General Photography Thread

[Toni]

So I did some reading on motorsports photography and two things I was observing while taking images while at Indy was sunlight and shutter speed. I generally like taking long photos because my main passion is waterfall photography, so I've kind of trailed off in the complete opposite direction with motorsports. I was finding it so much easier to take photos at 1/1250 than 1/400 or even 1/800. At ISO 100, to get to that 1/1250, you need a lot of sunlight. I didn't have that at Mid-Ohio, and it was on and off at Indy. When the sun was out, I was able to take very quick shots, which made tracking the cars a lot easier at 300 mm times whatever for the digital conversion. When the sun wasn't out as much, I was clicking back down to ISO 200 and 400 in order to make the shutter speed work. The results of doing this was better photos, and really having no idea at all in looking at the image, what ISO I was using. I could see grain on the late evening shots I took which probably had ISOs of 1600 and 3200.

So I guess what I learned is that ISO isn't nearly as important between 100 and 400 in digital photography in motorsports as is adherence to shutter speed. This might be a "no duh!" for some, but I'm pretty stupid so, it was a learning experience for me.

Admittedly, I think this might be a tad underexposed, but it is one of my favorites from the weekend. One thing I was dealing with was the dynamic resolution issues with all the pavement (dark gray) and cars (lots of white) clashing with the exposure meter, and not underexposing the blacks while not overexposing the whites.

View attachment 44286

If you want some place beautiful to take shots of waterfalls, may I suggest the Minnesota North shore, along Lake Superior? Lots of small falls and the entire shoreline is mostly state parks, monuments, national forest. At the Canadian border, US side is Grand Portage State Park which has the highest falls in the state and is easily accessible. Just a smidge down shore is the Grand Portage National Monument which has a partially restored fort on the shore of Superior as well as some great Native American displays and a very good interpretive center. If you continue up the highway and cross into Canada you can see the Kakebeca Falls only a short drive ( less than an hour) into Ontario. Extremely accessible.

All of the hiking along the north shore is spectacular. Trails range from easy to experience recommended. Beautiful place to take photographs or just enjoy nature.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If you want some place beautiful to take shots of waterfalls, may I suggest the Minnesota North shore, along Lake Superior?

Already done. Gooseberry, High Falls of Pigeon River and Baptism River, Devil's Kettle, there was a fifth one near a highway pull off depot whose name I can't recall. The North Shore is great! Sadly, my sister keeps moving further from it.

Wisconsin has a few nice ones south of Duluth / Superior as well. Sadly, Amnicon was more like a waterpark now... people swimming in it.

Lots of small falls and the entire shoreline is mostly state parks, monuments, national forest. At the Canadian border, US side is Grand Portage State Park which has the highest falls in the state and is easily accessible. Just a smidge down shore is the Grand Portage National Monument which has a partially restored fort on the shore of Superior as well as some great Native American displays and a very good interpretive center. If you continue up the highway and cross into Canada you can see the Kakebeca Falls only a short drive ( less than an hour) into Ontario. Extremely accessible.

Kakabeka is very nice. It keeps growing as you get closer to it, and then realize just how deep the gorge is.

All of the hiking along the north shore is spectacular. Trails range from easy to experience recommended. Beautiful place to take photographs or just enjoy nature.

Indeed. Love the North Shore. Liked it so much, we did almost all of the North Shore of Lake Superior, from Duluth, MN to Wawa, ON. Cut east from Wawa to get to Aubrey Falls, quite possibly one of the most disappointing falls I've been to, due to lack of flow that day. We skipped a couple falls to get to that isolated location. *sobs* What sucks is we then raced to get the ferry, and drove right by Chutes Falls Provincial Park, didn't even have that on my radar. Granted, we didn't have a lot of time to spare.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, I worked on my motion race photography photos at the race I attended this past weekend. While harder than capturing at 1/3200, it isn't that much harder. For me it is like braiding dough. I get on a roll, then I can't do it to save my life, and for the life of me, I'm not understanding why I'm losing the capacity. It isn't like I'm taking 1 in every 20 shots here. I'll get a run of 6 or 8. Then have 6 or 8 blurrier ones.

What was really a pain was the clouds, and needing to keep up with the available light. The harder part of the photography is that the race cars are usually brighter than the pavement, so I typically need the exposure meter to be 1 to 1.5 stops down. Of course, it is complicated with cars with a lot of white and cars without a lot of white and in IMSA is very variable and near impossible to step it up and down quickly enough (mainly because I always want to turn the dial the wrong way to step the shutter speed, or the aperture when hugging the 1/100 to 1/160 for the motion captures).









The Delatraz image is my favorite in that it has the light reflecting off of it, and the focus is only covering a portion of the car.

 

[ZiprHead]

Very nice.

Thought: I don't know the capabilities of the camera you are using but have you tried taking movies and then creating stills from the movie?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that would be good for a couple reasons.

• 1080p video is 1920x1080 resolution, where as the camera is capable of much higher resolution images. My photos are 6000x4000 (the attached were batched resized).
  • 6000x4000 easily can be printed to a decent sized poster.
• 1080p is 30 to 60 frames per second. So 1/30 and 1/60. That is slower than 1/100 and 1/160 and would produce more blur, however, still need to track the moving vehicle and would need close to surgeon's hands to manage keep the camera smooth enough to make those captures. I can't do 1/30 by hand, maybe 1/60. I was doing 1/100 to 1/160 with decent success.

Regarding how lighting impacts photography, the first two pics are the front stretch, in the late (?) morning, looking west. The last photo is same stretch (other side of bridge), looking west, around 4 PM, so the sun is in front. The unobstructed viewing of the front stretch is limited to these two spots, so the type of lighting will be impacted by when the cars are out there. Obviously light in the back is better. But, it isn't the end of the world if it isn't.

I remember reading in a photography book about the importance of equipment, as in not that important. That images can be awesome with just about any SLR/DSLR, but the lighting and capture (aperture, shutter, motion) is what matters most. The tech that helps me, however, is that my camera has a screen in the eye viewer. So I can see the results clearly, and an immediate idea as to the color balance, under/over exposure. That helps a lot. I have a very good feel for the light meter, but it makes for a nice check. Otherwise, I'd be taking a zillion photos guessing as the cloud cover and car livery changes with each passing moment. That makes it feel like cheating. Really love my Sony Alpha 68. It is a great budget hobby camera.

 

[ZiprHead]

Thank's for the explanation, Jimmy. Do you use a tripod or monopod? Back when I was using an SLR probably forty years ago a tripod was quite useful. A cable shutter release helped too.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I see some using monopods, but when tracking cars, unless it is absolutely flat, I see it only hindering tracking, especially when trying to get guardrails, tire barriers, signs out of the foreground in the shots. I generally don't see the pros with one, useless mega telephoto.

Tripod is very useful for photography using long durations (> 1/30 seconds), like waterfalls and landscape shots to get the sweeping cloud effect, or when neutral density filters are being used. Cable shutter is good when you don't want to use the delay photo option due to time being a factor (eclipse!) and for pics using the bulb setting (> 30 seconds for a picture).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Thank's for the explanation, Jimmy. Do you use a tripod or monopod? Back when I was using an SLR probably forty years ago a tripod was quite useful. A cable shutter release helped too.

Pods of any flavor are not of much use when aiming at moving targets. You do sometimes see monopods in sports photography, though--to take the weight of the big lenses they tend to use.

 

[bilby]

Pods of any flavor

Have you been eating Tide pods again?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that would be good for a couple reasons.

• 1080p video is 1920x1080 resolution, where as the camera is capable of much higher resolution images. My photos are 6000x4000 (the attached were batched resized).
  • 6000x4000 easily can be printed to a decent sized poster.
• 1080p is 30 to 60 frames per second. So 1/30 and 1/60. That is slower than 1/100 and 1/160 and would produce more blur, however, still need to track the moving vehicle and would need close to surgeon's hands to manage keep the camera smooth enough to make those captures. I can't do 1/30 by hand, maybe 1/60. I was doing 1/100 to 1/160 with decent success.

I don't think there's anything out there that would actually be capable of recording that much detail at that speed. There are two limiting factors: encoding and writing. Some of the highest end bodies can shoot burst modes at close to video speed, but once memory fills up what do you do? No card can accept it fast enough.

I remember reading in a photography book about the importance of equipment, as in not that important. That images can be awesome with just about any SLR/DSLR, but the lighting and capture (aperture, shutter, motion) is what matters most. The tech that helps me, however, is that my camera has a screen in the eye viewer. So I can see the results clearly, and an immediate idea as to the color balance, under/over exposure. That helps a lot. I have a very good feel for the light meter, but it makes for a nice check. Otherwise, I'd be taking a zillion photos guessing as the cloud cover and car livery changes with each passing moment. That makes it feel like cheating. Really love my Sony Alpha 68. It is a great budget hobby camera.

Yup. I consider my good stuff to be far more about getting the hard shots than in getting the shot. While it's not useful for racecars I'm usually pointing the lens at much more static things. I shoot RAW and bracketed--so long as I'm in the ballpark I can almost always recover. I've only had to go back when I messed up the focus or realized I needed ND filters to get the target.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Mid-Ohio is notably harder (for me) to get that background blur. The straights are all obstructed one way of the other, so you need to deal with acceleration when tracking. Regardless, when targeting, always good to target multiple cars, provides for more motion, especially IMSA. I watched the monitor screen in the Essess and saw these two close together approaching Turn Four, so I waited for this pair to track and photograph.

In the past, I panic when stuff like this happens. Simply lack experience. I kept my cool this time. The focus isn't perfect, but when I saw the focus wasn't bad after reviewing the shot right after taking it (zooming on that "Direct" text), I was quite over the moon! The accident ends up not being much of anything. The 7 car spins into the gravel (no flipping) and the driver retires from the race, 57 continues. I have a cleaner shot of the 57 later on. I was so happy to have caught this, and maybe the only person, this is USF2000, so the minor leagues. Only a few people were at this portion of the curve. 70% luck, 30% skill.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was at this event with my daughter, so I'm not taking nearly as many pics. Honestly, this wasn't my best outing with the camera. But I did get these.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

IMSA at IMS



No expense was spared. They waxed the course and everything. Look at that shine!



As I get more experience, I find more flaws in my photos. That sucks. Getting better should mean you can obfuscate flaws away.



My camera was liking this Ferrari.



You can tell it is 8 AM... or Indianapolis is burning down. This time it was the first thing. Gorgeous soft, orange light.



Can you imagine spending that much money on a Porsche and just cutting the curb?



I was talking to someone and they weren't happy with how much of the place wasn't open. When I went last year I thought they had quite a bit open, and even more this year. I wish it could be a playground for photographers, but I get why they'd rather not allow that. My feet are probably happy as well. I didn't enough walking around as it was.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Took about 1400 pics on Saturday. Using breaks to weed out the obviously inferior shots. Then it becomes a drag to go through the images on a big screen to see where the sharp focus was. All in all, I'd say I'm up to 30% very good shot rate, notably higher at the frozen capture. The blur motion not nearly as good.

When partly sunny, lots of chasing the shutter speed / ISO (I default to a low ISO when sunny) for the frozen capture, and the aperture with the motion shots. Sun comes out.. FUCK! close up the aperture to keep the 1/160 working. The other issue are the liveries! Dark cars need more light and the white cars need a lot less light. The camera is very responsive, I'm just spastic when it comes to rotating the dials the right way, and fast enough. And with IMSA, the cars have a tendency to never stop and my mind can get into a cycle and I stop thinking and I'm just tracking / shooting.

I'm struggling on the distance motion shot. Which is and isn't a big deal. With the cars being "smaller" the value of the shot is much less. I'm thinking maybe a monopod would help. Or maybe more likely a telephoto on steroids... with a monopod. But this was my first year with several races. I've been going to one a couple times, then two last year, now four this year. Experience helps a lot! Watkins was also my first go with the motion capture. Have a long way to go before becoming proficient, but enjoying it. Three races next year. My Dad's ashes to Road America and Indy/Pilot Challenge events at Mid-Ohio. Hotels are set.

Thinking about the Rolex 24 at Daytona (get my Dad's ashes there), but that course is mostly the oval and I don't know how much of the site is actually walkable. My trouble with LeMans, you are barely at the course at all! Watkins, Mid-Ohio, IMS, so many locations to get to and experience the racing.