Advice on Canon lens for Motor Sport

[Ron Metz]

David,

I was just in on the "search" for "panning" and I saw your thread for Canon lens for motor sport. This may be off the wall but it works for me. I mainly do outdoor/nature photography and I have the Canon 100-400 and it is a great lens. However, I sometimes need a faster lens and can't justify the fast AF lenses. My solution: I purchased both the Canon FD 300mm 2.8L and 500mm f4.5L lenses for cheap and I picked up the Canon FD-EOS converter. This is the one with the glass that allows you to focus to infinity. This rascal is sometimes hard to find because Canon only made about 250 of them (I think) but they do show up on eBay periodically. I grew up with manual focus on Canon equipment so it was not much of an adjustment for me to get back to it. The glass on both of these lenses, especially the 500mm, is still fantastic. The converter adds about 1.2X. I have the 30D and it works fine with this equipment. I periodically do soccer and go cart races and these lenses serve me well. Again, this suggestion may seem off the wall but it works for me. Thanks.

Ron

[jimbloomfield]

My concern is always focus speed of the lense. The 70-200 I use as the bench mark. The 28-300 which I own is slower but very usable. The 100-400 which I no longer own is slower. That was not the reason I sold the lense. It just duplicated some others I used more often like the Sigma 120-300 2.8. During daytime NASCAR races at California Speedway. I use the 28-300 more then all other lense put together. To go from wide angle to telephoto with a lense with decent focus speed makes it a first choice

[Kim_Igel]

Hi guys, - just to add my 2 cents to the initial question, - I'd say that I'm using a 28-300 mm. because of the obvious versatile zoom range, - I could use something longer sometimes, - but being on a track for 48 hours , - in sometimes dusty conditions, - it gives me great pleasure NOT having to switch lenses all the time. I'm not Pro, - just a happy freelancer, - but I've been doing motorsport for 3 years (and getting paid too :-) ), - in the Danish Touring Car championship (like the swedish stcc, british btcc, - wtcc and so on ), - the tracks are not F1 sized so you can get fairly close, - but I also shoot in the pit - in the hospitality areas and so on, - and rarely uses my 16-35 2.8 (though I allways have it with me). I started out with a 300 2.8 btw. and it's sharper than this, - for sure, - but it was not versatile enough for me. I felt trapped because I could not 'swing' around a shoot whatever happened on the other part of the track. Maybe the size of the tracks play a role here, - but as JimBloomfield just put it, - the ability to go from 300 mm. to wide certainly makes a difference when you, - from where your'e standing, - have racecars 5 m.'s away in one direction, - and can see 3-4-5 turns from 10 - 200 meters away. With this thing I can cover it all. At one point I get the racecars head on 40 meters away, - if I turn slighly they come round in a hairpin almost within reach and I like the ability to follow the action without being restricted by whatever lens I have fitted at the time.

Kim Igel.

P.S. I do have a 24-70, - 16-35, 70-200 and the L grade 28-300, - but for motorsport I use the 28-300 for more than 95% of my shots.

[Ronald Garrett]

For me, images that pop are the ones that fill the frame. If I pick up a magazine and see images of whole cars or people that don't even fill the frame, and compare that to say an image that just shows the windshield of an approaching car but also shows the facial expression of the driver, there is no comparison about which one has been taken by a pro.

To that end, I just bought a 400mm F/2.8 IS lens. It took me six months of no soft drinks, { I don't drink alcohol}, selling a lens and a camera or two, parting with a couple of old firearms a collector lusted for, pinching pennies until they bled, and almost becoming a hermit. So you can see money was a consideration. I considered it a real value in that I actually have several lens if I count a couple of tele extenders.

Lets face it, anyone with one of several super zoom digital cameras can take images in bright sunlight. That old saying that "equipment doesn't matter " doesn't apply much anymore. If you take two photographers with identical abilities, but give one superior equipment, which one will produce the most outstanding images?

DSLR'S go and come, lens are a better investment. Put your money in lenses first. Buy the best and I don't think you will regret it.

I think you are already realizing that judging from your personal lens test.