Indy Car (Road America)

[ECR]

I've never tried panning shots before, but was at Road America this weekend. I'm sure it's me, but seemed to miss a lot of photos. Either back is in focus or front etc. It did seem like Black and yellow cars were the best. Orange and black were tons of misses and everything in between. not sure if color has anything to do with it. I shot anywhere from 1/60th to 1/3200. Anything up near 1/20th and above I started to lose desired background blur so the majority were 1/80-1/100. Used vehicle detect and spot and spot expanded focus points. Didn't really notice much difference in keepers. Anyway here's a couple examples and just looking for critique, suggestions, etc.

This one I think is pretty decent overall for what i was looking for.


But with this one, driver and center seem to be in focus, not as sharp as I'd like, but front and back of car are more blury



and then this, front half is all out of focus, back half is pretty sharp for me. He's coming at me more so than the other cars so not a perfectly out in front pan shot. I'm pretty new to this so is it a matter of focus points, using slightly faster shutter, etc? At f11 or more is depth really an issue with these? I wouldn't think it, but then I don't really know. Not sure how much meta data is going to post with these pictures so I'm just going to post it and see. If I need to add more I will. Using AI servo with shutter priority and auto ISO for all of these. Thank you for your critiques.

 

[DavidWatts]

Nice panning shots!

 

[Joeseph]

Awesomeness... especially the Kiwi Callum Hedge
the interesting thing about the other two is that the perceived "sharp" bit Vs depth of focus, is really all about different parts of the cars travelling at different speeds relative to your panning.
On POTN, photographer & motor racer Cliff Field (Klippe) wrote up a technical document about it - not sure if still exists online but I'll see if I can find it.

 

[joayne]

Straight up crisp and fast .. great job!

 

[ECR]

Awesomeness... especially the Kiwi Callum Hedge
the interesting thing about the other two is that the perceived "sharp" bit Vs depth of focus, is really all about different parts of the cars travelling at different speeds relative to your panning.
On POTN, photographer & motor racer Cliff Field (Klippe) wrote up a technical document about it - not sure if still exists online but I'll see if I can find it.

I had so much fun. I think everyone at our camp was wondering why I just sat there with my camera, but it was like shooting things without having to kill it LOL. I was hunting . I'm pretty happy overall, but it took a lot of shots. I think I went from over 1600 to just over 100 keepers. I'd say 2/3's were not usable really because of missing focus or more usual, only getting half a car in the frame. the rest were just very similar photos and I had better shots.

His car was fun to photograph, probably one of mine and my kid's favorites. It was our first time ever, so didn't know a single driver when we showed up. The eventual race winner was at our camp doing promo stuff and one of my sons had a brief 2 second cameo on their promo video they shot. They'll never forget it, neither will I.

If you can find that technical write up, I'd love it. I wasn't sure what to really expect, I know i have more to learn. It's been 30 years since Physics I&II, so a refresher on relative speed and angles could be useful. it makes sense now that you made me think about it.

Next weekend is an airshow with the kids, so I'll have the planes and automobiles. Heading to Toronto in August, we'll go to the railroad museum then for the trains

 

[Mk1Racer]

I had so much fun. I think everyone at our camp was wondering why I just sat there with my camera, but it was like shooting things without having to kill it LOL. I was hunting . I'm pretty happy overall, but it took a lot of shots. I think I went from over 1600 to just over 100 keepers. I'd say 2/3's were not usable really because of missing focus or more usual, only getting half a car in the frame. the rest were just very similar photos and I had better shots.

His car was fun to photograph, probably one of mine and my kid's favorites. It was our first time ever, so didn't know a single driver when we showed up. The eventual race winner was at our camp doing promo stuff and one of my sons had a brief 2 second cameo on their promo video they shot. They'll never forget it, neither will I.

If you can find that technical write up, I'd love it. I wasn't sure what to really expect, I know i have more to learn. It's been 30 years since Physics I&II, so a refresher on relative speed and angles could be useful. it makes sense now that you made me think about it.

Next weekend is an airshow with the kids, so I'll have the planes and automobiles. Heading to Toronto in August, we'll go to the railroad museum then for the trains

What part of the track were you at? I love that place The difference in focus areas has me scratching my head. The first shot is pretty sharp all over, not sure why you have the issues with the other two, especially at f/11

 

[ECR]

What part of the track were you at? I love that place The difference in focus areas has me scratching my head. The first shot is pretty sharp all over, not sure why you have the issues with the other two, especially at f/11

We were camping on the "inside" of the track, probably 75% down the straight after turn 3 just before the Sargento Bridge. That's where I took all my photos. Next time i'll probably travel around a bit and try out different vantage points.

It's not so much having an issue, I do like the photos overall, I'm just wasn't quit sure what to expect. I wasn't sure if I should be getting completely in focus or not, and the ones that weren't were more coming or going than running parallel to my camera. if it was me, a technical issue I wasn't doing correctly, or what. That's why the 3 examples. First photo was what I was hoping for, got lots like 2,3 and was wondering what I had to do to fix it, if there was a fix.