of racing but as I didn't have to get the shot and didn't want to spend the day wringing wet I stayed in the tent.
Not sure how the 7DII would have coped in that weather and didn't want to find that out either!

GRRC Members tent at Lavant Straight on a rainy Saturday, most stayed there all day, listening to the cars go by live and watching on the many screens provided. I was going to repeat this shot on a Sunny Sunday, the place was almost empty but I forgot!
SE0A7659_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

Three lovely ladies that entertained us with songs on a rainy Saturday at Goodwood.
SE0A7669_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

A typical row in the tax exempt parking at Goodwood.
From right to left,
TR6, TR6, Bitter, TR6, Herald, Vitesse, Jaguar (MKII?), Spitfire, Jenson Interceptor, Jenson (541?), Jenson (541?), Unknown.
SE0A7672_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

Many more on my Flickr page! 8)
My car was in the row behind which was almost empty.
I have more to process from which I will post a couple that might be of interest.

Cheers, Graham.

 

[StephenHopkins]

Couple of mine from this summer.

 

[mrsfotografie]

Couple of mine from this summer.

Cool, I like 'crude' motorsports 8)

 

[Click]

Couple of mine from this summer.

Very nice series, Stephen.

 

[Roo]

Great stuff Graham and Stephen. I've always wanted to be part of the "inner circle" at a speedway event ;D

Here are a few of mine from the Supercars event at Sandown last weekend

 

[mrsfotografie]

Great stuff Graham and Stephen. I've always wanted to be part of the "inner circle" at a speedway event ;D

Here are a few of mine from the Supercars event at Sandown last weekend

Awesome!

 

[Click]

Great stuff Graham and Stephen. I've always wanted to be part of the "inner circle" at a speedway event ;D

Here are a few of mine from the Supercars event at Sandown last weekend

Very nice series, Roo. I especially like the second picture.

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Roo.
Thanks.
Really like the second shot, great timing.

Cheers, Graham.

Great stuff Graham and Stephen. I've always wanted to be part of the "inner circle" at a speedway event ;D

Here are a few of mine from the Supercars event at Sandown last weekend

 

[Valvebounce]

Hi Folks.
A couple more from Goodwood, a demonstration by the marshals of why they have extinguishers dotted around the place.

As it rolled by the flames were licking out from under the car and up the left side door, one marshal laid down and attacked the bottom with his extinguisher, the others tackled the interior and engine bay, an up close and personal display of how to extinguish an engine bay fire!
I can report that the extinguisher medium tastes horrid.
SE0A7880_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

A lady asked what harm the powder might be doing to the paint, it's stopping it from getting charred!

SE0A7884_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

Fire all out, car saved, driver and marshals safe.
It is not Thruxton, Goodwood just borrow / hire the fire car.
SE0A7887_DxO by Graham Stretch, on Flickr

Cheers, Graham.