IS For Motorsport

[NebSmith12]

Simple question which I'm sure will warrant some lengthy answers but how much of a difference will IS make for me if i upgrade from my 70-200mm f4. Ive seen it may help to improve the quality of panning shots but I'm not entirely sure whether thats a gimmick and more down to skill and practice than anything. Any thoughts would be welcome! And even any suggestions of a lens for me to consider (in the realms of <1000)

 

[MattyW]

It won’t do anything to improve panning shots. The only use IS would have in motorsport would be in the pitlane/paddock in poor lighting. Definitely not the solution. There’s a more complex answer somewhere to be found with single axis stabilisation, but in my humble opinion, your money would be better spent elsewhere

 

[NebSmith12]

It won’t do anything to improve panning shots. The only use IS would have in motorsport would be in the pitlane/paddock in poor lighting. Definitely not the solution. There’s a more complex answer somewhere to be found with single axis stabilisation, but in my humble opinion, your money would be better spent elsewhere

Thats great! Thanks for the help

 

[snerkler]

It won’t do anything to improve panning shots. The only use IS would have in motorsport would be in the pitlane/paddock in poor lighting. Definitely not the solution. There’s a more complex answer somewhere to be found with single axis stabilisation, but in my humble opinion, your money would be better spent elsewhere

Some lenses do offer panning IS but from my experience I’ve not been able to see any difference from regular IS tbh.

 

[RichardC27]

A lot of lenses have a multi position switch for IS - Mode 1 for full IS and mode 2 for vertical axis only, specifically for panning shots. This seems to be less common on modern lenses though. My old Sigma 120-400 had this and lived in Mode 2 all the time.

As for what difference it makes, probably not much until you get down to slow shutter speeds. It's not going to magically transform your photography by any stretch, you'd be better spend working on your technique or spending a bit of cash on a decent monopod rather than a whole new lens just to get IS. The 70-200 f/4 is quite small and light isn't it? You should be able to go pretty slow with that lens with good technique

 

[NebSmith12]

A lot of lenses have a multi position switch for IS - Mode 1 for full IS and mode 2 for vertical axis only, specifically for panning shots. This seems to be less common on modern lenses though. My old Sigma 120-400 had this and lived in Mode 2 all the time.

As for what difference it makes, probably not much until you get down to slow shutter speeds. It's not going to magically transform your photography by any stretch, you'd be better spend working on your technique or spending a bit of cash on a decent monopod rather than a whole new lens just to get IS. The 70-200 f/4 is quite small and light isn't it? You should be able to go pretty slow with that lens with good technique

Yes it is, quite easy to carry it for a day and not tiring at all, think my main port of call will be practice, practice, practice over the off season

 

[RichardC27]

Yes it is, quite easy to carry it for a day and not tiring at all, think my main port of call will be practice, practice, practice over the off season

Exactly. You can have the best IS in the world but if you're not tracking the car correctly your shot is still going to be blurry

 

[snerkler]

Yes it is, quite easy to carry it for a day and not tiring at all, think my main port of call will be practice, practice, practice over the off season

Panning can be quite a difficult technique to master, people like Richard and Matty make it look easy. I normally start at around 1/100 - 1/125 shutter speed to guarantee some keepers and then drop the shutter down slower and slower. I'm not sure which camera you have but it's made more tricky with mirrorless as the viewfinders start to lag quite badly at the slower shutter speeds. For example I have the Sony A9ii and according to the Sony website anything slower that 1/125 introduces lag. I think it only becomes a particular nuisance under 1/50 but you get used to it. DSLR's still have an advantage in this area.

Also, when you're panning slowly, unless the car is parallel to you your will have some parts of the car sharp and some not, when you see the shots at a 3/4 angle with loads of background blur yet the whole car is sharp they've been edited in photoshop such as my example below (this looks pretty fake, you can get it more realistic than this)


A9_01768-Edit by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

 

[RichardC27]

Panning can be quite a difficult technique to master, people like Richard and Matty make it look easy. I normally start at around 1/100 - 1/125 shutter speed to guarantee some keepers and then drop the shutter down slower and slower. I'm not sure which camera you have but it's made more tricky with mirrorless as the viewfinders start to lag quite badly at the slower shutter speeds. For example I have the Sony A9ii and according to the Sony website anything slower that 1/125 introduces lag. I think it only becomes a particular nuisance under 1/50 but you get used to it. DSLR's still have an advantage in this area.

A9_01768-Edit by Toby Gunnee, on Flickr

First of all thank you! And second I never knew this. Having only switched to mirrorless this year I must admit it's not something I've really thought about. I've never noticed it on my Fuji X-T4, though. The lowest I can reliably go is about 1/30th, anything after that it's either pot luck or I claim the blurriness is what I intended and call it an arty shot.

This is 1/30th at 100mm, with both lens and IBIS on. The Fuji 100-400 apparently auto detects panning. I've never found it to be a hinderance but other lenses and cameras might be different.

British GT Donington Decider 2022 by Richard Crawford, on Flickr

The speed of the car matters as well. You'd get similar blur at a higher shutter speed if the car was going much faster, its all relative.

This was taken at 1/4th which is as slow as I've ever gone and got something even remotely sharp(ish)

British GT Championship Oulton Park 2021 by Richard Crawford, on Flickr

 

[snerkler]

First of all thank you! And second I never knew this. Having only switched to mirrorless this year I must admit it's not something I've really thought about. I've never noticed it on my Fuji X-T4, though. The lowest I can reliably go is about 1/30th, anything after that it's either pot luck or I claim the blurriness is what I intended and call it an arty shot.

This is 1/30th at 100mm, with both lens and IBIS on. The Fuji 100-400 apparently auto detects panning. I've never found it to be a hinderance but other lenses and cameras might be different.

British GT Donington Decider 2022 by Richard Crawford, on Flickr

The speed of the car matters as well. You'd get similar blur at a higher shutter speed if the car was going much faster, its all relative.

This was taken at 1/4th which is as slow as I've ever gone and got something even remotely sharp(ish)

British GT Championship Oulton Park 2021 by Richard Crawford, on Flickr

Tbh I think it was far less noticeable on the EM1-II than my A9ii which is surprising being as the A9ii was once Sony’s flagship. I believe they’ve improved it on the A1, maybe Fuji are better.

With the A9ii when you get down to low shutter speeds it’s like you’re watching a slideshow 1 frame behind, similar to what I used to get with the EM1 (Mark I)

 

[Knikki]

Ive used a mix of lens, bodies with and without IS, personally I think that good technique (yes I still need to improve mine) and a monopod (some like some do not) is better than most IS system on the market.

 

[RichardC27]

Tbh I think it was far less noticeable on the EM1-II than my A9ii which is surprising being as the A9ii was once Sony’s flagship. I believe they’ve improved it on the A1, maybe Fuji are better.

With the A9ii when you get down to low shutter speeds it’s like you’re watching a slideshow 1 frame behind, similar to what I used to get with the EM1 (Mark I)

Never noticed that on my Fuji. I run it in Frame Rate Boost mode for motorsport which I believe bumps the EVF refresh rate up to 120FPS which maybe stops that happening? It also gives blackout free 15FPS shooting in high speed continuous mode which helps loads for really slow panning shots, as you can track the car and see when you've got a sharp shot.

The other thing for the OP, anybody trying this kind of slow shutter stuff ends up deleting the vast majority of shots. Nobody is getting a decent keeper rate panning racing cars at 1/30th of a second

 

[A_S]

This is quite an apt topic for me as i was trying panning with my RF 100-500 at the BGT at donington and I didn’t have many really badly out of focus just a lot of very soft images.

Never had as many problems with the (non IS) EF 70-200 f4L or my EF 300 F4L IS.

Interesting point on mirrorless ive certainly found it harder to track the car consistently especially after the shutter is pressed

What are peoples keeper rates bellow 1/100 as I’ve found that unless I, square on it’s not high, trying a lot of 3/4 shots and not many great ones to be fair compared to mirrored.

 

[snerkler]

This is quite an apt topic for me as i was trying panning with my RF 100-500 at the BGT at donington and I didn’t have many really badly out of focus just a lot of very soft images.

Never had as many problems with the (non IS) EF 70-200 f4L or my EF 300 F4L IS.

Interesting point on mirrorless ive certainly found it harder to track the car consistently especially after the shutter is pressed

What are peoples keeper rates bellow 1/100 as I’ve found that unless I, square on it’s not high, trying a lot of 3/4 shots and not many great ones to be fair compared to mirrored.

The longer the focal length the harder it is so I'm not surprised you're getting less keepers if you're at 500mm vs 200mm and 300mm.

My keeper rate is pretty high to about 1/50 then below this it starts to drop off pretty rapidly (I use a 70-200mm and 100-400mm), I've never counted but I would guess at 1/25 it's less than 10%

As for 3/4 angle shots when you're at 1/100 and lower you're not going to get the whole car sharp, you'll probably find the front of the car is sharp and the rear is a bit blurry and vice versa.

Bikes are also different as you have to take into consideration the movement of the rider.