Motor Racing photography

[simon.deighton]

Hi all, Im heading to silverstone to watch the MOTPGP at the end of august and I wondered if you guys had any tips on how to get the best shots?

I have a Canon 1100 D with an 11mm-55mm and 55mm-250mm lens, im assuming I'll need the latter for the range!

Thanks

 

[Nexus]

You probably have an 18-55mm, but yeah its largely pointless unless there is anything going on around the circuit you want to take pictures of, such as sponsor stands and such.

Using your telephoto you can get shots from the grandstands easily enough. If you want to do panning shots using slower shutter speeds, you really need to be at the front of most of the covered grandstands, due to the metal support struts getting in the way.

The best shots though are those where you are essentially at the same level as the car/rider. To do this, you need to shoot through the fences, you really need to use quite a large aperture to make the links of the fence disappear. This gets you about as close to what the professional photographers are doing at Silverstone as you can get.

There are a couple of good spots for this. To the front and right of the Becketts grandstand if looking at the circuit. The other is a small section that looks at Club Corner as they exit onto the International Pits Straight.

Going on my own experiences with shooting Formula 1, the best day for taking photos is the Friday practise sessions. Saturday can be good, but race day on Sunday tends to be difficult due to allocated seating and how busy it is, better just to enjoy the race really. Not sure how much MotoGP mirrors this.

 

[solitude]

I spend quite a lot of time trackside at Silverstone and it can be a bit challenging to find shots what with the porta loos, JCBs and busses etc. often trying to creep into the frame. There are specific gaps in the catch fencing around the circuit to allow spectators to get photos, off the top of my head there’s one on the exit of Becketts and at The Loop.

I often recommend to photographers in the grandstands to not solely go for the close up stuff, there are plenty of snappers trackside telling that story, you could try to get the wide shots incorporating the crowd and showing their reactions to events as well.

For the action stuff shoot in AI Servo mode, and my preference is for using the single centre point for focus, but it’s best to experiment and see what you like.

A common mistake often made is people panning at too low a shutter speed to start off with, start of high (around 1/250 1/320 or higher) depending on how close and the angle the bike is travelling through your panning range and get a nice shot, once you’ve got that then start experimenting and seeing how low you can go etc. Too many people start off super low and never even get a decent shot to record their day’s action. You may also need to go as high as 1/800 or higher if they’re coming towards you, many camera auto focus systems can really struggle with subjects moving quickly towards or away from them.

Another thing to consider is making a note of where the sun will be throughout the day and use it to your advantage, do you want to shoot into the sun or have it behind you? Having it behind you can light up the contrast points on the bike and make life easier for your focus system, but having it in front of you can make for some truly spectacular shots. Of course it could well be cloudy, but it’s an important thing to think about.

Finally, I’d recommend shooting the fast action in jpeg not raw with your particular camera. Some of the more affordable Canon cameras have very small image buffers and cannot cope with more than a few raw shots in a continuous shutter burst. There’s nothing worse than seeing a great shot appear in front of you, but you can’t do anything because your camera is still processing the previous images.

That’s all I can think of for right now, hope it helps and have fun

 

[Janesy B]

Silverstone is pretty frustrating for a newbie because of all the fences. The concrete steps at Complex/Luffield will let you see over the fence without looking like the pics were taken from high up in the stands. The trouble with using large apertures to peak through fences is that you will end up with a high shutter speed which is no good for capturing motion.

Also, don't spend the whole day with the camera glued to your face in the same spot, have a look at what's going on, see where cars/bikes are overtaking or spitting flames etc. No one wants to end up with 500 panning shots that all look the same.

Not much more to add as the post above covers most things.

 

[simon.deighton]

Thanks for the replies all , I'll have a proper read through later

Appreciate it