[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote:
>
> I may be going to the AMA Superbike races at Mid-Ohio on July
> 21-22 so I thought I'd take the camera gear and try my hand at
> some mostorsports photography for the first time.
> I'll be using my PZ-1p and I expect the 300/2.8 and teleconverters
> (1.7x and 2x) will be getting a workout but any advice would be most
> appreciated: Film, technique or anything else that might be important.
I don't have first-hand experience at Mid-Ohio (although I hear it's
a great facility), but you may very well find yourself wanting a lens
shorter than 300mm. I quite often end up using something around 150mm
for shooting bikes. Admittedly I am usually on the inside of the fence,
but a lot of the time I'm only a couple of feet away from photographers
in the general admission area.
The best place to get shots of bikes is as they are accelerating away
from a tight turn, especially if you get there on the first practice
day. Until they have got the setup exactly right you'll often see
riders getting the front wheel well off the ground under acceleration.
http://www.motorsport.com/photos/cycle/lsa99/lsa-1-34.jpg
is an example of the sort of thing I mean (that's Miguel Duhamel
coming out of turn 2 at Laguna Seca). That was probably taken using
a shutter speed of around 1/180; fast enough to get a reasonable
yield shooting hand-held, but slow enough to blur the background.
Practice your panning technique on every bike that goes past.
A place where you will be able to use the longer focal lengths is
if you move uptrack a bit, closer to the corner, and shoot the bikes
as they get to the apex of the turn, and are head on to you, with
the riders leaning the bikes hard into the turn. For that you won't
be able to pan, so you want as fast a shutter speed as you can manage.
1/500 is OK, but 1/1000 (or faster) is even better. To get those
shutter speeds with a maximum aperture of f5.6 you might want to have
something faster than ISO 100 film with you. I usually carry both
100 and 400 speed film (Fuji Provia for slides, Kodak Supra for print).
--
John Francis . . . . . . . . . . (650) 429-4427
MyWay.com 444 Castro St. Suite 101, Mt. View, CA 94041
Hello. My name is Darth Vader. I am your Father. Prepare to die.
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