Speedway

VeryFatbloke · Jun 3, 2024

Hi all,
new member here. As mentioned in my welcome post I've had my A7iv for a couple of months and am interested in sports and wildlife. I bought the 100-400 Sony lens when I bought the A7 with a view to attempting to take some decent speedway pictures. Below are some that I took at a meeting a couple of weeks ago. They are as taken, other than being cropped and also some of the colour saturation has been increased but not massively. All feedback very welcome.

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
400.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/500 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
315.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/640 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
200.0 mm
ƒ/8
1/400 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
200.0 mm
ƒ/9
1/400 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/8
1/400 sec
ISO 100

Tim Mayo · Jun 5, 2024

Lovely shots Gary, I've always wanted to try shooting some speedway. A couple seem to have a little more motion blur than I'd like personally but with two riders together that has to be very challenging with the slower shutter speeds! Are you using Mode 2 OSS on the lens?

Uncle Kevriano · Jun 5, 2024

Excellent. Used to love speedway back when it was a regular on World of Sport and Ivan Mauger ruled. That's a long long time ago ....

VeryFatbloke · Jun 5, 2024

Tim Mayo said:
Lovely shots Gary, I've always wanted to try shooting some speedway. A couple seem to have a little more motion blur than I'd like personally but with two riders together that has to be very challenging with the slower shutter speeds! Are you using Mode 2 OSS on the lens?

Thanks Tim, I need to lower my shutter speed to try and get more motion blur. I'm shooting across the track from outside of the safety fence and no go zone. Unfortunately the meetings are only once a month and the next one is in 10 days time, so I don't get much chance to practice. I'm not using mode 2 OSS on the lens, I'll have to check and see what that does. EDIT. The OSS was set to off on the 100-400 so I've set that to on. When I go the next meeting I'll switch it to mode 2., now I've read the manual and know what it does!

VeryFatbloke · Jun 5, 2024

Uncle Kevriano said:
Excellent. Used to love speedway back when it was a regular on World of Sport and Ivan Mauger ruled. That's a long long time ago ....

Yes, I first started going in 1975 but then had a lull between around 85 and 2004ish. As Kent run on a Sunday afternoon it's ideal for me and it's only 25 minutes from where I live.

Tim Mayo · Jun 6, 2024

garygroutage said:
Thanks Tim, I need to lower my shutter speed to try and get more motion blur. I'm shooting across the track from outside of the safety fence and no go zone. Unfortunately the meetings are only once a month and the next one is in 10 days time, so I don't get much chance to practice. I'm not using mode 2 OSS on the lens, I'll have to check and see what that does. EDIT. The OSS was set to off on the 100-400 so I've set that to on. When I go the next meeting I'll switch it to mode 2., now I've read the manual and know what it does!

Mode 2 is basically for panning shots like these. It detects the panning direction and corrects vertical camera shake when following shots in a horizontal direction, and corrects horizontal camera shake during following shots in a vertical direction.

VeryFatbloke · Jun 16, 2024

Some images from today's meeting between Kent and Rye House. There was a bit more dirt on the track today so the shale coming off of the back wheel's is more pronounced than last time. I had a go and panning at a lower shutter speed today, with mixed results. None of the crap ones have made it here! Note - edited to insert full size images.

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/250 sec
ISO 125

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/250 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
400.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/250 sec
ISO 125

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
400.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/250 sec
ISO 125

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/250 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
303.0 mm
ƒ/11
1/60 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/6.3
1/250 sec
ISO 125

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/9
1/125 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/10
1/125 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
274.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/250 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/5.6
1/250 sec
ISO 100

Tim Mayo · Jun 18, 2024

These look great Gary. Especially those at 1/125. Nice work!

VeryFatbloke · Jun 19, 2024

Tim Mayo said:
These look great Gary. Especially those at 1/125. Nice work!

Thank you @Tim Mayo The good thing in terms of these meeting is that they are always on a Sunday afternoon so light shouldn't be a problem. I think 1/125 seems to bring the best panning pictures so I may keep working with that shutter speed.

The next meeting is on 21st July with another one the following weekend. I'll see if I can get to a different position around the track and see what results I get from there.

VeryFatbloke · Jul 24, 2024

Ok, so a few from last Sunday's meeting. It wasn't quite so bright but I still managed to get some decent shots (imo!)

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
194.0 mm
ƒ/11
1/125 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
303.0 mm
ƒ/10
1/125 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
100.0 mm
ƒ/10
1/250 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
303.0 mm
ƒ/6.3
1/250 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
300.0 mm
ƒ/9
1/250 sec
ISO 100

ILCE-7M4
FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS
238.0 mm
ƒ/8
1/250 sec
ISO 100

VeryFatbloke · Aug 5, 2024

OK, so I was back at Iwade yesterday and there were a mixture of laydown and upright machines racing, although not against each other. I seemed to take more pictures of the uprights but here's a selection of both