Have Camera will travel (to the races)

jonH · Have Camera will travel (to the races)

Went down to wetherby races yesterday to try out some settings on the new cam and to also clear the cobwebs - I've not been to a race meeting since last may and have not shot any equestrianism since Bramham in June. Despite being nice to the course officials I failed to get a pass so had to stand with the punters, and couldn't even get to where I usually stand because they're carrying out some work to the track PDT_Aliboronz_26

Anyhow.. once I'd got over the disappointment of not getting to where I wanted to stand, and talking to two amateurs who had blagged course passes (bah!) I got on with trying a few settings out..

Under certain conditions I've noticed the D2Xs is under-exposing a shot in comparison to what I've been used to with the D70. I definitely found this the case on Saturday, so I'm glad I've given the camera a dry run under racing conditions so I'm a little better prepared for my first point-to-point of the season next weekend. I've also been reading about the best way of minimising noise - don't under-expose. As long as you're not blowing the highlights out, you'll get less noise by bringing the shadows down a touch in pp than up. I reckon it's also one of the reasons Canons do so well, because their equivalent ISO settings are a touch more sensitive than Nikon. With this in mind, I decided to try dialing in +0.3ev for the jump shots to see what happened.

Because of where I could stand, I couldn't get any jumping shots in the hurdle races, so took the opportunity to practice some panning, and I'm glad I did - I've not fluffed that many panning shots for a long time, even with VR on in single-plane mode! I wasn't even on the slow shutter speed I normally use.. still I got better as the day went on, so that was a relief Smile

Matrix metering and 0ev compensation worked perfectly fine for this application, as I assumed it would - very little bright sky in the shot to complicate things:

Onto the jumping - there were 3 hurdle races and 3 steeplechases, so plenty of opportunity with 2 laps coming past me in each race to try stuff out (it was too cold and dark to bother staying for the final flat race!)

I used matrix metering for the first jump race which ended up being a mistake - I'd forgotten about dialing in any exposure compensation so the jump shots all came out far too dark because of the bright sky.. oops..

On to the second steeplechase.. clever old me dialled in -0.3 ev instead of +0.3ev for the first lap, so that went out of the window too.. luckily I noticed for the second lap and dialed in the correct compensation:

I'm going to have to be careful in poor light - the second shot shows quite a bit of CA on the jockey's back even though I was using my Nikkor 28-70 AF-S!

I was reasonably happy with those two shots, the HSC mode worked well and I was instantly at ease with the increase of fps - I could reel off 2 or 3 shots very quickly and have a couple of shots to choose from. I was still trying to time the shots as per normal, but if I was slightly out, it didn't matter half as much as it would have done with the D70. I had the tone compensation set at '0- Normal' all day, and possibly because of this, there is a touch too much contrast in these two jumping shots.

The light _really_ fell off between the end of the 3rd hurdle race and the beginning of the 3rd steeplechase. I realised I was going to have to up the iso quite considerably, which to be honest, I'd been hoping for. I could at least get to see how much noise was going to appear. After consulting the in-camera meter, I decided to plump for HI 0.7 which if it was to spec would be ISO 1250. I left 'high iso nr' set to 'normal' to see what the camera would do under default settings.

As you can see, +0.3ev using centre-weighted metering was nowhere near enough - the image is still under-exposed which means extra noise in pp. All that's been done to the above pic is a crop to 800px for flickr and a 0.4 high pass for sharpening. I'd have to up the levels on this shot in pp, which would mean more noise and a secret visit from the noise ninjas, but as it is above, the noise isn't actually that bad IMHO!

I would have never had a shot that under-exposed with the D70, although the D2Xs is bound to be less forgiving - it's a pro's camera and any shortfall in technique is going to be highlighted.

I've now got the choice of considering spot metering for the jumping shots (I really wish I'd tried spot metering now!!) or upping the exposure compensation to either +0.5, +0.7 or +1 and have no real idea which way to go. I'm going to ask a few questions on forums and see what the consensus is, but all in all, I've been pleased with the first real action test, and have at least learned a few things along the way.

Evolution104

Great post!
I've been really unhappy with the noise from the Olympus E-500, despite reviews to the contrary. Up to now, I simply won't shoot above ISO 200 because of it, and that has severely limited some shots. There is an in-camera noise filter, but my limited test so far is dismal - it takes longer to capture a shot and the results are not impressive. This is something I do need to spend some time on. Maybe I'm not doing something right. But I hope I can apply some of your findings and that may lead to some better results.

When it comes to low light or fast action conditions, I do miss film terribly.

hil26

Super walk through of your day out.

Quick question about the pics - but hoping that the spots I can see, just to the right of the horses ears in the lower shots are birds.

richard

First three images Jon...really like them.

Good brief on the D2Xs as well...

jonH

thanks guys, plenty learned, but plenty more to learn until i'm as consistent as i was last year with the d70!

the spots will be bits of mud kicked up by the horses in front, rather than anything on the sensor (oh the joy of having a new camera with a spotless sensor!!)