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And you mentioned manual exposure? Definitely don't go there. Use exposure compensation in AV mode if you want but don't go full manual and try to meter better than the camera does. I can't tell you how many so called "pros" think they need to shoot in full manual and they completely blow their exposures to the point they are not salvageable.
I said to bump ISO because it looks like your shutter speed was a bit too slow. You can go for wheel motion blur if you want but your keeper rate will go down as you'll have more soft images.
I would stay away from full manual for now and learn the many other things you need to focus on instead of trying to dial in exposure. The camera will do it for you and do it better than you 90% of the time. Keep it in AV mode and bump EC 1/3 stop to the right on a cloudy day. Then just shoot and worry about aperture and keep an eye on your SS. If there's not enough light and SS becomes too slow bump up your ISO accordingly.
Here is how I personally approach the track/scene:
ISO - as low as possible. ISO 100 (or less) produces the cleanest images with very little "grain" or noise. As you increase ISO, the sensitivity (to light) of the image sensor is increased. This allows fasters shutter speeds, but introduces more noise into the image. It is not a big deal if the images will never be printed or made really large. But if you will print, the lowest ISO will produce the finest prints. Only when it rains or is really dark do I increase ISO step-by-step (200, 400) to a max of, say, 800.
Aperture - What and how much will be in focus? Shallow focus or deep focus? Shallow focus means opening the aperture as wide as possible, e.g. f/2.8, f/2.0, etc. which creates those nice, blurry backgrounds. Deep focus means more of the scene will be in focus. For MX we are normally shooting wide open (e.g. f/2.8 or wider) and sometimes for really up-close work, starts or crowds we are stopping down the aperture to f/4, f/5.6 and in some rare cases, f/8.
Shutter speed - what is the right shutter speed for a balanced exposure in the current conditions? With a low ISO and Aperture setting, the shutter speed will be quite fast (1/3000 or 1/4000 in bright sun). This will stop all action in the frame including roost and tires. Experiment here with what you like best. Above we see some slight rotation in the wheels, which I think is actually nice, but not critical. But here we are wading into subjectivity...
White Balance - for now the Auto setting is probably the most reliable. I spent one whole season manually doing my white balance on track (with a grey card) with the available lighting, but I cannot honestly say it was better than the Auto.
Sportsshooter.com is a good resource. Read the portfolio reviews by the top guys and you will begin to see what they see.
But as I said, you have a natural eye so just keep shooting.
You can't be serious.....I can't believe I'm hearing that from a photographer.
Note you are contradicting yourself when you claim the camera doesn't get exposure correctly by itself but then claim you are fine with Auto WB and it's the most reliable? So Auto WB works and the exposure meter doesn't?? Interesting.
Pit Row
As for WB this is one reason I shoot in RAW...
I would recommend to any individual getting into photography that they learn the exposure triangle. A person should be able to look at the image they just took and be able to figure out what to adjust to get the desired look/exposure if needed.
We were talking about full manual above in which the photographer tries to nail exposure better than the camera in quickly changing lighting settings and camera angles. We are not talking about shooting portraits here, we're talking about shooting moto action. Suggesting a new photographer shoot in full manual for moto action is asinine.
I would recommend a NEW photographer to learn the exposure triangle either way. and yes, I am allowing the camera to set ISO based on the metering mode I've selected.
Blackfoot always had the best bikes, riders, look, etc. I wish they'd make a comeback.
Reminds me of the guys who show up at the kart track with a brand new shifter kart. They don't learn to drive before they worry about learning to shift and they get spanked. They wasted a bunch of time and money, end up selling the shifter, and buy a sprint kart where they should have started in the first place.
But yeah, you can skin a cat many different ways. I was just suggesting the best path to learn but you are right it's just my opinion.
MX presents real DR challenges usually not present in other situations, especially with the exposure variability of different colors and often harsh lighting.
I never shoot auto anything anymore, and limit my use of the camera meter to the spot meter mode when judging highlights and shadows to set exposure manually while checking the histogram. You get consistently better photos, and because the settings tend to stay the same across many images it makes it easier to batch process fine exposure tuning of the raw files in PS.
Some of this is just a product of shooting enough that you automatically make the manual adjustments on the fly, the same way you rely on muscle memory to replicate actions on a bike without checking your notes.
Auto WP is a crap shoot among different camera bodies in my experience. Again for the sake of simplifying batch processing (not a small consideration if you're capturing 3,000-5,000 images a weekend) I pick a white balance preset and make adjustments in post. The high end way to do this is one of the programs that will gauge your camera body against a X-Rite and produce ACR RBG preset adjustments specific to the camera body that can be used to batch process baseline color correction, but smart use of the WB dropper works well too.
There are a lot of roads to Rome in terms of getting a nice shot, so suit yourself.
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