Lenses thread

You lose two stops with the 2.0 right?

What do you lose with the 1.7? 1 and a half stops?

Cameras AF wide open. Adding a TC closes down the aperture, so may slow AF.

 

Last Saturday, I attended a track day at Carolina Motorsports Park in SC. While there, I made the acquaintance of a guy who had with him his D300S and Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VRII lens. He asked me to take some shots of him in his BMW as we were in different run groups. I was VERY impressed with the lens, and will probably do some trading to obtain one without any cash outlay. However, I have also been much impressed with the Sigma 70-200 as demonstrated on another thread by 4REphotographer.

I don't think that my friend from the track will mind me posting these here. (The GTI shot is one that he took of me, also the basis of my new avatar.)
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With the 1.7x teleconverter, you lose 1.7 stops. The f/2.8 becomes f/4.8. Still a pretty fast lens at 340mm when zoomed all the way out. It does autofocus a little slower but I have never had a problem shooting track and field events with the teleconverter on. The sprints move pretty quickly and the 70-200 with 1.7x teleconverter seem to keep up.

 

I am not sure that there is a "perfect distance". The 335is was shot from (I'm guessing) approximately 25 ft. (8 m.) away. I panned the camera using shutter-priority automatic mode, and the data is as follows:

Focal length: 110 mm.
Shutter speed: 1/250
Aperture: f/10
ISO equiv.: 200

Maybe that'll help.

 

As far as panning goes this is one I took at VIR a few years back, 1/30s!!

I used the Canon 100-400mm and all I can say is don't but it, please don't but it. Yes, you'll get great range, but you'll have a $1200 lens that's softer than a kit lens. So glad I only rented it for the weekend.
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This is true. You can pan cars at 1/30 second like the example above and if you go to the Indy Car series, you can take panning shots of cars at 1/1000 second. It depends on many different variables including how far you are from the car, how fast the car is moving, how far zoomed in you are. I find that panning really takes practice to know what to set your shutter speed at. I have taken panning shots of a bicyclist at 1/8 second, a zamboni at 4/5 second and an Indy car at 1/125 second. I can post some examples if you are interested.

 

Pars,
yes, very interested. Thanks.

 

That's a great shot!

I generally prefer to use 1/60 or slower for panning. For the 335is I was using a borrowed camera to shoot the owner's car, so I stayed with his settings.

 

Make sure to turn IS off and be using AI Servo for auto focus, if you aren't doing either it will really screw up results.

I've heard there are some major differences in build quality of the 100-400 so maybe I just got a bad example.

 

Thanks, I just got really lucky with that one, I've found my sweet spot to be 125-160, enough for some fluid motion, but keeps the car tack sharp.

This was one I did when I was first starting out, 1/160th and it's still one of my favorites.
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Yeah, definitely do that next time. If you think about it it makes sense because the IS will be trying to counteract the pan and will just screw things up. I know some Nikon lenses have an IS mode made especially for panning, though I'm not sure about Canon, I've found it's better to turn off altogether.

Your 100-400 is definitely sharper than the copy I had, though it still doesn't come close to the 70-200 huh?

 

Here are a few samples of mine:
1) Danica Patrick is at 1/125 second
2) The Bicyclist at 1/8 second
3) Jonathon Toews (hockey player) 1/15s, this is proof I will try to pan just about anything
4)Zamboni 4/5 second and was probably too slow, as it is not totally sharp. It does make it look like the Zamboni was flying though
5) Corvette was 1/30 second.

A couple of things to do is to have your autofocus on continous mode, use shutter priority and pick your shutter speed ahead of time. Change it as you see fit, too. Trial and error is a great way to learn what shutter speeds to use. Also you should be parallel to what you are panning. If you are not exactly parallel, you run into either the front or the back of the car being a little blurry and out of focus. This happened on my zamboni shot.
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Awesome shot of Danica, are you going to Indy this weekend?

 

Thanks!

Unfortunately not headed there for the race this year. I was there for a car show the weekend before last and some of the teams were doing practice laps then. I took this pic at the time trials last year, which is also a good time with a fraction of the race day crowd.

 

Wow, whenever I try to go down to 1/60 it's too slow for me, for the track my sweet spot varies from 1/250 to around 1/320

For panning on the street, I'm around around the 1/100 mark (can't remember, don't do panning much on the street)

That's for my 18-135mm lens.

 

I'm not entirely certain I'll be keeping the 70-200. I went to the Indy 500 this weekend and did two photoshoots and I'm just not that impressed with how it handled either. Very soft images compared to what I got at the lighting workshop, not too sure what's wrong, I'll have to see how the images did when I get home in a few days.

 

I have just started playing around with some of my old fixed focal length, manual focus 'D' lenses on the D7000 (180 f/2.8, 135 f/3.5, and 105 f/2.5). Both of these test shots were taken in my backyard with the 135 f/3.5. I like the results so much that I just bought a D-series 300 f/4.5 on Ebay and am awaiting delivery.
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I got the Tamron 18-270mm last year. I used it on my recent trip to Europe. Its versatility is priceless and the lens quality very good, particularly with the antivibration. Only drawback is that it eats a lot of battery power so I got a spare for my D200.