Ask Matthew...
Our resident Nikon expert Matthew Richards answers your
questions and solves your problems. If you have a Nikon-related
question, email it to [email protected]
Q
I found your skills
piece on panning for
motor sport in issue 103
really helpful. Would you use
the same settings for racing
cars coming directly
towards you?
Chris CarnesA
We suggested a shutter speed of
1/320 sec as a good starting point
for panning in motor sports shots.
This should enable a reasonable success
rate, while giving moderate motion blur to
spinning wheels and the background.
Slower shutter speeds down to 1/60 sec, or
even 1/30 sec, help to convey a real sense
of speed. However it is then much more
difficult to keep the motorbike or car
reasonably sharp in these instances.
If the bike or car is coming directly
towards you, you’ll need a faster shutter
speed of 1/1000 sec or quicker, to freeze it
in its tracks, otherwise it’ll just look blurred.The relatively wide aperture will help to
isolate the vehicle against the background,
thanks to a smaller depth of field. Under dull
lighting, be sure to use Auto ISO to bump up
the sensitivity as much as necessary to
avoid underexposure.Q
Autofocus seems to
have stopped working
in my 55-300mm VR,
although my other lenses
are fine. It won’t even let me
take a shot, unless I press
the AE-L/AF-L button, and
then the image is blurred!
Lene HermanA
The Nikon AF-S DX 55-300mm
f/4.5-5.6G ED VR is a low-budget
but capable lens. It sounds like
autofocus is switched on, both on the
camera body and on the lens itself, but that
autofocus isn’t working. Focus isn’t beingachieved, so the camera won’t release the
shutter, unless you override it by pressing
the AF-L button. It’s worth checking that the
electronic connections are clean, both on
the camera and the lens, but it’s more likely
that the ultrasonic autofocus system has
become faulty in some way.
You can probably still focus manually but
it’s not a lens that works well with manual
focusing, as it only has a small and relatively
imprecise focus ring at the front of the outer
barrel. The only real choices are to get an
estimate for repair, or to simply buy a
replacement lens.Q
I’ve long been using
a D5500 for sports,
wildlife and other types of
photography, and have a
16-80mm VR and Sigma
50-100mm f/2.8 lens,
which I use less because
it back focuses. Would
it be worth upgrading
my camera?
Lorraine BlackwellA
In your full letter, you also say that
you’re also finding the continuous
drive rate and buffer depth of your
D5500 limiting for sport photography, andYOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
This shot was taken on a DX camera with a
focal length of 400mm in gloomy conditions,
at an exposure of 1/1000 sec, f/5.6, ISO1250.The small and fiddly focus ring mounted at
the front of the DX 55-300mm lens is less
than ideal for manual focusing.