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Austin F1 with the A6000 + 70-300G

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Kev The Doc

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What a challenge this was, with the high fences giving minimal locations to catch the cars with a clean shot, and then with the acceleration and deceleration (not the speed) of these F1 cars I found panning with the A6000 during burst shooting quite tough (wish I had the A6500 in my hands).

I wish these camera's went down to ISO 50 as there were many times there was too much light to keep the shutter speed as low as I'd like, which is a pity because at the end of the day I preferred the slower shutter speed shots (~ 1/125) the most, even if the cars themselves are less sharp, it produces more dynamic shots imho.

All shots were handheld.

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Frozen in time

Frozen in time

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Slightly lower shutter speed used here.

Slightly lower shutter speed used here.
 
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Nice photos! I am thinking you were panning on the shots of the car from the side. I was thinking that continuous focus would not be too much help since everything but the car appears to be moving. I guess you could use centre or flexible spot. What focus technique did you use? Tracking might be Ok as well.
 
FuzzyQball said:
Nice photos! I am thinking you were panning on the shots of the car from the side. I was thinking that continuous focus would not be too much help since everything but the car appears to be moving. I guess you could use centre or flexible spot. What focus technique did you use? Tracking might be Ok as well.
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Kev The Doc said:
FuzzyQball said:
Nice photos! I am thinking you were panning on the shots of the car from the side. I was thinking that continuous focus would not be too much help since everything but the car appears to be moving. I guess you could use centre or flexible spot. What focus technique did you use? Tracking might be Ok as well.

--
Glenn
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Hi Glenn,

Firstly thank you.

With regards to focus settings for the panning shots, I used the same setting I use for BIF which is AFC wide. Most of the time the cars were too far away and thus too small to keep in the centre of the frame, it was hard enough keeping them in the frame at all :-), especially with the A6000 which doesn't have liveview when shooting in burst mode. Another approach would be to shoot single shot and indeed use center focus and try and snap at at time you get the car in the center, which will work better in the shooting locations where the car filled more of the frame, but I personally feel this camera does such an awesome job in AFC Wide mode that this is the best option for me in most scenarios.
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Nice pictures - I especially like your shot of Jenson Button, you caught it 'just right'. You are right though, it is hard coping with the combination of speed and visual obstacles - my first year at Silverstone with my Nex3 I did not come home with a single picture I was happy with (the Nex also has the added disadvantage of no EVF making panning more difficult).

Did you get any shots of those nice yellow cars, they should have helped you out by going too slow:-)




my kid tries a (not a) R.S.16 for size

Cheers
 

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Pretty good panning there - especially considering the slight delay in the EVF - I agree, that's one very nice thing the A6300/6500 addressed...it's still quite possible to get excellent motion shots and pan & track with the A6000, but it's a little more difficult.

I definitely prefer the slower-shutter look when panning with a fast car - nicely done.

Might need to invest in an ND filter - they're expensive for that filter size, but probably worth it if you intend to shoot in similar conditions or similar subjects often.
 
zackiedawg said:
Pretty good panning there - especially considering the slight delay in the EVF - I agree, that's one very nice thing the A6300/6500 addressed...it's still quite possible to get excellent motion shots and pan & track with the A6000, but it's a little more difficult.

I definitely prefer the slower-shutter look when panning with a fast car - nicely done.

Might need to invest in an ND filter - they're expensive for that filter size, but probably worth it if you intend to shoot in similar conditions or similar subjects often.
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Isn't the 70-300 a bit large to get good handling out of the A6000 combo? Seem like it would be a bit off-balanced to me? Not a criticism, just wondering how the handling feels in an action sequence like this? The helicopters looks much sharper to me, for instance.
 
Son Of Mustang Ford said:
Did you get any shots of those nice yellow cars, they should have helped you out by going too slow:-)
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I guess this is where the definition of slow gets blurred lol. What was really slow was actually the Porsche's :-)
 
John Jennings said:
Isn't the 70-300 a bit large to get good handling out of the A6000 combo? Seem like it would be a bit off-balanced to me? Not a criticism, just wondering how the handling feels in an action sequence like this? The helicopters looks much sharper to me, for instance.
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With any large lens, irrespective of the camera, if you use the hand under the lens to support the majority of the lens and camera weight it doesn't actually feel unbalanced as this is where the the centre of gravity / balance point is.

I think there's a few reasons the helicopter shots are sharper, firstly the ones shown were taken at 1/2000s whereas most of the car shots shown were panning at 1/125s to 1/250s to help get the motion blur. It was relatively easy panning the copters also just becuase they travel in a predictable path and consistent speed. I think the focus system has an easy job with the copters also where there is more contrast between the item of interest and the background.

People with larger lenses (I was very jealous of some of the glass people had), used monopods out of necessisity, and although a monopod would make panning smoother I simply don't feel it's a necessity with this combo.
 
Glad to hear continous worked for you. I was not sure it would while panning. Back in the old film days, I had a friend who managed it pretty well with a SLR. Would like to give it a try with the 6000!
 
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