Telephoto Lens Recommendation

I used Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS (with 1.4x Extender). It works very well and I thoroughly recommend it. But it really depends on how close to the track you can get to. If you need it longer (and if the money was no object) then 300 or 400 f2.8L IS would be perfect.

And do lots and lots of practising.

 

A couple thoughts. If you are trying to grab fast shots (and won't have the ability to use a tripod or monopod), an image stabilized lens (like some of the Canon EOS lenses) is invaluable--especially if it ends up being cloudy. Otherwise, rent one that has the lowest f-stop possible (something in the 2's), assuming size isn't an issue. Also, get a hood for the front of the lens.

Have a great time!

 

check this forum out, it's the same info you want, regardless of the BRAND you are looking for:

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101915

 

Dale, I would be happy to make you a recommendation. I have a lot of experience with prosumer and pro digital equipment. I've sent you a PM with my phone number if you would like to discuss. There are a lot of good deals to be had right now!

 

Ehhh, What's up Doc?

Sorry I always wanted to say that ...

I think a good 70-200 lens with a 1.4 converter will be the best bet if you want to be mobile and not carry around too much equipment with you. The fixed prime lenses with 300 mm or more focal length are just too big and heavy to tramp around.

As for the lens, Nikon and Canon both make fantastic lenses. I currently recently bought a Nikon 70-200 F2.8 VR and I am pretty happy with it. The Sigma lens I had before was also really good. I used the Sigma lens for the Houston GP - i think you have had a look at my pictures.

I am not sure what the weather is in Mt. Tremblant - if it cloudy or rainy then a fast lens (aperture of 2.8) will really help out in gloomy conditions. If it is very sunny, then you could go for a slower lens (aperture of F4-5) with more zoom.

I believe you may need two lenses - one to zoom into the action on the track like the 70-200 mentioned above and a walk around lens with a 18-70mm range to take pictures at close range - paddock shots, close-ups, etc. The 70-200 lenses cannot focus close enough - the minimum focus distance is about 5 feet for a tiny object but for a car sized object you need to be at least 20 feet away to be able see the whole car. Pretty inconvenient. Alternatively, you could bring your P&S along for this task.

Hope this helps..

 

Nikon option: Nikon D50 or D70 camera body with a Nikon 70-200 F/2.8 ED-IF AF-S VR Lens.

Canon option: Canon D20 or D30 camera body with Canon 70-200 F2.8 L IS USM EF Lens. Note: I am not recommending the Canon Rebel XT camera as it is too small to hold for a big guy like you.

I put the whole name of the lens to make it easy for you to order it.

Nikon vs Canon which is better - everyone has a opinion. Either will be fantastic on track.

If you do get the Nikon, I can perhaps come over one day and help you thru with familiarizing yourself with the camera. Caveat: It will be more like the half-blind leading the quarter blind

 

First of all, there's no easiest 'P&S' telephoto lens. It's in the body. But if we are talking of quality, then aforementioned Canon 70-200 + 1.4x extender will do a great job. However, you do have to work on the technique side if you want decent images. And to do that, you need to work on the camera settings too, e.g. shutter priority with slow shutter speed for good panning shots, so there's no 'easy' way really. DSLR will only be a good option if you are capable of handling it (or willing to learn to handle it). Hope this helps.

 

I am not offended, but if you cannot understand why we explained what we did the way we did in the other thread, then you won't be taking great pictures.
It really does come down to two things: 1) How much you want to spend, and 2) How good you want your pics to be. You can spend all you want, but if you don't understand the adjustments you need to make, you will have a $5,000 system and be taking $200 system pictures.

I hope I am not offending you, but if you decide on the equipment you want or need, and spend a few hours playing with the basics, the results can be astounding, or they can be mediocre if you choose to 'point-and-shoot. Just like racing, you get out of it what you put into it.

In your example above, to me, it looks like the auto-focus was focusing on the catch-fence, and this is where you need to shut off the auto-focus and manually focus on the car, and the shutter speed was automatically going to like 1/125th, or maybe even 1/250th, and for that angle, 1/500 would work, depending on the speed of the car at that point (what was the speed there ?). I'm trying to help..

 

Dale,

I am a Canon guy, so I would recommend the Canon cameras since its all I know and I think they are at least as good as the Nikons.

Having said that, alot of it depends on how close you'll be. The 70-200 lens is a pretty good bet and with a 1.4x converter it gives you plenty of zoom. Bear in mind that the 70-200 lens (actually any film camera lens) on a digital body has a crop factor (I know, not all are APS size sensors so dont you camera guys jump on me). Anyway the 70-200 will be a 110-320 lens on a digital SLR like the Canon 20D.

The "faster" the lens, the more light it lets in which means it can use a faster shutter speed for the same shot vs. a slower lens. You want a fast lens because it lets you crank up the shutter speed and prevents you getting blurry pictures.

So, I vote for the Canon 20D + the Canon 70-200 2.8L lens. There is a 2.8L and 2.8L IS lens. IS is image stabilization. Its about $600 more than the non-IS lens. Honestly, for action shots, IS will gain you nothing. If you want to use it for more later, the IS is worth it. If you're renting a lens, I wouldn't pay more for the IS version.

When are you going? I have a 20D that I dont use all that much and if you like I will send it to you and you can take it on your trip and see if you like it before you lay down $1000+ for one. I dont have the 70-200 lens, but you could rent that.

 

Actually it looks like it would have anyway. The fence is the object in focus, but the car is not that much out of focus. If you had gone to manual focus, I'm going to guess both would have been almost-focused, not changing the shot that much. The real question is what was the aperture - if you were at f5.6 or smaller aperture, then opening up the aperture would have done more to provide you with the selective focus you're looking for in this shot. The other question is how much closer you could have gotten to the fence, getting closer would have helped to blur it out.

Most of this is useless commentary, except the part about getting closer to the fence, if you really have no interest in being an f-stop & shutter-speed aware photographer; which is sort of what you're saying. Reminds me of the photographer's peeve - the photographer shows off their photos and the audience says something like "oh, what great shots, you must have a terrific camera" , which most photographers find offensive because it implicitly attributes the quality of the shots to the equipment not their hard-earned skill . In other words, buying a big, fast telephoto will give you more "reach", but it won't automatically improve your shots.

Given that, what I would recommend is to buy a Nikon D-50 and the Nikkor 18-200 ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom (yes Nikon has an alphabet soup of descriptors for their lenses). The optical quality won't be as good as the 70-200 AF-S VR, but it is much more compact and it is VR (vibration reduction) helping your handheld shots. It also isn't as fast a lens as the 70-200, which is f2.8 and also VR, but it will do fine for most daytime photos. The reason I'm recommending this more compact lens is because 90% of casual photographers really aren't prepared for the weight and inconvenience of a big, fast telephoto (plus the monopod you should really use it with). You'll likely use it once, hate it and you'll have a very expensive closet queen thereafter. I suspect you'll also hate switching a 70-200 back and forth for a mid-range zoom, e.g. 24-85, which is needed if you're in amongst the cars, versus watching from track-side. The casual photographer will just find the 18-200 to be "friendlier", which means you're more likely to use the camera and lens, which means you're more likely to improve on your good shots.

The one thing you do need to do with the D-50 and 18-200 (or actually any SLR), given your expressed preferences, is to learn to switch back and forth between Program and Sport modes on the Auto-exposure control. Use Program mode, which will give you a good compromise combination of aperture and shutter speed, for shots where you're amongst the cars. Use Sport mode, which will use the widest aperture and fastest shutter speed available helping to provide the selective focus talked about earlier, for track-side shots of speeding cars.

You're going to miss 10-30% of the possible shots that you could have gotten if you knew how to use the best and fastest lenses, were willing to haul 2-3 lenses around with you and switch between them, and were willing to learn how to use all the controls. But you'll also get many more shots than with your digital P&S just because the wide-range optics, focus tracking and auto-exposure systems will help you out without your having to learn much more. I would also continue to use auto-focus as it should help to raise your good shot percentage. As with the choice of lenses, there is a time to go to manual focus, but if you don't know when that is, then you're likely to ruin other shots in the process of learning how to pre-focus as well as forgetting to put the auto-focus back on.

If you do start taking more photos and getting more interested in the extra control an SLR can provide, just start turning off some of the auto functions. You can always add bigger and faster lenses later too (200-400 f4 anyone?).

P.S. Canon is equivalently good - if I were starting today, I might easily go with Canon, but I have too many Nikon bodies and lenses to switch.

 

It would still have picked up the fencing. You'd have to be quite close to it for it to go completely out of focus using a wide apeture (e.g. f2.8). Most of the compacts would pick up the fencing when focusing (and they have huge DoF) but you can make good DSLRs (with proper handling) to focus on the car. Again it would come down to technique and knowledge (e.g. choosing a good location and angle, etc)

 

Doc,

The last few years I have been shooting with a Canon D30 and a borrowed 100-400 Canon Zoom. I don't think you'll be disappointed; this lens has IS and is 4.5 -5.6 If you are renting a lens, this would be the most versatile.

 

It would pick up the fence enough to knock some of the definition out of the pic, but it would not be so prevalent.

 

I was at the same race as Dale and I can vouch that some of the shooting spots made it real tough to blur the fence. At the spot where Dale took this picture, we were about 10-15 feet from the fence and the car about 5-10 feet beyond and the other wall about 20 feet away. Very difficult to separate the car from the fence. The first shot illustrates what I am talking about.

Some of you have suggested going wide open on the aperture but this would mean faster shutter speeds to get the same exposure which means frozen cars. Kinda like taxes, if they dont get you one way they will get you another. Manual focus might have helped - I am still new at taking photos - I will try it out next time...

I think panning helps with the fence blurring as can be seen in the two other shots taken at a different location on the track. All these pics makes me long for a nice track like Laguna with elevated spectator positions where you can get great shots without the nasty fences coming in the middle
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You just have to be pretty close to the fencing to throw it totally out of focus. Set the ISO to the lowest, widest aperture (and polariser or ND filter if the shutter speed was still too high). And head-on shots work the best for this type of shooting because you don't see much of the tyres (side of them), so you can choose pretty fast shutter speed. These 2 shots were taken through the fencing. I was less than 2 metres from the fence.
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what fence????

Great shots again Gemm.

Maybe you could start a thread on racetrack photo techniques. I could really learn a lot from you.

 

Sorry to rain on the parade. Not trying to brag, but I'm a fulltime photojournalist who has been shooting all types of sports including pro motorcycle racing and car racing for almost 30 years. The only reason I bring it up is that you guys a mostly telling this guy to spend well over $2000.00 for lenses alone to shoot through a fence from the exact same vantage point. Yeah the fence shots with the wide aperature are very nice, but access is very limited and the shots will all be quite similar. It might be a better idea to take a cheaper wide angle-tele point and shoot for shots of you and friends, hot womens, etc. and download good images later. I'm not trying to discourage you, and if you plan on staying heavily into photography then go for it , but 2-3 thousand is a lot of dough. You could probably go to a few F-1 races in europe for that money.