Motocross photos - OM-D + 75-300

[Martin.au]

I was curious as to how bad the OM-D would be at shooting "fast action", so I went out to the practise session of a motocross club and took some photos.

In short, the shortcomings of m4/3s for this style of photography have been greatly exaggerated by some people in the forums.
I was there for about 50 minutes. I took 212 photos of MX riders going around their circuit. Of those 21 were out of focus. I'll take a 90% hit rate on a moving target anyday.

Typical settings were C-AF, burst (but rarely used. Usually only single shots) Shutter set to 1/640 to 1/1600. In retrospect I probably need to slow that down a b

it to get the wheel blur happening, but hey, I've never shot MX before.

The photography could be summarised as "put centre focus box on rider, press shutter button". It's absolutely a piece of cake.

 

[eliaspt]

Not bad at all thanks for sharing!

 

[Ramyeah]

Those are some interesting action shots, well captured. And a hit rate of 90% seems appreciably good...

Cheers,

 

[Isabel Cutler]

Terrific camera work. Kudos.

Isabel

 

[Brian Wadie]

Nice work and its good to get confirmation of my results when using CAF for fast moving windsurf / sailboard action (I also reckoned on about 90% focus "hit rate")



As you say, much heat but little factual experience abounds about the "problems" of using the EM-5 in this way

 

[Martin.au]

Having come from the E520, with it's old 70-300, I wasn't expecting much from C-AF as it's never worked well for me in the past. Once the 70-300 lost focus, the chance of getting it back was unlikely.

The 75-300 was unbelievably good though. As I said, it really was a case of, put green box on subject, press shutter button.

 

[BonoBox]

did you try with S-AF?

i was recently trying to take some pics to motorbike events and i found CAF always going crazy and hunting for anything else except the subject (but i was using the 45mm)

 

[Future user]

...unfortunately, some nice guy might chime in to tell us how useless is M4/3 for action, how much better are the DSLR for action, and how lucky you were to get these shots.

 

[Martin.au]

Future user wrote:

...unfortunately, some nice guy might chime in to tell us how useless is M4/3 for action, how much better are the DSLR for action, and how lucky you were to get these shots.

No doubt.

Haters gonna hate.

 

[Martin.au]

BonoBox wrote:

did you try with S-AF?

i was recently trying to take some pics to motorbike events and i found CAF always going crazy and hunting for anything else except the subject (but i was using the 45mm)

I tried with S-AF for a bit at first. Results were pretty good with that too.

I noticed a bit of hunting with the C-Af when I was trying to follow a rider on the far side of the track. If they didn't take up much room in the field of view, then the focus would sometimes shoot to the background when the rider wasn't dead centre, usually returning when I re-centred on the rider. Getting a bit closer to the riders solved that.

I don't use tracking though, just C-AF.

The 45 may be a bit short for that sort of sport. All of my shots are 75mm and up, and the majority are over 150mm.

 

[Brian Wadie]

from my experience CAF (without following) works best when the subject fills 20%+ of the viewfinder



I can't get consistent / accurate results when its below 10% of View Finder (which tends to make it of little use for the bulk of my BIF work when I find SAF + MF works best, using the MF to "tweak" final focus)

 

[Adventsam]

Future user wrote:

...unfortunately, some nice guy might chime in to tell us how useless is M4/3 for action, how much better are the DSLR for action, and how lucky you were to get these shots.

Yes, they are excellent but the pd-af of dslr will be so much quicker, faster, superior and everything else LOL ;-) Great shots btw, like.

 

[Martin.au]

Cheers.

 

[Anders W]

Mjankor wrote:

Typical settings were C-AF, burst (but rarely used. Usually only single shots)

What? No bursts? No wonder you couldn't see how lousy the E-M5 really is in this type of shooting?

 

[Martin.au]

Anders W wrote:

Mjankor wrote:

Typical settings were C-AF, burst (but rarely used. Usually only single shots)

What? No bursts? No wonder you couldn't see how lousy the E-M5 really is in this type of shooting?

If you nail it first shot, what do you need burst for.

I guess I could have used it to see how bad I was at tracking the subjects.

 

[howardfuhrman]

Very nice series of photos.

 

[Anders W]

Mjankor wrote:

Anders W wrote:

Mjankor wrote:

Typical settings were C-AF, burst (but rarely used. Usually only single shots)

What? No bursts? No wonder you couldn't see how lousy the E-M5 really is in this type of shooting?

If you nail it first shot, what do you need burst for.

To demonstrate the superiority of your D4 of course. After arriving on this forum, I have understood that the action shots I managed 40 years ago with my motorless and AF-less Konica SLR were in fact completely impossible.

I guess I could have used it to see how bad I was at tracking the subjects.

Absolutely not. Always remember to put the blame completely on the equipment. Now repeat after me: The slow and unreliable AF along with the dismal burst-mode performance made me miss shot after shot. ;-)

Next time around, you must also remember to try the Panasonic 20/1.7, which, as we all know, has particularly slow and noisy AF. I am sure you couldn't have got a single shot right with that one. No good even for toddlers, you know. And you would have a hard time hearing the bikes.

 

[Martin.au]

I found something faster than motorcycles today.

 

[farrukh]

Nice shots!