Australian GT Championship at Oran Park

[ABG]

I went out to Oran Park yesterday to watch a good mate of mine (and also one of our Queensland instructors), Damien Flack, compete in the second round of the Australian GT Championship. It was his first race in a Porsche GT3 and also his first race at Oran Park. Damien finished a very credible 5th outright and 3rd in the Porsche Drivers Challenge.

I tried a number of panning shots over the course of the day. Like Stubbsy said in an earlier post, it's bloody difficult.

Some were blurry at the front, but reasonably sharp at the back of the car, like this shot of Greg Cricks awesome Dodge Viper


Others were sharp across the whole image, but I cut off parts of the car, which I find distracting, like this one of Damien lapping a back-marker


and this one...



This one's a complete photochop of Damiens' car slowly making its way to the starting line. I added a motion blur in PS and then painted a mask over the car. The almost stationary wheels give the game away...



All taken with the kit lens. C & C welcome. I'd really like to hear from the motorsport photography gurus here how they get such wonderful, close up panned shots.

[BBJ]

Mate,i like them even the first shots is great the way it is. I know panning is an art at times and can take some time to get used to. But these images show the speed of there subjects and well. Things dont always have to be perfect to make a good picture Andrew and you have done well mate. Keep it up.
BBJ

[daniel_r]

My picks are #1 and #3. Both capture a feeling of speed well.

I 'm not too put off by the front being blurred in #1, nor the gap between the cars in #3 - they add a sense of action rather than appearing sanitised. It shows that you were actually there where the action was!

[Catcha]

1st and 3rd are pretty good. 3rd being the better one out of the two

[MCWB]

This one's a complete photochop of Damiens' car slowly making its way to the starting line. I added a motion blur in PS and then painted a mask over the car. The almost stationary wheels give the game away...

Andrew, given that the car is completely side on it's a perfect candidate for radial blue on the wheels, you'd be hard-pressed to pick it from a genuine pan IMO.

Panning is IMHO a skill acquired through practice. When I first tried it, I had maybe a 10 or 20% success rate, max. I reckon the panning shots I took on the weekend would be ~90% keepers, so it's possible! I usually shoot at a focal length that gives me the car and maybe a half to a full carlength either side, as you zoom in tighter your keeper percentage will go down because you end up with half-cars. Shutter speed depends on the subject you're shooting and where you're shooting, check the LCD for adequate wheel-blurring! Shooting between the dogleg and final turn at OP I shot at ~1/160 s with great results. If you're shooting a F1 car on a 250 km/h corner then you might need something faster!

I use a monopod with Manfrotto 488RC2 ballhead, slightly loosened so I can pan, but not so much that it flops everywhere. I find the ballhead has greatly increased my panning keeper rate, both over hand-holding and monopod only. Hope that helps, I'll try and get some pics up tonight to illustrate what I mean.

[ABG]

Thanks for the words of encouragement guys and especially to Trent for sharing your technique. Looks like I need to save up for yet more equipment...