I realize that shooting motorcycles at 150+mph with a very zoomed in lens is quite tricky…
This post was written long after MotoGP, which happened in April 12-14 in Austin, TX.
Ahh, MotoGP in Austin, TX! As the only MotoGP stop in North America, I count my lucky stars that this annual event happens at Circuit of the America’s (COTA), roughly 10 minutes from where I live. The circus of bikes, spectators, international two wheel fanatics, and motorcycle manufacturers descends upon Austin with great focus. Each team of 100-150 engineers, data scientists, logistics personnel, and others bring a bespoke, prototype race bike. There are no other bikes like it. There is no example or how-to. The team plans, designs, builds, and sets up the bike, thinking “Well in theory it should be very fast.” And then they hand the keys to one person for one 45 minute race. “In theory, it should be fast. None of us have ridden it. We hope you can figure it out and be faster than the other 23 people trying to do exactly what you’re doing.”
No pressure at all. None!
It’s no surprise that I love this sort of thing. I could write pages and pages about MotoGP, but this is not a MotoGP blog. This is a blog focused on motorcycling, told through the lens of travel, photography, and writing. The priority today is photography, and how do you capture these manned missiles when they are giving maximum effort towards moving as fast as possible!?
Today I am armed with an Olympus E-M1 Mark II micro four thirds camera, which deserves another post itself. Basically I sold all my Canon full frame gear, and switched to this used 2016 flagship camera. It’s fully weather sealed, smaller, and if I beat the crap out of it I’ll care a lot less than if I beat up some brand new Canon gear.
My lens choice today needed to be something with great autofocus, image quality, and enough zoom to get up close to the riders from the general admission viewing areas. It needed a fast aperture so I could shoot with minimal shutter times to capture the action. All of this typically means $$$, and the Olympus 300mm f/4 IS PRO retails for about $1819.95. What’s a budget conscious photographer to do?
Rent from my local camera store, Precision Camera!
It will be obvious that I am still a rookie blogger, and not a professional reviewer, because I didn’t even take a picture of this setup. You’ll have to Google it…
I did some more Googling and set up my camera using settings recommended for birding. Fast autofocus, low ISO, and wide open f/4 aperture. I would most likely be playing with shutter speed to either freeze the action, or hopefully capture some good motion blur and sense of speed.
Friday at CoTA is practice day. There are less crowds, and I typically go alone to look at bikes and shoot for most of the day. Coffee, beer, and food trucks provide the sustenance for this rigorous schedule.
I set up near the bridge at the start of Turn 14 and shot Moto3 first.
Right away, this setup has amazingly quick autofocus. Unfortunately it loves to focus on the catch fence, and not the rider! Of the roughly 1,000 images I took, I’d say 800 wanted to snap focus on the catch fence.
Regarding exposure times, 1/320, good blur, soft focus. 1/800, sharper focus, but a little less motion blur.
But, when it would focus on the rider, and I was panning smoothly, wow! I was loving the detail. I’m sure a lot of spectators were watching me look left and try to lock on as the riders flew past. I was rapidly panning and bursting 10 pictures a second hoping to catch some keepers.
When the riders were moving away it was a little easier to lock on. I was also struggling with the 300mm being TOO zoomed in. Less keepers, but they’d be higher quality. I was quickly learning today would be a day of compromises.
Moto2 was next, and with that came faster bikes, making them harder targets. I was glad my plan of Moto3, Moto2, and then MotoGP was working, with each class giving me practice to prep for the next.
Bumping up my aperture above f/4 was also making focusing a little easier with the wider depth of field. The keepers were incredible quality, letting me crop as much as I wanted.
Even though it was difficult shooting through the fence, I tried to position myself to use the horizontal cables as leading lines to frame the riders. When they’d come through viewed between these, it made shooting through the fence not so bad.
Next up, MotoGP! The biggest bikes with the fastest riders. I moved to the other side of Turn 14 to catch them riding out at 100+ mph.
I was pretty happy with these shots, and really wished I had a press pass and could shoot from behind the wall inside the catch fence. Exhibit A:
I also tried using Lightroom’s creative AI to edit out the catch fence, with mixed results. I’m sure Photoshop is more powerful and capable, but Lightroom isn’t bad.
Aaaaand lets try to make that fence magically disappear.
Overall it was a good day and I’m happy with the photos. Lessons for next time, first I’d like to try the 100-400mm zoom instead of a fixed 300mm. I wanted to zoom out as I was often catching half the rider in the frame. A slower lens would perform fine as there was plenty of light for fast exposures. For example, setting up on an apex at 1/3200s, quality was great:
Practice makes perfect and I have a long way to go, but today I “…made a step in setup” as these riders often say in interviews. Until next time and next year!
Enjoy scrolling through the gallery below!
