Low lightr rc car action photography

[mobile chicane]

Went to cml raceway yesterday to try out my new 55-200 lends, the weather could best be described as bloddy rubbish but I had a go regardless.

It seems that I can get dark grainy pictures which do have the moving rc car in reasonable focus or lighter pictures which leave the car blured ( my panning tecnique obviously needs improvement ) I tried using low F numbers where the camera apeture is wide open, these gave good light but the depth of field was to shallow to get anything unless I got lucky.

I didnt try to change the iso speed from 800, this may have been my mistake.

any hoo heres a couple of the best from yesterday.


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2284/2523159965_780d68eee3.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3182/2523159961_f720d347eb.jpg



http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2044/2523159953_1970c2063c.jpg

I like the water rooster tails I'm getting torm the tyres and I suspect I could get a clearer better definition with a closer shot but I think I would need more natural light to get that detail.


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2232/2523159949_76ca2c2d2c.jpg


And finaly ryan wondering where his car is ;)


http://www.flickr.com/photos/mobile_chicane/?saved=1

for my rather rubbish photo stream

[jimmy]

Good stuff, glad I stayed in playing with cars :thumbsup:
How were you using the camera? all the photos I looked at were 1/800th of a second shutter speed but the aperture was changing, so I assume you were using shutter priority? No matter what you do, you can't leave things the same or trust the camera when you get on a track like CML. The black Astro turf and dark trees in the background fool the exposure and send it all over the place.
If you were using shutter priority and the lens needed more light (you say they are too dark) then theres not really anywhere for the camera to go because of the slow aperture on the lens. That's why I use Aperture priority - you'll always get a shot because the camera can always slow the shutter some more, and 1/800 is pretty quick. But like I said before, a track like CML I found full manual to be the best way to stop the dark areas messing it up.

[rcracer]

we was blest with some lovely seaside sunshine at south sheilds :thumbsup:

[mole2k]

As jimmy was saying I shoot a lot of the time in a similar manner, 90% of my stuff would be aperture priority. I would occasionally use shutter if i was doing panning or sometimes i would use manual if I was afraid of the exposure not being evaluated correctly.

Some places you just have to use manual or the camera will get tricked by dark/light area's it seems CML is one of those places. The shots are pretty good and do deffinately show some promice :)

[mobile chicane]

Good stuff, glad I stayed in playing with cars :thumbsup:
How were you using the camera? all the photos I looked at were 1/800th of a second shutter speed but the aperture was changing, so I assume you were using shutter priority? No matter what you do, you can't leave things the same or trust the camera when you get on a track like CML. The black Astro turf and dark trees in the background fool the exposure and send it all over the place.
If you were using shutter priority and the lens needed more light (you say they are too dark) then theres not really anywhere for the camera to go because of the slow aperture on the lens. That's why I use Aperture priority - you'll always get a shot because the camera can always slow the shutter some more, and 1/800 is pretty quick. But like I said before, a track like CML I found full manual to be the best way to stop the dark areas messing it up.


I'll try slowing it down below 1/800 next time I did leave it on apature priority although I never set it above F8 as the pics came out realy dark.

I'm using a nikon D40 and it has 3 difrent metering settings in the on screen menu each with an example pic they are matrix, centre wheighted and spot all the shots above were taken with matrix although I think centre weighted or spot may have been a better choice for a light 1/10th buggy on dark astro or in the air with a background of dark trees.

I have iso settings of 200, 400, 800, 1600 and H1, this setting only self regulates in the auto or pre programed modes sutch as sport portrait etc.

Apatrure settings of F4 to F22`

And shutter speed of 1/4000 th second to 30 seconds or longer if I use the remote.

I take it the iso settings are seperate to the shutter speed and apature opening but I'm not sure how they relate to picture clarity / brightness.

I tried the manual focus trick in jimmys rc car shooting guide but with a smallF number I think you have to be spot on as the deoth of field in focus is very shallow.

I also left the lends hood off as I thought fitting it would reduce light to the lends and make the pics worse was this corect or a schoolboy error :woot:

[telboy]

I some times have the sam problem when its a bit dull.
I end up using the shutter priority most of the time unless its really sunny.

http://www.telsshells.com/2wd_holbeach.htm

I took these ^^^ yesterday. It was pretty bloody miserable and most were taken with 1/250 shutter speed.
I was actually sat under the trailer/rostrum for most of them.:lol:

I think with the 'basic' lenses, shutter is better unless the weather is good.

[flipside]

I agree, if you don't have a more expensive fast lens, shutter priority is better when it's not sunny. Wih aperture priority you end up using the lowest f number anyway, and the camera will choose too long shutter speeds.

I prefer using shutter priority or full manual, and sometimes underexpose to have faster shutter speeds, and re-expose it afterwards in photoshop. In daylight pics you can easily correct 2 stops in photoshop without much quality loss, especially if the pics are only used at low resolution on the web.

ISO is the sensitivity to light, higher means more sensitive so you can use faster shutter speeds or higher f numbers to get the same amount of light in your pic. Drawback is the higher the iso, the more noise you'll get. You have to test how high you can go before the noise is too apparant. I have a D60 and ISO 800 is still ok, 1600 is not, and 3200 is crap :-)

[jimmy]

I can't see the point unless you're needing a very specific shot why you guys think Shutter Priority is better? Especially in low light. You're forcing the camera to underexpose if using a slow lens - why would you want that? You can control the shutter speed with a combination of Aperture and ISO settings if needed - but still leave the camera able to expose properly. What's the big deal in the camera shooting sometimes 1/500th instead of 1/800th but getting a better exposed shot you can use straight from the camera?
In low light it just seems like you might as well be using full manual mode as using shutter priority.

[JCJC]

I take it the iso settings are seperate to the shutter speed and apature opening but I'm not sure how they relate to picture clarity / brightness.

I also left the lends hood off as I thought fitting it would reduce light to the lends and make the pics worse was this corect or a schoolboy error :woot:

I tend to think of the iso as I used to think of film speed, 64asa - I can remember 400asa being a distrusted wonder! there used to be a trade off with faster film speed, early 400 was grainy, I don't see much change when using 800iso, but 1600 seems a step too far - but somtimes - and I am sure at CML we have used that setting, I find a bright car (pidgeorange) looks better in those dark corners.

Hood more use on sunny days, mostly we tend to pop off lots of shots and one or two of em are good enough, but Jordan has a better eye and finger than me, I have trouble with those panning shots like telboys above, sharp cars - blured backgrounds, like those a lot telboy, see the wheels spinning and the cars moving :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[mole2k]

Id have to say I would side with jimmy here. I always shoot aperture priority and usually fully open to get a narrow dof.

The only time i use shutter priority is if im doing panning shots and want the speed to stay constant.

[flipside]

I can't see the point unless you're needing a very specific shot why you guys think Shutter Priority is better? Especially in low light. You're forcing the camera to underexpose if using a slow lens - why would you want that? You can control the shutter speed with a combination of Aperture and ISO settings if needed - but still leave the camera able to expose properly. What's the big deal in the camera shooting sometimes 1/500th instead of 1/800th but getting a better exposed shot you can use straight from the camera?
In low light it just seems like you might as well be using full manual mode as using shutter priority.

hey Jimmy,

When I use A priority, it's not a matter of 1/800 or 1/500, but more like 1/100 and things like that. If I let the camera decide on shutter, and it's cloudy on a dirt track (rather dark), then my camera never suggests speeds of 1/800, even with high iso values. When there is a lot of light, it's a different story, then I also sometimes use A priority to have control over dof.

Underexposing is a used alot, even with analog photography. For example when the 'good' exposure is 1/250, underexpose 1 stop is 1/500. That's a big difference to freeze your subject, but it's not a big difference when re-exposed in photoshop afterwards. My zoom lens is f5.6 at 200mm, so in lower light that's not all that great.

In fact when I use S priority in low light, it's actually the same as full manual since the Aperture is automatically set to its lowest value anyway :-)

For example this pic is shot on a very cloudy day, in an are where trees block a lot of the skylight: http://www.rc-offroad.be/pictures/2008_05_25_bnk2_vlijmen/pages/bnk_vlijmen_063.htm

Would never have been sharp if the camera would have decided on shutter speed (with my camera).

Same for this one with dark background:
http://www.rc-offroad.be/pictures/2008_05_25_bnk2_vlijmen/pages/bnk_vlijmen_071.htm

Don't take my post as a comment on your or someone elses way of working, it's just my personal opinion :-)

[mole2k]

In situations like that I would be shooting in manual usually. I have underexposed by a stop before to get a slightly quicker shutter speed.

I must do back to back tests sometime to see if iso800 -1 ev and pushing the file in photoshop produces a better result than iso1600, and the same with 3200.

I've often thought it would be nice to have a feature which you could use aperture priority but set a max and min shutterspeed and have options set it to adjust the iso or else just take the shot over/underexposed.

[glypo]

I agree with Jimmy that Av is the best way to shoot at least 90% of the time. ISO can help control shutter speed at a given Av or of course changing the Av for shutter control if the DoF isn't important.

1/100s at high ISO seems very low even at f/5.6. Must be down to your camera? With a 20D I was using a Sigma lens which was f/5.6 at 200mm, and in very low light I was getting 1/220s at ISO 800. At ISO 1600 the shutter was easily getting around 1/500s.

So I think your problems are localised to your camera, and that for most people Av is the best way to shoot RC action. That said, I often use a low ISO with Av to get down to 1/100s shutter, gives very nice results :)

[jimmy]

I think 1/100th is a long way from 1/800th and not really the same situation - but clearly (!) I think if the light is low you need to use full manual or Apeture priority or risk suffering dark photos.
I'm just trying to pount out that Aperture mode lets your camera work properly always - Shutter priority doesn't as it's limited by the glass you're using, which is amplified if you're using slow glass.