Some advice from the experts please.

[Damon]

How much was that camera, if you don't mind me asking?

[rdjones]

As some of u know I have also just bought a digital camara - Fuji S602 Zoom and I have to say I am quite impressed with and have had some good results. Now this camara is not an SLR (couldn't afford one), but it has alot of SLR functions it has a 35 - 210mm zoom on it and here are some of the results.

Here's a Jaguar at Donington

[rdjones]

FFord's at Snetterton

[rdjones]

And Finally some F3 action from Rockingham

[Damon]

Excellent shot of the Formula Fords Rob.

[Tim Falce]

How much was that camera, if you don't mind me asking?
If you mean my camera, it is a Nikon D100. It cost about £1500 + £250 for the lens, but they are cheaper now. Don't tell my wife how much it cost though.

[Damon]

hehe! Thanks. Better start saving...

[G_Ilott]

Which 70-300 £250 lens?

[G_Ilott]

Damon, spend your money on lenses, not the camera. The camera body merely holds the film in darkness before you capture an image; the lens is what determines whether that image is worth capturing.

You could buy a perfectly serviceable manual or autofocus SLR for £150, and spend any other funds on a pro-sumer zoom or prime lens. The 'faster' the lens, possibly the better. All my lenses are 'fast' meaning I can shoot in lower light at higher shutter speeds

[kdr]

you can get a nikon f3 for around £300 with motordrive. tough as nails and so many lenses to choose from.

the above post is spot on.

[G_Ilott]

Of course, you should be careful of motordrives. They shouldn't be thought of as a fools way to get good pictures. Unless you've practiced using it and have a light finger, firing off 5 frames a second will almost certainly result in rolls or cards full of similarly awful pictures and a feeling of not having captured any good shots by your own technique. And if you fire off shots on a 36 exposure film, you may find that when something dramatic happens, you don't have enough film left to capture it.

Motordrives should be used sparingly and for particular reasons.

It's like a high-rate machinegun - if you shoot off all your bullets onto the battlefield willy-nilly, you'll find you'll neither hit the enemy nor have bullets when the ememy attacks.

The plus side of motordrives is that they give you a better grip on the camera body and many incorporate a second shutter button for easier portrait (upright) shooting. Another plus is that there are times when you wish to make a quick sequence of shots (a crash for e.g.) that tell a story. Or the subject is moving at a speed or angle where it may be exceedingly difficult to accurately gauge when to fire the shutter to make the image you wish.

[kdr]

they're certainly not a fools way to good pictures but motordrives are pretty essential for sports photography.

most pro-msports snappers will fire 2-3 off on car on a corner. boom boom boom. panning is more-or-less the same. there are some people who can hit it in one...but no-one gives you money for missed pictures. you only need to get one of the three sharp and thats when you can start to earn. obviously its different for amateurs without the resources to shoot rolls and rolls of film.

how do i know? well its the way i do it at le mans, and i've also edited 70 plus rolls of film from two photographers at the last 150 grand prix!

[G_Ilott]

As a follow-on from my 21:26 post, I used a Canon EOS 600 for about 5 years. This is an extremely solid (I've dropped mine quite a few times and all that is bent is the camera strap hook), high spec camera body and even has a high frames-per-second (5) as standard. You can pick up a good one for £125, which is peanuts for something that will last for years and allow your photographic technique to grow rather than inhibit you after 6 months.

I now have a secondhand EOS 1N (£500 in mint condition), mainly to combat my poor eyesight. It has an adjustable dioptre in the viewfinder meaning, for the first time, I can reliably take pictures that are in-focus.

You shouldn't think that an autofocus camera is a must, though. You will learn more from a manual camera which, while having a steeper learning curve and a longer period until you achieve good shots, will ultimately give you the essential knowledge to really get the most out of a camera and lens, whether you move to AF or stay with manual.

Indeed, a lot of motorsport photographers pre-focus on an area of track so negating any advantage of AF. However, I find AF useful for other kinds of photography and also for panning shots.

[Damon]

Thats the advantage for me of the Digital camera, it lets me get rid of the trully awful pictures as I take them, plus I can take more shots without worrying about using up all my film on rubbish pictures. I think I'll stick with what I have for a while to get some practice then upgrade to something a bit more proffesional when I've got my technique sorted. Thanks for all the advise, it really is very helpful.

Edit: Above was with reference to the motordrive camera's btw.

[G_Ilott]

I was applying my comments to Damon who is an amateur just starting out. It would be far too expensive and sheer folly to buy a motordrive camera thinking it would give him good pictures straight off. I was merely cutting off any thoughts in that direction someone reading my comments might have.

Like you say, for professionals and serious amateurs, motordrives are a method of getting the shot. But they are experienced in the method and know when they need or need not use it. If you rely on getting the shot to pay your bills, extra frames per shot are worth the expense. Film is, indeed, cheap. As I said in another thread, you can't learn from shots you didn't take.

But several similar pictures rattled off using a motordrive by an amateur trying to learn, will not teach him/her much at all. Better to vary each of those 36 frames to experiment each time to see what is working and what isn't.

[Tim Falce]

My 70-300 lens is the Nikkor D series, they do one for £100 but not sure if it is opticaly as good.
As for compact digital, stick to closer subjects and if you need to do fast moving cars, stick it on multi exposure and that way one or two will be in the right place.

[Tim Falce]

Here are some from last weekend. http://www.tkracing.co.uk/bran17augindex.asp
The other thing I find with digital pictures is that some need some sort of editing with a good photo editing program. I use Photoshop 6 or Ulead something or other.

[G_Ilott]

I thought it odd that you put a £250 lens on a £1500 body. I'm not familiar with the Nikon lenses - I presume the D signifies that it is pro-sumer level?

You certainly manage to capture some good images with it. I like the variety of your Brands pictures. Were you using flash for the driver portraits?

I think your paddock shots would look better if taken lower and using a quality polariser.

[Tim Falce]

I thought it odd that you put a £250 lens on a £1500 body
Why? The only things you pay more for on Nikon lenses are things like wider apperture, mine is f4.5-f5.6, an f2.8 would cost about £3000. They have also brought out a range with silent wave motors for quicker auto focus, but they are in the £1000+ range. Image quality would be the same.
The only problem with polarisers is that dont they lose one f stop on the aperture? I did use flash for the driver pics but only the built in one.

[Aysedasi]

I must admit these days I rarely use a polariser. Just a skylight for protection. Frankly, cheating though it may be, I can normally get the polariser effect (if I want it) in Photoshop.....

[G_Ilott]

Image quality is the same on £250 and £3000 lenses? While I doubt that, I've no knowledge of Nikon lenses.

I meant using a polariser for the static car shots - you lose some of the highlights but cutting through the glare really improves vibrancy. The one stop won't matter for those shots. I wish I had a scanner so I could post an example. I shot two pictures of a concours Mk2 Jaguar at a local transport show, one with polariser, one without. The one with was pin sharp and really showed the stunning condition the owner had managed. The other, while looking more shiny, was visibly less sharp (not camera shake) and glare from the chrome dulled the overall effect.

[Aysedasi]

Perhaps I ought to get that polariser out again........?

[G_Ilott]

I've just got my slides back from the rally day at Combe and again, the polariser shots look sharper and more vibrant, even on what was a mostly cloudy day. It also better defines the clouds so you have background interest in the shots too.

[Damon]

Ok guys, the second motorsport weekend with the camera and these are the results. The first few are action shots so your thoughts on those would be appreciated, particularly how to make them brighter (if neccessary in Paint Shop pro - cheating I know!). The first shot is from the first BTCC race of the day:

[Damon]

Here we have a Honda and a Peugeot going down Paddock Hill: