Taking Action Pics

[SteelRat]

Interested to hear from people who've taken action shots of their cars and what techniques / kit they use to do it. I'm thinking something along the lines of a camera that will fire off a few hundred pictures automatically and then you just pick the best ones. Perhaps even a video camera with a kinda "freeze frame" facility? Whilst I realise the best pics often come from thinking about the composition as much as anything, taking action photos presumably requires better kit?

[TA-Mark]

Get a second person to take them for you. Either use a sport mode or a fast shutter speed. To avoid blurred images using a fast shutter speeds it needs to be in good light as the shutter is not open for very long. Take a wider than normal shot and crop instead of resize. It's easier to capture the vehicle in the shot this way.

It just takes practice to click the button at the right time. Most digital cameras have a small delay before it takes the picture. My wife has gotten very good at it.

[mattwho]

only thing i can say is have a very very fast shutter speed

was looking at a post like this on a full size car forum and if the shutter speed is fast you get a crisp nice pic

**** beaten to it

[Jonny Retro]

I like "burst" mode myself - just lean on the shutter button, then choose the best pic from 15 (or more) later.

If I was buying now, I'd be looking at the Nikon Coolpix L110 - around £200 but you do get what you pay for. I've had quite a few cheaper cameras & they're always a bit disappointing in some way or other

[SteelRat]

I like "burst" mode myself - just lean on the shutter button, then choose the best pic from 15 (or more) later.

If I was buying now, I'd be looking at the Nikon Coolpix L110 - around £200 but you do get what you pay for. I've had quite a few cheaper cameras & they're always a bit disappointing in some way or other

I'd be looking to take the pics myself to be honest, so getting someone else to do it isn't really an option (I'm not married!).

Having a look around, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1 seems to be like a good buy, again for around £200. It has one of the lowest shutter lag times in it's class, and has a burst mode (10 pics 0.1 seconds apart) as well as adjustable shutter times.

Just one question, do burst mode cameras have a timer or delay option? I'm thinking press the button, then the burst mode starts 15 seconds (for example) afterwards, just to give me enough time to drive the car in front of the shutter as it goes off, or am I expecting a bit much from a 200 quid camera.

[TWINSET]

If you're going to try taking frames off a video camera, get a cam with a high frame rate - that means the car will have moved less between frames, so be less blurred.

The easiest way to take pics and drive is to drive a set course and pre-focus the camera to a point the car will pass thru.

Using a pistol transmitter is easiest, as you can control throttle with the trigger, and steer quite well with just your thumb.

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...2963&id=169

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?...300&hl=hurt

The other option is to take advantage of the surroundings;

For dusty areas, tie a bit of fishing line to the rear of the car, tie the other end to an immovable object, then floor it - the dust kicked up will hide the line and focusing will be dead easy because the car's not going anywhere.

For added impact, turn the wheels so it looks like it's cornering (obviously works best on 4WD cars, so all four wheels are spinning!)

Water's a great 'impact' addition too;

This shot was taken/driven by me - I just reversed into the puddle then accelerated out whilst the water was still stirred up - all done on one stick of the TX, held in left hand, cam in right

[phantom photon]

Digital SLR if you want perfect results everytime. Fully programmable shutter speed and zero delay in taking the picture

It's also not just a case of freezing the action in the pic. Sometime you will want some motion blur to give a sense of speed and action. You can acheive this using a slightly slower shutter speeds and using the panning technique. Works best for side on action shots. This will in effect make the car image sharp but will slightly blur the background and the rotation of the wheels.

[TWINSET]

Digital SLR if you want perfect results everytime. Fully programmable shutter speed and zero delay in taking the picture

It's also not just a case of freezing the action in the pic. Sometime you will want some motion blur to give a sense of speed and action. You can acheive this using a slightly slower shutter speeds and using the panning technique. Works best for side on action shots. This will in effect make the car image sharp but will slightly blur the background and the rotation of the wheels.

LOL D-SLRs don't guarantee perfect results every time, I've taken thousands of naff pics with mine over the years

[SteelRat]

Aren't Digital SLR cameras silly money expensive as well? I rarely take pics of anything else other than my RCs, and whilst I don't mind spending a bit on a decent "entry level" camera, I couldn't justify spending much more than £250 on one. That would mean no funds for RC bits and pieces that month, and that would never do

[loaded]

There are two main advantages with a SLR/DSLR camera generally and that is the quality and changeability of the lens and the instant shutter. I have been disappointed with so many digital compact cameras that I have stopped bothering and telephone cameras are a waste of time, the battery in the car runs down before the picture is taken. Of course SLR type cameras are heavy, big and expensive, but the results are great even on Automatic. If you know how to use your camera properly you can get superb results by fiddling with settings.

Nikon have a couple of entry level cameras, but they are expensive in comparison.

Remember don't be seduced into thinking it is all about megapixels, according to experts, 6MP is perfectly fine for A4 prints (I mean paper) and far lower is superb on a screen. I use a Nikon D40, which I dropped after a week and for some reason they replaced it with a D40X motor/mechanism and now it shoots much faster.

Paul.

[TWINSET]

Aren't Digital SLR cameras silly money expensive as well? I rarely take pics of anything else other than my RCs, and whilst I don't mind spending a bit on a decent "entry level" camera, I couldn't justify spending much more than £250 on one. That would mean no funds for RC bits and pieces that month, and that would never do

Yeah, you're probably looking around 3-400 new with a basic lens - Jessops, for instance, kick off with a Sony for £310

But, having said that, once you get a decent compact with the features of an SLR, you're pretty much into SLR money.

With mine, whether I'm driving or just photographing, I use manual focus and focus on a set spot then as the car approaches that spot, fire off a few shots and hope one of them looks good.

Messing about with aperture settings increases the 'in focus' area in front and behind the subject, but again, selectable aperture tends to only be offered on high-end compacts or D-SLRs

Don't zoom in to close either, most 8mp+ cameras will give a good 1/4 of the frame crop, so you don't have to worry about getting the subject dead-centre, just crop it to look good later.

[arh21]

I have an older version of the DSC-TX1, the T10 and my brother has compact/slr hybrid (Sony DSC-H9) both have Burst settings the will work with the timer, although both will only take 5 shots when using timer. If you have not got one by the time of the next Kent bash I will bring them with me. In the mean time I will see what results I can get from both of them.

Andy

[SteelRat]

Nice one Andy, that would be brilliant. I think I'll probably hold off buying one until I see what sort of shots you come up with or maybe see what we can get out of it at the next bash.

Was going to suggest doing something this weekend but the forecast is for rain. Ah well, we're coming into Bank Holiday season, so maybe sort something out for then

[Origineelreclamebord]

If you want an instant result that's acceptable, you'll need a camera that preferably has a manually adjustable aperture and shutter speed, and a second person - Both are important if you want a set of good pictures instead of just one or two.

For the camera adjustment, You would probably want the aperture as small as possible/higher 'F'-value (which increases the field of sharp view, but does make for a darker picture) and the shutter open for the least amount of time (making the picture sharper, but again also darker). Finding the right settings for the weather circumstances is really easy, just make a photo of the spot you're at before the action pictures

[mr_pushrod]

Always worth remembering as well, the more photos you take the more decent ones you'll get........

[tamiya monkey]

the beauty of digital is the amount of storage available, ive had my camera for a few years now and still takes a great picture, as it has all the manual options that i need, including shutter speed etc, i think what ever you have you just need to practice and take as many shots of what your doing as possible, if you have a burst mode then use it as you more likely to get the shot you want, on a average meet i might take a few hundred pictures but end up with a few good ones, but lets face thats what your after.

i use an aging panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-5 but it does the job well.

[WW-nut]

Sounds like there are a few knowledgeable people around so thought I’d ask.......

My digital camera broke last week so have been looking around for a new one – what a mind field, I’m totally confused by it all. Anyway I set my budget @ £200, and with most things I don’t know why I bothered as a Canon S90 (@ £300+) is my current top choice -- > http://www.jessops.com/online.store/products/76504/show.html

I only need it for family and car pictures, so does anybody know if it’s any good?

Cheers,

Nige

[neo]

I have found that taking action pics requires not having to narrow depth of field to allow for any sudden changes in direction the car is taking this then gives you a bit of a cusion with regards to focus. Also, if you have the ability to focus on a point where the object repeatedly passes then do so an then get ready to start following the subject all the way up to and pass the point that you locked focus on remembering to hit the shutter button roughly at the point you focused on.

A fast lens/large aperture is a help as well as a camera with good ISO sensitivity.

Background/wheel blur gives a good sense of speed but requires a slower shutter speed which could mean a blurred shot overal if you don't pan at the same speed as the object you are photographing.

[DCLXVI]

I'm keen on Sonys Carl Ziess compact cameras, I had a DSC32 and the one I have now is a DSC60 (IIRC). It shoots really nice pics and it has the advantage of being able too great macro shots (2 cm)...

Getting good action pics is a matter of practice, one good advice I can give is the press the button haf way down while waiting for the car and then push the last bit when the car comes so the camera dosen't have to measure all the settings when the car comes...

[lee172]

the only advice i can offer is do not get an Olympus FE model, mine takes about 1.5-2 seconds to take the photo, which is **** for anything fast moving.

aside from that its okay..

[tamiya monkey]

The camera market is a minefield, i have friends with some really nice camera's mainly nikon's one has a d300 (very nice) and also one has a d90 this is the model i was looking into buying next, then i started looking at the the 3/4 size camera's then i was back to sqaure one lol.

[neo]

If you go the DSLR route then as a Nikon owner myself, the DX sized sensor cameras are good for sports/action/wildlife due to the x1.5 crop factor. This gives you a magnification multiple of 1.5 which means a full frame lens of ie 200mm will actually give you the effect of using a 300mm lens. Which is handy for distant objects.

@ tamiya monkey. The D300 is a great cam and I use that for most of my action/wildlife stuff. Although the D700 is also a fantastic camera which I have just started to use for landscape/portraits/wide angle etc.

[PaPeRo]

I have a 10MP Fujifilm Finepix S2000HD. It's capable of taking 33 shots at 13.5 frames/sec at 3MP resolution or 7 frames/sec at 5MP resolution. It can also do 720P video. I also have the optional remote control.

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_c...inepix_s2000hd/

I'm gonna be upgrading to the new Finepix HS10 which can do 1000fps highspeed photography and full HD 1080P video with stereo sound.

http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_c...s/finepix_hs10/

[SteelRat]

Like the look of those Fujis PaPeRo. The S1800 does everything the S2500 does, the only difference being the S2500 includes an HDMI output (which isn't really necessary for me). At £175 you can't really go wrong!

Thanks for the wealth of helpful info there guys. I think I'm going to start with the Fuji, and perhaps look to upgrade later on if I get a little more into it.

[DCLXVI]

the only advice i can offer is do not get an Olympus FE model, mine takes about 1.5-2 seconds to take the photo, which is **** for anything fast moving.

aside from that its okay..

Most digital cameras can be made to measure the photo before you take it by pressing the button halfway down, doing this before your objective gets into frarme often enables you to take pics without the long delay usualy associated with compact digi-cams...