I'm not ashamed to admit I shoot my drag racing photos in Sports mode on my Nikon D7000. Things happen so fast I have no idea how anyone can set exposures correctly every time. Plus as the cars go past, you are shooting into different light. I also shoot in JPEG only, who has time or desire to post process 1000 images? I know many sports photogs shoot in JPEG, but am I the only one not using manual settings? I subscribe to the theory that the best shot is the one you took, rather than the one you missed while fooling with your camera.
Opinions please? Good or bad, you won't hurt my feelings.
I quit using sports mode two cameras ago since it doesn't exist on my other cameras. With my 7d, I won't miss much and I would rather play with the settings and get that great picture!
I shoot sports on my D7000 - swimming and auto racing. I do not use the sports mode. Did not even know it HAD a sports mode. (Everything other than MASP is someone else's opinion of what I want.) I would not have trusted it has I known. I shoot sports in JPEG, as you do.
However, I do use Aperture Priority for the swimming because I want to blur the BG as much as possible and balance that with enough DOF. So I am usually between 2.8 and 4.0 Both events are outdoor events so, the shutter speed is is always up around 1/2500 or so. I do not trust a "Sports Mode" to think like I do.
I do use manual for the auto racing as I have found that white cars tend to be blown out and black cars are too dark - Matrix metering catches too much of the image surrounding the car, spot is way to specific, and Center-Weighted can be close, but still not great.
So I either take an incident meter reading or just take a meter reading off the gray asphalt (amazingly close to 18% gray) and then I have found that white cars is two clicks (2/3 stop) faster on the shutter and black cars are about two clicks slower. The reds, greens, grays, etc., fall more to the middle of the range. Once you get the flow down, it is not that hard. Yes, sometimes I miss and the exposure is way off, but in the events I shoot, that car will come by again.
My position is that I would rather miss a few but get perfect exposures rather than get them all but none is exposed perfectly. This is not to criticize your approach - only to offer another view.
Thanks CaptainC, exactly the advice I was looking for. I'm going to try more creative stuff in my photography, but I'm mostly there to document the race. Sometimes I get shots of cars doing things they will never do again. In the case of that white Impala, it always does that. This pulling tractor shot won't be duplicated, I'm glad I got what I feel was an acceptable shot.
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