I haven't done serious experimentation, but if I knew I was going to be trying stuff like this I would take the camera bodies with the fastest fps, because they usually have the shortest shutter lag. It's a great deal easier with digital, because you can see when you got it right, but even with a film camera you can hear when the shutter operates (although that can be a little hard when a race car is going past you with the throttle wide open). The trick is to squeeze the shutter almost up to the point of release, and then just nudge it over as the car passes some selected landmark ahead of time; by the time the shutter actually trips, the car should be in frame.
The most important thing, for me, is a camera with a very positive shutter release. Unfortunately this is one area where I feel Pentax lag behind others; both the Nikon D100 and the Canon 20D have a far crisper release than the *ist-D. Shutter lag isn't the critical measure (longer lag time just means you move the release point a little further up-track); what matters is repeatability, and knowing when you are at the brink of release. An extra 1/50 of a second because you had to push the shutter button a little further can be the difference between a great shot and a merely adequate one. But in general the faster frame rates also means a tighter, more precise shutter release. The exception to that rule would probably be the MZ-S; I suspect that would have done as well or better than the PZ-1p. On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 10:50:02AM -0700, Bruce Dayton wrote: > Hello John, > > So an interesting follow on question is: > Obviously practice is critical to your timing. Do you find, given > practice, that some bodies do much better for you than others? If so, > which ones? Seems that there are two different issues at play - one > is shutter lag and the other is how fast the camera is ready for > another shot. I'm not sure if the second is nearly as important for a > timing shot. I'm sure it is important for follow on action, but not > for a single timing shot. > > Care to elaborate? > > -- > Best regards, > Bruce > > > Monday, June 6, 2005, 10:35:43 AM, you wrote: > > JF> On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 06:48:34PM +0200, DagT wrote: > >> > >> A good and prepared photographer can react in 1/10 second. > > JF> If you're prepared, and the action is predictable, you can > JF> do a great deal better than that. > > JF> As most here know, I spend quite some time photographing > JF> cars travelling at a high rate of speed. The most extreme > JF> case of this is at the super speedways, where cars get up > JF> to speeds of 240mph - that's 352 feet/second. If I could > JF> only rely on 1/10 second accuracy, I'd never be able to get > JF> a shot with a car crossing the field of view of a fixed > JF> camera - in 1/10 of a second the car travels twice its own > JF> length. But I have managed to get shots like that; in fact > JF> I can (with a little practice) get the car within five feet > JF> of perfect positioning. That's a ten-foot window, which > JF> means I'm achiving closer to 1/30 of a second precision. > > >
