Blue Flaming Ferarri

[negative_optimist]

It took some practise on previous races but I managed to capture, what I think is, a great shot of this Ferarri 430 GTC. Tell me if there's room for improvement though - I always like to know how it could be even better!

[MattUK]

Really nice. Inspired by the recent F1 pic at a similar angle?

[negative_optimist]

Thanks Matt. I just shot these cars coming around at an angle to get more drama into the shot. I shot so many that I stopped thinking about it. If I could shoot this again I may actually reduce this angle.
I've really not seen this F1 shot you mention. I did look at other shots people had taken at Donington trying to work out if it's better to angle in or out of a corner. Taking inspiration from other photographers helped.

[MattUK]

Well it's come out nicely. Next step I guess is to try an even slower shutter speed to get a little bit more motion blur in the background!

[rbarry]

Hi negative optimist.

That's a good image, loads of colour, contrast and action; the flame exiting the exhaust is great.
Matt is correct, but retaining subject image sharpness as you have here is going to be pretty difficult panning at a slower shutter speed. It's difficult to get as sharp an image as you have here without a lot of skill, luck, practice and experience! I think there were alternatives open to you at the time this image was taken.

Bear in mind this is just my opinion and not cast in stone!

The shutter speed was set to 1/250, the aperture was at f13, ISO at 200 and the focal length was 86mm. I believe a closer crop would have worked better, with a narrower depth of field and I agree with your suggestion of a lesser angle.

Your lens will stop down to f4.0 at 55mm and f5.6 at 200mm. In aperture priority mode, say you zoomed in to a focal length of 120mm with the lowest aperture available at that length, say f5.0. Reduce the ISO sensitivity down to 100 (or lower if your camera can manage it). Now for the f stop maths!
Aperture increased by 3 stops
ISO reduced by 1 stop
Result is the shutter speed has increased by 2 stops to 1/1000th

This means the background and foreground will have better Bokeh (depth of field blur), but the increased shutter speed will sharpen the overall image. This is good for the subject matter, the car, but bad for the impression of speed; the background and foreground will be sharper than at the lower original shutter speed of 1/250, and the wheels will look like they're not turning.

It's all about adjusting for light, which often leads to compromise. A 2 stop ND filter would have compensated for the wider aperture and allowed the same 1/250 shutter speed as per your original, giving the same level of overall exposure. Alternatively, without the filter, some post processing in an image editor would allow you to selectively blur the background of the 1/1000 shutter speed example calculated above. The car would be nice and sharp, so you would have to give the wheels a radial blur tweek too.

All just food for thought and I repeat, just my opinion!

I took the liberty of making a quick edit of your original to give an illustration of my ramblings!

All the best,
Rick.

[negative_optimist]

Thanks for the feedback Rick. I love the edit and that's the angle I would go for if I got to do it all again. The background blur makes the car pop out.

I picked 1/250 after some experimentation with earlier races. Any slower just showed up my rubbish panning and I didn't want to go faster due to the action freezing too much. I slap my forehead thinking about the ISO. I should have dropped this down as you say to blur the background and I'd also get into a better F-stop range that provides improved sharpness for the lens. I've got ND filters for this lens but didn't think of using them at all so they stayed at home. They will be out with me next time though

Again I very much like the edit.
--
Aidan

[rbarry]

Hi Aidan,

Reducing the ISO down to 100 would give you just one extra f stop you could "spend" either in a wider lower aperture or a slower shutter speed. It may well be that the 55-200mm lens you are using produces significantly softer images at the lowest apertures (f4-5.6) , which may result in poor/unacceptable IQ. Certainly at f13 the image was very sharp, so a bit of experimenting with your ND filters and wider apertures will help you decide the widest acceptable aperture you can go to that still produces a crisp image. Obviously light levels on the day are not always the same, but aim for approx 1/200sec shutter speed or slightly above as a figure to end up with.

Faster lenses are the next step to consider.

[Cathus]

I'm going to disagree with rbarry i think.

I'd say forget about the aperture all together & concentrate on shutter speed alone.

If you shoot on a low aperture you are forced to consider a high shutter speed & nothing kills a motorsport shot more than a high shutter speed.

I'd say that 1/250sec is even too high. The higher the shutter speed the less movement you'll get in the vehicle, do you want a photo of a car which is clearly racing or do you want one which looks like the car was just sitting in front of you completely static while you took a record shot of it? I think the difference between the two is the shutter speed.

the minimum you want is the wheels blurred & the background blurred, not because of wide aperture but because of movement & the two kinds of blurring are different, you need movement blurring.

Sure the hit rate of vehicles in focus might be a bit less with a slow shutter speed, but the rewards are greater. Panning is the key, smooth action, knowing when to press the shutter & smooth action after you've pressed the shutter to still keep following the car all the way through the shot & beyond.

I'd have thought sticking an ND filter on your lens would affect your camera's ability to obtain a focus lock ion such a fast moving subject, it's difficult enough as it is without darkening the image for the camera, though I've not actually tried it to see.

I hope you don't mind some examples... You'll see I like taking them at angles too!

1. Ferrari at Silverstone - 100mm 1/100sec at f10



Vehicle is nice & sharp even though it is at maximum speed from one right to left.

2. Renault World Series - 1/80sec at f20


3. Renault World Series - 1/60sec at f20


and if you really want to get creative/arty

4. Ferrari at Silverstone - 200mm 1/5sec at f32


You can increase your chances of success with practising your panning, you might also want to try switching to manual, focusing on piece of the track the car will pass over (they use the same lines all the time) & pressing the button a split second before it hits your mark.

Check out the pages of F1 magazine, you'll be amazed at some of the shutter speeds the guys are using on 400, 500 & 600mm lenses. (the above were on 100-400 or 50-500)

Slower shutter speeds are the way forward!

[Cathus]

I forgot to add that as regards the original shot, clearly I'm going to say you need more movement in the background but you have a nice sharp vehicle, movement in the wheels, it's too small in the frame though, crop it down to get rid of the safety fence & post (or zoom in closer) and get rid of that very dark top corner.

[rbarry]

Cathus is right and the proof are in the images he has posted. Experimentation and practise will make you a more able photographer.
Post production is no substitute for getting it right in camera, but as a novice photographer you only have so many laps to capture the subject, in this case a flaming Ferrari. Perhaps next time, get the image you want and then try to get a better one!