Three Castles Classic car "rally"

I went along to Llandudno today to watch the classic cars of the Three Castles rally do a circuit of the Great Orme - enjoyed the day and some of the drivers were really giving it some on the hill climb.

Unfortunately my photos didn't quite work out as well as I had hoped, I definitely need more practice with my motorsport shooting. the 1st is the only panning shot which nearly came out ok - the front of the car is slightly OOF though despite the driver & rear being ok?? Most of my other shots were completely OOF

I'd appreciate some pointers for next time I give this a go...the exif data for shot 1 is:

Iso 200, 1/200s, F11 - also used AFC, perhaps this was a mistake?

[IMG]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e68/STKITCHIN/IMGP0365.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e68/STKITCHIN/IMGP0298.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e68/STKITCHIN/IMGP0303.jpg[/IMG]

You certainly have some old cars in Wales!
Any body looking at them needs to click on them and open in another window (1024 wide).

The bokeh looks odd in the first one? Apart from that they are all nice shots

There's no need to change anything, but with the K-5 400ISO or 800ISO would have given you a faster shutter speed and possibly improved the 1st shot if the blur is caused by panning/shake.

I cant see to much wrong with these ,well done.

I too, like these a lot. Particularly no. 3 where you really picked the right moment to fire the shutter as the positions of the two cars make for a great composition which would have been gone a fraction of a second later!

BTW, what lens did you use?

Number 3 is rather nice. Shame you lost the rest of the road on the left side of the shot, but still nice.

Regarding the pan shot, I think that 1/200 is a rather short exposure, unless the target was moving extremely quickly. I usually go for about 1/60 (not that I'm an expert) to get more of a sense of motion (i.e. blurred background). Personally I think it's a bit of a trade-off. Ideally you want the subject to be perfectly in focus with a nicely pan-blurred background, but in practice you can get away with a little bit of subject blur if the background is really "moving". I try to follow a moving subject in a smooth motion with my upper body (feet planted firmly) and then pick my moment to release the shutter. It's also worth trying multiple shutter releases.

EM

Thanks for the advice...

Perhaps what made the panning difficult was being abit close to the cars, I was only 4ft away from the roadside (in shot 1). I tried the AFC together with hi-speed shooting on the K5 but it didn't really work out for me - pretty much every shot OOF.

I'm sure it's more about my panning technique then the camera though, I guess it's a lot to ask that the AFC can keep up with a vehicle moving quickly when it's so close - one thing I could have tried in hindsight though is allowing the camera to choose the focus point instead of leaving it on centre focus only

.

#3 is my favorite. A pity that there was not more of the bend (centre-left) but what I really like is the timeless quality - apart from the baseball caps there is nothing to say this picture could not have been taken 40 years ago.

I don't think the baseball caps make a difference. Modern style baseball caps have been around a lot longer than 40 years.

If there are plenty of cars going past and you've got enough DoF to play with (i.e. small aperture and loads of light) then you could also try sticking it into manual and pre-focussing on the distance you are interested in. Tough though if you are quite close to the action.

EM

They had baseball caps 40 years ago!

That is as may be, but as I'm only just over 40, I wouldn't know that

In total there was 136 classic cars taking part, some pretty special ones too by all accounts...whilst I agree about the saying "they don't make them like they used to" (some of these look terrific) it's also the only reason I managed to get the 2 cars together - because the first one wasn't running too well so despite starting one minute apart got caught by the one behind!!

Most of the cars were also parked on Llandudno prom afterwards, one of the requirements this year was that everyone put a "spill blanket" under the cars as Llandudno council charged them a fortune last year to clean up all the oil leaks on the prom

Great cars just the same!!

Simon

I really like the composition of the third one. They all look like they could do with a bit of a tweak of levels and contrast.

This explains it - headed to Anglesey yesterday and saw all these classics heading the other way - wanted to investigate but the Mrs wasn't having any of it The panning shot works well though 1/200 is a little snappy - dragging the shutter a little longer (1/100 or ideally slower) would emphasise the movement better.

Due to the motion a lot of successful panning shots only have a portion of the car in focus (like a race number on the door or the headlights) but you're right that the technique does need practice and can lead to a lot of shots headed for the recycle bin.

Two doesn't do much for me and three is very nicely framed but a little 'static'. With such bright light yesterday it was easy to freeze the motion, making the tricky bit catching the cars in a dynamic pose. If they were really 'giving it some' you could have got them dipping under braking, leaning at the apex of a corner or squatting on acceleration out of a tight bend etc... of course, this depends on course access and avaliable lens choice.

+1 for No. 3.