shutter speed

[sidewayspics]

Hi All,
This may seem a daft question to the more proffessional here but what shutter speed do I use to take Rally cars,I spend a lot of time in the woods taking pics of cars and have just been to the jim clark in scotland,any help please.I usually leave my camera on AF and use the little sports setting on the dial.
camera is a Nikon D70s with 70/300mm lens

cheers
steve

 

[c_robinson]

i'm on a canon set up but general rule is to not drop beneath 1/320 if you can see the wheels. (this will show the blur in the wheels) obviously the slower the car is going the more you'll have to drop the speed.

i feel that you don't always need the blur in the wheels if you have dust/mud to show movement.

here's an example which has little or no blur to the wheels yert still shows the speed:

if shotting head on you can get away with a faster shutter speed.

this shot the cars were doing (i would guess) about 35 mph and is shot at 1/100
to some there's not enough sharp in this shot, for me it's fine. (check marcos' (rally-media) shots to see brilliant examples of alternative panning/blur and the brilliant results he achieves with only part of the car sharp)

hope this helps a bit

 

[rogan200]

As above - fast as you can if you don't want motion blur, but for good panning shots with motion blur in the wheels and background start off at around 1/160th and get slower down to about 1/100th as you master the technique. It takes a lot of practice but with patience you can start to get really good sharp shots at 1/100th and even lower. To start with at 1/160th you will have a lot of awful shots and few keepers but the ratio will improve as you do.

Just my take (i was in your position not long ago) but i'm sure others will have more advice!

 

[Marcos James]

to some there's not enough sharp in this shot, for me it's fine. (check marcos' (rally-media) shots to see brilliant examples of alternative panning/blur and the brilliant results he achieves with only part of the car sharp)

Bloody hell Charlie, how much do I owe you for that?

Glad someone appreciates it mate.

 

[sidewayspics]

thanks for the advise will try it out this weekend and post some pics on here for some of your advise on how to improve.
cheers
steve