Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/07/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Mike Quinn wrote: > Nah. I just punch the shutter button and pray. :)<<< Hi Mike, Is there really any other way? ;-) > Ted Grant is the guy who's been known to spend the day before the event > trying out his gear on the race cars so he can judge when to push the button > to get the shot. <<<< Naw not race cars they're a piece of cake! Olympic 100 meter finalists, now that's the time to know exactly when to shoot!;-) Shot lots of car races and on a few occasions right from in the car during races. Now that's a photo experience not for the timid. ;-) And drove them for a few years until a crash in a Sprint Car broke up some ribs and a buddy was killed, kinda took the fun out of it. I would shoot from the infield of the track during races when I wasn't driving, then be back in the pits to drive in my races. > The common sense logic is: when you punch the button and the autofocus > decides to spiff thing up a bit, adjusts the lens in, and then out, until > it's just right and then trips the shutter two seconds later, your decisive > moment may have passed.<<<< I've never used auto anything cameras to shoot car races, as everything is too slow for good reaction stuff. However, you have to have good self reflexes as fast as driving reflexes. > Is the difference between 10 ms and 100ms meaningful? > Well, a car traveling 100 mph goes about 15 feet in 100 ms and only 1.5 feet > in 10 ms. A bicycle traveling 33 mph goes 5 feet in 100 ms and 6 inches in > 10 ms. > > Most of my exposures are of much slower stuff. Still, the difference between > 10 ms and 100 ms is the same as the difference between a shutter speed of > 1/100 sec (10 ms) and 1/10 sec (100 ms). If those differences are meaningful > to you, then the delay may be too.<<< I suppose, but people who know about this stuff never think of is..... Guys like me who didn't know anything about it never worried about it. ERGO! the shutter delay didn't exist therefore it wasn't a problem as our reaction times were natural without thought. I actually didn't know anything about it until I read "shutter delay" while reading the LUG a few years back. I figured it was another of those techie things that if you didn't know anything about it, it wasn't worth worrying about. You see guys who think about all this stuff don't shoot by natural instinct simply because they know too much for their own good! ;-) > If you are experienced enough to judge the delay it doesn't matter (much). > If you aren't, or haven't adjusted to your equipment's limitations, or > prefer 1/100 sec to 1/10 sec, it can.<<< Yeah well OK I suppose, but like I say, if you don't know about it then it's not an influence on your shooting. > You can learn those limitations by taking a thousand shots and studying the > results, or you can learn them by testing and measuring. It's OK as long as > you do it somehow.<<<< But if you don't know it's there then why start being influenced to change your shooting style and normal quick reflex. If you want a quick way to improve your self re-action time go out to the side of the highway and manual focus on the front licence plates of on coming cars at 60 miles an hour or more and when you learn how to shoot at least 50% of the frames on a roll sharply so you can read the it, trust me you don't even think about any kind of MS delay! :-) You ought to try it some day with a 400mm lens, great fun. However have about 100 rolls handy! ;-) ted - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html