CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

A few weeks ago I was invited by Fujifilm to travel to Donington Park in Derbyshire to take part in a video demonstrating the new autofocus custom functions on the Fujifilm X-T2.  The circuit was holding a general test day which gave us the perfect subject to demonstrate the various options the X-T2 has for tracking a moving subject. I had a great day with Fujiguys Marc Horner (in front of camera) and Dale Young (behind the camera) and thanks go to Richard Randall and the staff at Donington Park for allowing us to film this short video at the track. The seven minute video was published on Fujifilm's YouTube channel yesterday and you can watch it here or you can see it on the Fujifilm YouTube page HERE -    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog...

Panning is a great technique for giving the impression of speed, which is very useful when photographing race cars.  The usual technique is to set the camera shutter speed to around 1/125 or 1/60 and move the camera with the car to keep the subject sharp and blur the background.  At this sort of shutter speed the hit rate is about one picture in every two. Sometimes though it is good to drop the shutter speed down to 1/30 or 1/15, but it is harder to get a 'keeper', the hit rate dropping to 1-in-5 to 1-in-10. However when it does work the effect is more dramatic. Using a shutter speed below 1/15 is pretty extreme but using a wide angle lens helps to keep the subject smaller in the frame and sharpness isn't so critical.  It is also good to have parts of the subject blurred as well.  Now on a sunny day it can be difficult to get the shutter speed slow enough, especially if the lowest ISO setting is 200 like it is on the Fujifilm X-T1 (for RAW images). ...