Drifting shots

Ok so this is a preemptive question, thinking ahead for once.
I'm off to my local drifting event on Saturday..... the first big outing since swapping from my Fujifilm s4080 bridge to the D3100.
Most of what I was taking, picture wise, was decent with the bridge, considering what it was. At £160 brand new I couldn't knock it.
Now though, I want to try and make the pictures as good as they possibly can be, so any tips or suggestions will be welcomed.
As a footnote, I'll generally be shooting in manual mode with the odd switch to sports or even macro for some extreme dof (depth of field).
I only have two kit lenses and just sorted out my track side insurance, so distance to the cars shouldn't be a major factor.

I have played a bit with this type of photography, I like setting up my tripod as a monopod mode, and than balancing out the exposure speed slow enough to blurr the background a bit while panning. I assume you were already doing that with your film camera, and all your knowledge will transfer over so well to the digital, but now you really will know if your technique is working and you can real time tweak your settings.
I tend to be around the 80 mm point, not too close, but not too far away.

My first thought was "drifting?!?" then after a quick google search I thought "never heard of such a "sport" but sounds like it would be fun" at which point I heard Churchill's voice say "two nations separated by a common language".

I think I watch the History channel way too much...

Drifting? Is it snowing there already?

If I'd know what drifting is maybe I could bring my 2 cents… you probably could try to duplicate the settings you had with the fuji and go from there. You'll be happy that the shutter lag will be a lot less I suppose. And you'll get better high iso images. The rest is up to you and your camera.

Marcel said:

If I'd know what drifting is maybe I could bring my 2 cents… you probably could try to duplicate the settings you had with the fuji and go from there. You'll be happy that the shutter lag will be a lot less I suppose. And you'll get better high iso images. The rest is up to you and your camera.

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I thought you lived in Canada. Oh well, anyway.....

Sorry it was an ssumption made on my part that drifting was becoming more well known. Drifting is in the basic sense, using a rear wheel drive car and sliding it round a pre designed course or section of a circuit. hopefully the picture above taken with the fuji on macro will provide a more visual aid to those who are still unsure. Or you can youtube bdc 2011 2012 and see related video's.
Thanks for the advice. i had tried the tripod once and didnt really get along with it too well maybe using it as a momo pod would be a good idea to try. A you can imagine panning does take it out of your lower back after 4 or so hours.

It's like what they do in the world rally championships, but on a smaller paved course. You gets points for how long you hold the drift and how well you link one to the next. They are basically spinning the rear wheels the whole time.
Since you won't always be in position to pan for motion blur, you can set your camera on AF-C and continuous shooting. You should be able to get some great shots of them coming toward you with the back kicked out and wheel smoke. The trick will be finding the right shutter speed so that you still get wheel spin blur, but the car is sharp. Have fun.

Your right and your explination is proberbly better than mine hmmmm oh well. I do think it will be tricky to find the right shutter speed thinking around 1/125th and decrease it and see what results i get. Thankfully i got my track insurance sorted so dont have to worry about being the wrong side and photographing through it anymore. Ill post some resulting shots up when im back on saturday night. Thanks keep the advice comming.

Com' on! You old guys gotta catch up with the times. It's adrenaline pumping explosive action! It says so on the poster.

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baza30 said:

Your right and your explination is proberbly better than mine hmmmm oh well.

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Sorry baza i was typing that on my phone and kept getting inturupted, by the time i posted it you had already done your explaination...
Here is a video, A little different than what Baza is going to shoot but drifting non the less.

Ah good ol mr block its quite alright, as stated your discription is still better than my own.
Driftworks S15 - AwesomeFest 2011 Promo - YouTube
driftworks s15 testing mallory park

Here's one i shot a couple of weeks ago at Japfest Donnington park.

Thats a great shot paul, i was at donington myself with the bridge so just trying to pick up tips and hints on transfering what i was doing on the bridge to the d3100. Thanks for sharing the pic as well.

OK people, went to my event yesterday and being track side, all be it a little alarming at first, made life so much easier, meaning that I could focus on taking the pictures rather than making sure I'm avoiding the posts, keeping the meshing to a minimum. A few that I've re sized and just auto balanced. All shot on manual mode, tweaking the auto focusing method af-s af-c etc and metering methods.

That one of the BMW is awesome!

thank you it was one of the better ones

some of my favorites from last weekend