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Hi all,

I recently purchased a Nikon D70. And I will be taking it to Calder park drags tomorrow night.

I have borroed a 200mm lense. And as I have NO experience with either the lense or photography in general. I would appreciate some tips on what manual settings I should use for night time action under lights? Im really only going to be photographing staging and launching, and hope to be relatively close to the action 30m or so.

I realise its probably a fairly general question, but im hoping to produce some pics which turn out a little better than leaving the camera in AUTO mode.

I appreciate any help and will post pics.

Hi Rexxxy
welcome to the forum.

This is a rather general question, however a few things you will need to be mindful of are:

- Shutter speed. You'll want it fast enough to freeze any action (if this is the intent of your photos), however in such a low light situation, you will need to play around with both Aperture settings and ISO settings in order to give you good exposure.

- Exposure. As it will be quite dark, I imagine that the cars have their headlights on ? If this is the case, exposing for the cars may prove quite difficult, if the headlights are in the shot, as the camera's meter will be fooled into thinking the scene is brighter than it actually is. You may have to play around with your settings a bit and review some test pics on the back of the camera. If you use the Histogram, you should be able to determine if you're getting a good exposure.

- White Balance, leave it on Auto and fix it up on the PC at a later stage (I assume you will also be shooting in RAW/NEF format - not JPEG) ?

Also, using a telephoto lens, and handholding the camera (ie. not using a tripod), you will not want to let your shutter speed fall below your focal length (eg. shooting at 200mm, you'll want a shutter speed of at least 1/200th sec.). Again, in this low light/dark situation you may find it tricky to obtain a good exposure (even when altering aperture & ISO).

I'm not sure how much ambient light there will be, however the staging area is probably well lit, so this may assist you somewhat.

I hope this helps

Hi Aussie Dave,

Thanks for the reply, you have been a great help.

I will be using an AF NIKKOR 28-200mm 1:3.5-5.6G lense. I hope this is suitable, or at least more suitable than my 28-80 lense.

Its been suggested that I use ISO1600, Aperture priority mode at about f/5.6 and adjust accordingly. Doing this, will I be on the right track?

The cars should have their headlights on, but im hoping that they will be over powered by the ambient lighting.

Obviously shooting in RAW format is the recommendation. I had previously set to save in JPEG. But I will change this now, if it means that I have more flexibility to fix problems on the PC.

Once again thanks for your help. I will post up some shots tonight for a critique!

rexxxy wrote:
Its been suggested that I use ISO1600, Aperture priority mode at about f/5.6 and adjust accordingly. Doing this, will I be on the right track?

It will all depend on how much ambient lighting there is, however you are on the right track. ISO1600 has the potential to give you grainy/noisy photos (especially if they come out underexposed). You are certainly likely to need to hover your aperture around 5.6, as suggested to you.

rexxxy wrote:Obviously shooting in RAW format is the recommendation. I had previously set to save in JPEG. But I will change this now, if it means that I have more flexibility to fix problems on the PC.

I would definitely shoot in RAW.

Hope to see some photos of your efforts.....
Good luck

Im planning on getting there before we lose all natural light, so what basic settings would you recommend whilst natural light is still available?

I have just setup the camera to save in RAW mode, as per your suggestion, formatted my CF card in readiness for tonight.

Also arranging Adobe Elements to deal with my RAW files

rexxxy wrote:Im planning on getting there before we lose all natural light, so what basic settings would you recommend whilst natural light is still available?

You definitely don't want camera shake, so I'd stick the camera on S mode (Shutter-Priority Mode) and select 1/200th - if you are going to be zooming the 28-200 all the way out to 200.

The camera will choose what aperture is required, and used with Matrix Metering, should give you reasonably good results. You can also play around with Exposure Compensation to adjust for minor differences.

If you really want to be lazy, you can set ISO to AUTO - however most people usually like to control the ISO level and will adjust manually - as required

I have yet to experience the challenge of shooting night motor racing.

First rule: Have fun. Don't lose sight of why you're going there in the first place.

High ISO is pretty much going to be a given here. Be wary that you don't underexpose, because that will lead to noisy images. Do you have a monopod?

The floodlighting will give you a false impression that the scenes are bright; be aware that this is not really the case, and that your eyesight is compensating for the poor conditions.

Switch the camera into spot metering mode and shoot some test images. Don't rely upon the image in the LCD display by itself, but do look at your histograms. You're looking to get as even and centred a curve as you can.

Note the settings that the camera is using in order to give you the best images. Once you have your exposure nailed, switch to manual exposure and use those settings. For the most part, your lighting sources - and thus your exposures - will be constant, and using one of the auto exposure modes will not yield satisfactory results.

If you're there during sunset, do pay extra attention to the light, as, during that part of the eveniong, the conditions will be changing, and rapidly.

rexxxy wrote:I will post up some shots tonight for a critique!

i'm a huge motorsports fan, look forward seeing some photos of yours!

Good luck rexxy, look forward to your pics. As Gary mentioned just enjoy yourself mate and don't stress out too much.

heres my advice, don't go there.

its too expensive just to just watch 25$ from what i last heard.
there are the v8 experience and ausway?? which used the thunderdome mostly weekends for ausway but not sure about the v8 exp, call. there're nacsar replica and v8s.
plus its free to watch and you can shoot almost anywhere from the inside.