Race Track Photography

Tonight I tried my hand at dirt track racing. I have a friend who has a friend who races pure stock cars on a dirt track. The owner of the track allowed me to shoot as long as it was not for profit so I would not interfere with already hired Professional. I also spoke with the hired professional who seemed stand offish at first, but then realized he was new once too. He showed me some points to stand and gave me some tips on how to shoot and what to look for. After some time and lots of pictures he asks me if I caught a shot of the wreck. Mind you the wreck was on the other side of the track, so I admitted I had missed the wreck. "Rule number one about race photography, also catch the wrecks." I couldn't help but respond with "I will work on that." Haha.

Anyway, I will post some of my shots after I review them, but I would like to see what you guys got and some tips on what you did to get your prize shot.
Thanks.

Where they pass is where they wreck. Road courses are a little different but a little research will net you those two or three turns that get the most passing and risk taking. Even if the car is on the other side of the track, you can still get something from it.

So what tips did the photog share? Love that first shot car #52.

Slower moving cars- 1/20-1/40th TOPS. Daytime = CPL full-time. Night time, no CPL. Faster moving GT cars, play by ear, I'd guess 1/60th would be alright if not 1/80th if they go by ya going at least 100. Rest is just knowing how to follow the car like a sniper. And then good processing.

Bikes are roughly 2x the car speeds.

#1 forever and always tip - be there. If you can get your exp and say, outshoot the "pro", you'll have his job and have his kinda fun.

SkvLTD said:

Slower moving cars- 1/20-1/40th TOPS. Daytime = CPL full-time. Night time, no CPL. Faster moving GT cars, play by ear, I'd guess 1/60th would be alright if not 1/80th if they go by ya going at least 100. Rest is just knowing how to follow the car like a sniper. And then good processing.

Bikes are roughly 2x the car speeds.

#1 forever and always tip - be there. If you can get your exp and say, outshoot the "pro", you'll have his job and have his kinda fun.

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1/320 to 1/160 depending the speed of a car on a road course. If your headed below 160 in daylight, your going to need something to cut the light unless you want absurdly small apertures.

CPL, that should be mandatory in daylight, + f/7.1-9 do the job just fine, and its not like there's much room for bokeh when you're overseeing moving cars.

Shooting faster than the cars are moving by you will just freeze them in the spot, and mudders don't exactly go 100+ mph...

SkvLTD said:

CPL, that should be mandatory in daylight, + f/7.1-9 do the job just fine, and its not like there's much room for bokeh when you're overseeing moving cars.

Shooting faster than the cars are moving by you will just freeze them in the spot, and mudders don't exactly go 100+ mph...

Click to expand...

Never mentioned Bokeh. After about f11 diffraction from the aperture blades starts to become an issue, f9 and below works great and gives you nice sharp images. Bokeh doesn't matter for a moving vehicle, and even if you freeze the car with a high shutter speed, bokeh won't matter all that much anyway thanks to heat haze and general crappy air quality at a track.

Never mentioned mudders, I said road courses. Even for vintage races, 1/160 works great, although some prewar cars really can't get up enough speed and then you have to start to get creative with your settings. For modern GT/Prototype cars, the stuff i like to shoot, 1/320 to 1/160 works great depending on how close i can get to the cars on track.

A CPL is not mandatory, it's an opinion, just like my preference for 1/320 and 1/250 at Sebring, and 1/250 and 1/160 at Mid Ohio is my opinion. You don't have to have that CPL to get great results. Your location at the track and watching the sun are more important to get great results.

I have done a few shoots both 4wd events and V8 racing events, I say choose a shutter speed that is going to allow for some wheel blur as you do not want to freeze the car...

Here are some examples.

Great information. The guy I shot with didn't really give me any equipment tips. We were shooting at night. He was a Canon user, just saying. I didn't bring my flash because I thought I would blind someone, but he was using his the whole time and told me he only ever had one guy complain and it turned out that guy was just being a poor sport.