It's oh so easy photographing a racing car. All you need is the biggest, brightest, most expensive lenses on the planet, a race track and a press pass. Photographing a greyhound at speed… now that's a challenge!
Retired racing greyhounds make wonderful pets; gentle, placid and unassuming, they spend most of the time either asleep or loping quietly at your side. Until you let the greyhound off the lead, that is. Suddenly, your docile pal turns into a guided missile, capable of accelerating faster than a Ferrari and with a top speed approaching 50 miles per hour.
Photographing an animal of such speed and athleticism is extraordinarily difficult. It shows up, perhaps better than anything, why sport photographers all use DSLRs.
Galloping paddocks
We photographed a greyhound in a secure paddock of level mown grass. A large paddock is three times the size of a football field, surrounded by a three-metre fence and is an ideal gallop for a greyhound.
We first photographed the greyhound - a retired racer called 'Babe' - using a tried and trusted compact, a Fuji FinePix 4900 Zoom.
This was an excellent camera in its time with a useful zoom. However, Babe in full gallop quickly showed up the limitations of using a compact in this setting: the focus struggled as she streaked around the paddock.
When it did lock on, shutter lag took its toll on framing up the shot. There were a few 'keepers', but most images were as flat and uninteresting as this one:
So, we switched to a more up-to-date DSLR, a Nikon D50, armed with a second-hand Sigma 28-105mm D f/2.8 and an old but very highly regarded Nikkor 70-210mm f/4-5.6 AF zoom.
This last is a serious piece of glass and metal. Built like a tank, it is heavy and beautifully made all in metal with a lovely slide zoom action.
The unbearable lightness of Nikon
The D50 is so light that it is easy to move even when pressing the shutter, so camera shake can be a problem. So, we added a battery attachment; this made the camera larger and easier to hold and the two batteries increase the weight nicely; with more inertia the heavier camera is less liable to shake. They also mean you can take more pictures without reaching for the battery charger.
First up is the Sigma lens:
Something is still not quite right however. There's too much background detail. Even close-up, there is a slight out-of-focus softening of her head and snout as she approaches the camera, too.
Of course; the greyhound is approaching at up to 60 feet per second. Although the wide aperture means greater control over shutter speed, what's needed here is faster focusing, not a bigger aperture!
What was needed (apart from the longer reach) was faster focus, and the Nikkor 70-210mm focuses from infinity to four feet in just over half a turn of the focus ring!
Tracking Babe
We tracked Babe with the new lens, firing off shot after shot and staying low to the ground to get her perspective. We had the usual struggle to keep her in the frame - she is very fast - and we lowered the picture size to get up to ten multi-shots in the buffer before the camera shutter stops for recording to the card.
This is one frame of a sequence where Babe is galloping toward the camera, probably at about 25mph. Her enjoyment is quite evident here. This is exactly what we were aiming for; a pin-sharp image - picked out still further by the out of focus background.
While even at a high closing speed, Babe remains in focus. This would be very difficult to do with a slower-focusing lens. It would be impossible to do with a compact. Perhaps photographing racing cars isn't so easy after all.
Join in…
Has 'Movement' got you running round in circles? Well that's the title of our Photographer of the Year, Round 4.
Did you romp home in Round 3 or is it still a race to the finish line? Perhaps you have a moving story to tell. Share the joy, share the pain...
Enter your images to Round 4 - Movement (Open until August 6th for all members)
