[Anto Modded]

Ive been taking photos at trackdays and rally's etc using my old s9600 camera and i bought a canon 350d yesterday and bought a sigma 70 - 300 lense and some other bits too. Ive read thru the booklet and im not the best at manuals to be honest. What i want to do is try take some photo's zommed in on the cars as they race round the track. I want to freeze the car and blurr the background slightly and still be able to fire out the shots quickly as the cars come out of the corners. Could someone please give me a quick way of setting the camera up in a way that is easy to understand. Any help would be great.

[Gary Bagshawe]

What you want to do is pann with the vehicle at a shutter speed of around 125th/sec to 250th, if you pan with the car you will keep the car sharp but blur the bgrd. for cars exiting a corner you will probably need to set the cameera to AI focus and a fast shutter speed, adjust your iso to allow for the shutter speeds required.

[Liam O'Neill]

It's a technique called panning. You follow the car in the viewfinder for a short while before, and as, you take the picture. It works because the car stays in the same place in the image, while the background is blurred by the camera movement.
It's tricky, it won't always work, but practise will allow you to get better at it over time. In a race, the car is going to pass you every lap. You only really need to get it right once to get the picture. If you try every lap, your more likely to get it that once, and then you'll look like a genius, as you quickly hide all the other shots....

[JMitchell]

Sound advice there. With your set up it should be possible. Mine is very similar, but I have a Nikon D50 rather than the 350D, but I do have the 70-300 Sigma. Perhaps you want to shoot it shutter priority, so you can specify the shutter speed you want, or aperture priority and boost the ISO where needed.

[Anto Modded]

Will try that tomorrow. Thanks for all the advice.

[Steve400]

Anto, heres a recent post in the photo sharing section about different shots at rallies!

A few rally photos

hope it helps!

Steve

[Anto Modded]

Thats some nice info Steve. Ive took some basic pics with my fuji camera, but want to experiment with the canon. Heres some pics I took from roscommon rally last week. There ok but too plain [url=http://d4d.fotki.com/2007---pictures-of-/29-04-07-midland-mc/]Midland M.C. Stages Rally album | Anto Modded[/ url]

Edit: Sorry Anto - we do not permit links to personal web-sites in posts, so I've broken the link. Youi may have up to two personal web-sites in your signature, and up to three in the members web-sites section in the centre of the banner at the top of the page.
Dabhand16
Pixalo Crew

[Steve400]

looks like some nasty crashes there at the end! the 350d will be a great camera for the rallies with your 70-300 lens, i always work on Tv with a low ISO and mess about with the shutter speed untill i got what i wanted. rally photos are all about geting in the right place!
you will love the photos you will take with the 350d!


Steve

[Anto Modded]

Rally's are great. Location is the key. i was late for the last one so i didnt have time to look for a good spot but next time i will be prepared........... And Dabhand16
Pixalo Crew im sorry if i posted wrong link or that, didnt mean to and thanks for fixing it .