# MotoGP Friday Practice



## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

Awesome day at COTA today. Love to go on Fridays its the perfect day for photographers and there were a ton of them there. Had a great time talking and sharing war stories between rounds. Managed to get through 2 rounds Moto3 and MotoGP. Didn't want to press my luck so I stuck to my plan. Might go back on Sunday. The ballhead and micro gimbal mounted on my monopod worked great. Nice smooth pans. The EF400 was excellent man I can't believe how fast it will pull focus.




























I'll put up a few more and a link to gallery later on. Just wanted to do a few to check them out. Now its time to nap.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*A few more*

Shooting all those ankle biters sure helps out for learning how to track moving machines. These are actually a little easier bigger target but they do move much faster. Much better than last years batch.




























Love that spinning dry plate clutch on the last one. That sucker is moving I shot that at 1/1600. The whole berm from turn 6 through 9 is primo. You are high up over the fences pretty much and you can get part of 5 and 10 as well depending on where you are. Two more grandstands in that area for F1 but for MotoGP and the other races its wide open.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*A few more*





































The shot of Marquez knee dragging through the turn won editor's award on ephotozine. Hope it gets photo of week. The gallery link is http://www.pbase.com/griz11/motogp2014

Griz


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## Hollywood1053 (May 15, 2009)

These are nice.
What camera/lens combo were you using?


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*All Canon*

Canon 7D with EF400 f5.6 USM lens. Mounted on monopod with Jobo micro gimbal. First time I've used the gimbal setup on 1:1 racing. Tried it a couple of weeks ago with the r/c stuff and it worked great so I decided to take it with me for these. Only takes a few seconds to remove the gimbal since its mounted on a ball head in the arca swiss clamp. So I figured if it didn't feel right I could always take it off and put it in the vest. They came out great best set of shots I've ever shot for sure.

Most of the day I shot at 1/1600 F8 auto iso limited to 400. Center focus point with expansion. And in the setup menu for autofocus you want the priority to tracking over speed. I usually leave the switch to new object in the middle. If you are getting a lot of packs you want that set to slow or it will mess up your shots if another car/bike comes partially into your shot. Burst them off 3-4 at a time and always remember that buffer. If you fill the buffer the best shot of your life will happen right in front of you guaranteed. Go find an r/c track and go shoot those for practice. If you can get those nice and sharp the 1:1 stuff is easy.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*Had to put this one up*

I like this one best so far.










I've seen quite a few motorsports shots tilted like I did this one. So I decided to try it out.

Griz


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## Duke (Dec 27, 2007)

Awesome pics and riders! :ac550:


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*They are*

They are awesome riders. I was watching some of the ultra slo mo on motogp.com video pass and its a wonder they get around the track each time. Wheels spinning all the time front wheel off the ground or just skipping along. Rear wheels off the ground and if you've watched some of the onboard video they shift down so quick coming into the turns you'd think the motor was going to detonate. Friday the day to go though. There were so many people where I was shooting from it would have been hard to impossible to get these shots today. There were a lot of shooters there Friday but everyone had plenty of room. Going to have a pola next time though. The glare is bad on the tarmac now. It sure bleached out quick. With a pola you get tons of stripes on the pavement in the corners. I had a 72mm but need a 77. Tried it with upsizing ring but too much darkness in the corners. Thought I was going to have a bad day the first 50 or so sucked. I moved to a better angle and they came around. Too much glare off the fairings where I was I'm thinking from looking at the shots. I moved to get more of an angle and got them just as the wall on my side blocked the glare a bit. That fixed it at that site. That was in turn 8-9. Back at the esses it was good all day. Its down in a valley from where you are standing so the glare is well controlled and you have some interesting shadows to work with. A lot easier to move around this time. More shuttles disabled parking close to track now it all seemed to move much better this time.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*2 awards*

The Ducati pic won editors choice on ephotozine and the one of the Honda knee dragging won visiting editor award on the same site 



















Its going to be an awesome racing season this year. I like shooting birds and landscapes etc but motorsports is the reason I bought a camera in the first place.

Griz


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