Motorsport Photography Guide.
Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2007 1:29 pmHi all,
I decided to type this 'guide' up today. I don't know how helpful it will be, but hopefully it has a few tips in it that people can learn from. It's almost the sum total of what I know about motorsport photography. Almost.
So here it is, Alans brief guide to motorsport photography.
Motor-sport shooting guide.
Shooting motorsports isn’t as hard as you’d think. With a ‘prosumer’ dslr and a fairly inexpensive lens, you can produce nice, quality, images with just a small amount of knowledge and a bit of practice.
Motorsport: What am I trying to shoot?
Different motorsports require different approaches. For instance, rally requires a shutter speed that show background blur and debris in the air, while allowing for the vehicle to be sharp, but still having a sensation of speed.
V8 supercars requires a sensation of speed, while having a nice sharp car, but also trying to capture something a little different, like a wheel in the air, flame-out from the exhaust etc.
Drag cars might require images from the start of the run, showing extreme tyre deformation, the front wheels lifting in the air and giant exhaust flames.
The best way to figure out what you are trying to photograph, is to have a look at what the various publications are using. That being said, don’t just become a photography ‘clone’. Try to find a different way of portraying your chosen motorsport, while still producing images that are useful. Be unique.
Panning technique:
Panning allows you to produce the images where the vehicle is sharp, but the wheels and background are blurred. These are the ‘standard’ motorsport image.
Panning technique is something you will develop over time, there is no 'standard' panning technique, but here’s some tips none the less.
Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart, this makes a nice stable platform to shoot with, and assists in a smooth rotation at the hips. Place your feet so you will take the picture square on to subject.
Keep your elbows tucked down near the body as much as possible. This helps get a smooth rotation. If you leave your elbows out, it's just one more thing to wave about in the breeze and upset your balance.
Judge the speed that your subject is coming past you. I find it is useful to pan very slightly faster than the subject, but slowly decrease that speed, allowing the car (or whatever) to catch up. When this happens, your pan speed and vehicle speed should be in relation to each other. Take the picture.
Get used to pressing the shutter slowly and carefully. If you get to excited, you will push down on the shutter release to hard, and this will show in your image.
Once you have taken the picture, continue your panning motion until you reach the end of the arc. If you stop panning as soon as you take the image, you will find your will eventually stop before you take it, and ruin your shot.
Practice, practice and practice. I find that longer focal lengths are easier than shorter ones, because of the apparent speed with which you have to pan. I also try to use a shutter speed around 125 – 160, depending on the speed of your subject.
Get used to panning as cars go by you on a straight. Once you have this under control, try panning with cars as the exit or traverse corners or are coming towards you.
Find a nice busy bit of highway and practice there. You may look like a weirdo, but it will help you to acquire, track and take a shot of your subject.
Panning is easier for faster vehicles due to the smooth movement of your body at faster speeds. Slow vehicles are very hard to capture, because of the ‘jerkiness’ of large body movements.
Get used to panning with both eyes open, keeping one eye through the viewfinder, the other watching your surroundings. It might just get you that once in a lifetime shot, make you a millionaire and a photographer legend. Or, maybe not.
Motorsports: Theres no room for the artistic.
Bzzzzzt. Wrong!!!!. Any number of photographers can take an image of the car hurtling by. You want your images to stand out from the pack, to be somewhat unique, ideally they are recognisable as your images.
Try exposing for bright backgrounds and producing silhouetted images, try ultra slow shutter times, try zooming as you pan with slow shutter speeds. Try everything and anything! Digital cameras allow for experimentation. Don’t be shy.
Try to zoom in as close as you can. Don’t rely on cropping to get you close to the action. The closer you zoom in and take the image, the better, as you can always crop later.
One thing about motorsport images that seems to be very much a constant is that they are usually contrasty and colourful. Of course, they don’t have to be, but they generally are.
What gear should I carry?
I don't want to get to bogged down in this, because there are so many options and brands.
Generally I carry 2 bodies. Why? Because changing lenses trackside lets dust and crud into your camera. It's also handy to have a long lens on one, and a shorter lens on the other.
I shoot Nikon, so use D2h's. I carry 10 GIG of cards, which is more than enough for me. You'll need more if you shoot with a 12 megapixel camera, as your file size is much larger. You need to be prepared for almost anything. I carry camera cleaning gear, wet weather gear for the body and lens. This is usually a couple of plastic bags and a roll of gaffer tape. Works a treat, and costs nest to nothing. Also, a small first aid kit is handy and some high energy bars to snack on.
I bought both my bodies second hand fron the U.S. and had them serviced and cleaned. They work like new.
Lens wise, I carry a 120-300 F/2.8 and a 24-70 F/2.8. I came to this conclusion through much trial and plenty of error. I also carry a speedlight, but rarely use it.
So, now I’m trackside. What now?
As long as you brought your camera, spare batteries and lenses, go forth and take photos. However, as always, there’s a few small tips to learn from.
Learn the track before you attend and learn where most of the action is. For example, turn 2 at Eastern Creek Raceway produces more accidents than nearly the rest of the track put together.
Figure out the best time of day for the images you want. As a rule of thumb, you want the sun coming over your shoulder, not directly towards you. The eastern side of a track is usually best before lunch time, with the reverse after lunch. Midday can be a hard time to get images due to harsh shadows. Of course, this all depends on the type and style of image you want.
Also, remember to be considerate of other spectators if you are on their side of the fence. More than once I've found myself having to apologise to someone for being in their way. It's easy to forget your surroundings when you are watching the world through a tiny view finder.
What to do with images?
So, you’ve taken 5000 images from a weekends racing. (This isn’t an uncommon amount, and neither is higher). So what will you do with the images. You can try any number of things.
If you have been photographing ‘grass roots’ motorsport then try to find a magazine devoted to that type of motorsport. You might only get $30 - $40 dollars per image, but it’s better a lot than nothing.
Also, if your images are good enough (i.e. you’re happy with them and have received good feed back), consider selling them to drivers or teams. If you want to travel down this track, it’s good to get known around the pits/dummy grid areas. Learn about the class of motorsport you are photographing so you can talk with drivers without sounding like you know nothing. Learn lap times, different classes, drivers names, course records etc.
Have business cards to hand out and a website for them to look at. Neither are expensive. A smugmug gallery and 500 business cards will set you back well under $200. Ensure though, that the event you are covering does not have an official photographer already, who may have exclusive rights to coverage.
If you are at a major motorsports event, such as V8 Supercars, Moto GP etc and you happen to get some great images of an accident (or similar), you need act fast. Really fast. You’ll need to send the image(s) to magazines that weekend. Sometimes deadlines may be the Sunday night, with the magazine being printed Wednesday or Thursday. Forward low resolution, watermarked images. Editors can decide if they want to use your images or not and then ask for a larger sized image. Their contact details are usually easy enough to find in the first few pages of most publications.
You need to also be aware that some classes of motorsport prohibit the use of images taken of their cars for commercial use. Editorial use is fine. In particular, V8 Supercars does not allow this, and you must pay a fee to use the images for commercial usage.
Remember, you may not get the hundreds of dollars you think your images are worth, but you have to ask yourself “how much money am I going to make from an image if it sits on my hard drive and does nothing?” Selling 5 – 10 images a month to magazines will help you to fund better dslr bodies, or pay for the trip away you want.
A publication wants my images, but can’t pay….
This can, does and will happen. You have to ask yourself, if it’s money you really want for the images, or seeing your images in print? Money is good. Really really good, however, getting your images printed has more benefits. For instance, V8 Supercars Australia will usually only give media accreditation to photographers whose images are regularly published. You can get a job covering most motorsport events if you can show you’re a published photographer with a good reputation. You can’t if you just have dollars in the bank.
However, you still need to pay for new gear….
It’s a juggling act. Pure and simple.
Where to from here?
So you’re taking good images, people are lining up to buy them from you, but where to from here? This depends on several things: Do you want to be a full time photographer? Do you have other commitments, such as family, mortgages etc that will stop you following your ‘dream’? Is there a market for a fulltime motorsports photographer in your town, region or state? Do you want to worry about things like business insurance, equipment insurance, GST, ABN etc etc
That’s your decision, I'm only giving you a tip or two.
I decided to type this 'guide' up today. I don't know how helpful it will be, but hopefully it has a few tips in it that people can learn from. It's almost the sum total of what I know about motorsport photography. Almost.
So here it is, Alans brief guide to motorsport photography.
Motor-sport shooting guide.
Shooting motorsports isn’t as hard as you’d think. With a ‘prosumer’ dslr and a fairly inexpensive lens, you can produce nice, quality, images with just a small amount of knowledge and a bit of practice.
Motorsport: What am I trying to shoot?
Different motorsports require different approaches. For instance, rally requires a shutter speed that show background blur and debris in the air, while allowing for the vehicle to be sharp, but still having a sensation of speed.
V8 supercars requires a sensation of speed, while having a nice sharp car, but also trying to capture something a little different, like a wheel in the air, flame-out from the exhaust etc.
Drag cars might require images from the start of the run, showing extreme tyre deformation, the front wheels lifting in the air and giant exhaust flames.
The best way to figure out what you are trying to photograph, is to have a look at what the various publications are using. That being said, don’t just become a photography ‘clone’. Try to find a different way of portraying your chosen motorsport, while still producing images that are useful. Be unique.
Panning technique:
Panning allows you to produce the images where the vehicle is sharp, but the wheels and background are blurred. These are the ‘standard’ motorsport image.
Panning technique is something you will develop over time, there is no 'standard' panning technique, but here’s some tips none the less.
Stand with your feet about shoulder width apart, this makes a nice stable platform to shoot with, and assists in a smooth rotation at the hips. Place your feet so you will take the picture square on to subject.
Keep your elbows tucked down near the body as much as possible. This helps get a smooth rotation. If you leave your elbows out, it's just one more thing to wave about in the breeze and upset your balance.
Judge the speed that your subject is coming past you. I find it is useful to pan very slightly faster than the subject, but slowly decrease that speed, allowing the car (or whatever) to catch up. When this happens, your pan speed and vehicle speed should be in relation to each other. Take the picture.
Get used to pressing the shutter slowly and carefully. If you get to excited, you will push down on the shutter release to hard, and this will show in your image.
Once you have taken the picture, continue your panning motion until you reach the end of the arc. If you stop panning as soon as you take the image, you will find your will eventually stop before you take it, and ruin your shot.
Practice, practice and practice. I find that longer focal lengths are easier than shorter ones, because of the apparent speed with which you have to pan. I also try to use a shutter speed around 125 – 160, depending on the speed of your subject.
Get used to panning as cars go by you on a straight. Once you have this under control, try panning with cars as the exit or traverse corners or are coming towards you.
Find a nice busy bit of highway and practice there. You may look like a weirdo, but it will help you to acquire, track and take a shot of your subject.
Panning is easier for faster vehicles due to the smooth movement of your body at faster speeds. Slow vehicles are very hard to capture, because of the ‘jerkiness’ of large body movements.
Get used to panning with both eyes open, keeping one eye through the viewfinder, the other watching your surroundings. It might just get you that once in a lifetime shot, make you a millionaire and a photographer legend. Or, maybe not.
Motorsports: Theres no room for the artistic.
Bzzzzzt. Wrong!!!!. Any number of photographers can take an image of the car hurtling by. You want your images to stand out from the pack, to be somewhat unique, ideally they are recognisable as your images.
Try exposing for bright backgrounds and producing silhouetted images, try ultra slow shutter times, try zooming as you pan with slow shutter speeds. Try everything and anything! Digital cameras allow for experimentation. Don’t be shy.
Try to zoom in as close as you can. Don’t rely on cropping to get you close to the action. The closer you zoom in and take the image, the better, as you can always crop later.
One thing about motorsport images that seems to be very much a constant is that they are usually contrasty and colourful. Of course, they don’t have to be, but they generally are.
What gear should I carry?
I don't want to get to bogged down in this, because there are so many options and brands.
Generally I carry 2 bodies. Why? Because changing lenses trackside lets dust and crud into your camera. It's also handy to have a long lens on one, and a shorter lens on the other.
I shoot Nikon, so use D2h's. I carry 10 GIG of cards, which is more than enough for me. You'll need more if you shoot with a 12 megapixel camera, as your file size is much larger. You need to be prepared for almost anything. I carry camera cleaning gear, wet weather gear for the body and lens. This is usually a couple of plastic bags and a roll of gaffer tape. Works a treat, and costs nest to nothing. Also, a small first aid kit is handy and some high energy bars to snack on.
I bought both my bodies second hand fron the U.S. and had them serviced and cleaned. They work like new.
Lens wise, I carry a 120-300 F/2.8 and a 24-70 F/2.8. I came to this conclusion through much trial and plenty of error. I also carry a speedlight, but rarely use it.
So, now I’m trackside. What now?
As long as you brought your camera, spare batteries and lenses, go forth and take photos. However, as always, there’s a few small tips to learn from.
Learn the track before you attend and learn where most of the action is. For example, turn 2 at Eastern Creek Raceway produces more accidents than nearly the rest of the track put together.
Figure out the best time of day for the images you want. As a rule of thumb, you want the sun coming over your shoulder, not directly towards you. The eastern side of a track is usually best before lunch time, with the reverse after lunch. Midday can be a hard time to get images due to harsh shadows. Of course, this all depends on the type and style of image you want.
Also, remember to be considerate of other spectators if you are on their side of the fence. More than once I've found myself having to apologise to someone for being in their way. It's easy to forget your surroundings when you are watching the world through a tiny view finder.
What to do with images?
So, you’ve taken 5000 images from a weekends racing. (This isn’t an uncommon amount, and neither is higher). So what will you do with the images. You can try any number of things.
If you have been photographing ‘grass roots’ motorsport then try to find a magazine devoted to that type of motorsport. You might only get $30 - $40 dollars per image, but it’s better a lot than nothing.
Also, if your images are good enough (i.e. you’re happy with them and have received good feed back), consider selling them to drivers or teams. If you want to travel down this track, it’s good to get known around the pits/dummy grid areas. Learn about the class of motorsport you are photographing so you can talk with drivers without sounding like you know nothing. Learn lap times, different classes, drivers names, course records etc.
Have business cards to hand out and a website for them to look at. Neither are expensive. A smugmug gallery and 500 business cards will set you back well under $200. Ensure though, that the event you are covering does not have an official photographer already, who may have exclusive rights to coverage.
If you are at a major motorsports event, such as V8 Supercars, Moto GP etc and you happen to get some great images of an accident (or similar), you need act fast. Really fast. You’ll need to send the image(s) to magazines that weekend. Sometimes deadlines may be the Sunday night, with the magazine being printed Wednesday or Thursday. Forward low resolution, watermarked images. Editors can decide if they want to use your images or not and then ask for a larger sized image. Their contact details are usually easy enough to find in the first few pages of most publications.
You need to also be aware that some classes of motorsport prohibit the use of images taken of their cars for commercial use. Editorial use is fine. In particular, V8 Supercars does not allow this, and you must pay a fee to use the images for commercial usage.
Remember, you may not get the hundreds of dollars you think your images are worth, but you have to ask yourself “how much money am I going to make from an image if it sits on my hard drive and does nothing?” Selling 5 – 10 images a month to magazines will help you to fund better dslr bodies, or pay for the trip away you want.
A publication wants my images, but can’t pay….
This can, does and will happen. You have to ask yourself, if it’s money you really want for the images, or seeing your images in print? Money is good. Really really good, however, getting your images printed has more benefits. For instance, V8 Supercars Australia will usually only give media accreditation to photographers whose images are regularly published. You can get a job covering most motorsport events if you can show you’re a published photographer with a good reputation. You can’t if you just have dollars in the bank.
However, you still need to pay for new gear….
It’s a juggling act. Pure and simple.
Where to from here?
So you’re taking good images, people are lining up to buy them from you, but where to from here? This depends on several things: Do you want to be a full time photographer? Do you have other commitments, such as family, mortgages etc that will stop you following your ‘dream’? Is there a market for a fulltime motorsports photographer in your town, region or state? Do you want to worry about things like business insurance, equipment insurance, GST, ABN etc etc
That’s your decision, I'm only giving you a tip or two.
its hard to look back, i got addicted at my first day in Feb this year and to date have now been to some sort of MS event nearly every weekend since
