Just getting started in photography, but a couple ideas that might work. I'm assuming you're using a DSLR or something like that, and not a point-and-shoot.

Try focusing on something that else that is the right distance away, and then maintain that focus to get your photos of the riders. You could do that with manual focus or auto if you hold down the shutter release so it focuses, and then keep it held down (so it doesn't move from that focus), shift to where you want to take your photo, and then take the picture.

You may also need to jack up your shutter speed to capture the motion 9which means likely opening aperture or raising ISO. Or you can try panning with a lower shutter speed and get a burst of shots as the rider goes by.

Just some thoughts. Like I said, I'm just getting started.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

I was trying both manual at a fixed point and some variations.

Tonight i will try aperture priority and see what that gets me

Camera is plenty fast enough its definitely the tradesman not the tool thats the problem

Boost the ISO a bit for light . The olys are pretty good at that without adding much noise (to a point)

Also shoot raw. If it's underexposed you can bring it up a bit in photoshop

Focus on a fixed spot and wait for your subjects to hit that spot.

Use aperture priority or set exposure manually (I prefer manual). With low shutter speeds just pan with the subject as it goes by.

The effect will look like this...(pic below not mine)...

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

This can work really well if you manually set your exposure, use a slower shutter speed (maybe 1/125th or so), and pan across with a burst of shots. It takes a little practice, but the blur effect on the background looks good.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

For some added "pop" you can use your flash on "rear curtain sync" (if flash is allowed and your camera is capable of rear sync).

What it does, for those who don't know, is fire the flash at the end of the exposure just before the shutter closes.

So you get the pan action effect with a bright, sharp subject.

If you don't rear sync your flash goes off at the front end and the effect makes it look like the subject is going backward.

Examples...

I have the same camera. Focus performance is dependent on the lens of course, with the m4/3 generally much faster than even the best 4/3. I'd start with tracking focus, but if it wasn't working well (as you experienced) then go to the normal (S-AF) focus with only the center dot selected, which is often fast enough. Theoretically you'd be better of in phase detect but even though it does a better job of predicting and tracking, the focus itself seems slower than contrast detect so you have to experiment with the subject. If you put it in manual exposure mode it will be a bit faster than running in A or S priority...not focusing any faster but the shutter will release a bit quicker so the subject moved less. Or as others say, if that doesn't cut it you have to lock it down in manual focus/manual exposure and pick a spot. Closing down the aperture (and compensating with a higher ISO) will increase your depth of field and make focusing errors less apparent....but of course grainier photos. I get quite acceptable results up to ISO3200 and if necessary I'd be fine going a bit higher...a grainy photo is better than a blurry one. If you are far enough away then focusing shouldn't be a big issue, if you are closer then a strong flash may be able to help freeze the shot (and blind the rider :-() but you will probably still want to be in manual to get faster shutter response. Like most things it takes some trial and error to get it tuned for a shot and even then you probably won't bat 1000 on fast subjects. As much as I love my Olympus cameras, there is a reason pro sports photographers are exclusively CaNikon.

One of the issues many people fail to realize is that the key for this type of photography is to meter for the track surface, not the moving subject. Metering for the track surface will always give your images a consistent exposure, no matter what uniform the rider is wearing or the bike they use. Here's what I would do when I would shoot MX & BMX (XGames indoors) all manual:

1. Pick a turn or straight away that has best lighting (DO NOT and I mean DO NOT use on camera flash unless you want pissed off riders), and do some test shots with a boosted ISO of 1600, 3200 or 6400. Try not to go above 6400 so as not to lose detail in the shadows or blacks (this is the grain effect).

2. Along with ISO test, test shutter speeds from 250-640 for the best stop action. 1/500 works best.

3. Along with ISO test and test shutter speeds, pick a mid range aperture of 3.5-5.6 for max depth of field relative to rider speed and two other camera settings. I would try f4 because it keeps rider in focus and background out of focus.

Once you have these three settings dialed in where you are comfortable with the histogram, what is on the preview screen and what your eye sees, proceed to the next step which is focusing. I would use center spot because this will be the easiest. If you choose to use manual focus, which can be done, I would create a subject photo box. As an example, if I was 10 feet from the subject, I know that if my lens focus is set to 10 feet with an aperture of f4, the moving subject should be in focus from the front tire to back tire within that box. While it may take some practice, this type of manual shooting will give you better results than the relying on the camera's tracking focus.

whilst you arrived late to this particular party - with the benefit of hindsight you appear to have found many of my errors.

my fastest shutter speed was to slow, picking out the different team colours at night is tricky,



I think his knee is in focus - so its got that going for it.........



I can see the second guy's eyes but I am not entirely sure what I was looking at - definitely relying on the camera's focusing is not a sound strategy (or would it be with a faster shutter speed? it could be that the camera is focused but the shutter is slower than they are moving resulting in massive numbers of badly focused photo's - another lesson)









These are all straight out of the camera - I have RWG but it does not matter - way to many are out of focus and I think its because the shutter speed lagged the rate at which they were moving through the frame - thats the single biggest issue

then we have lighting

I thought that having walked the track - this was one of the better lit sections - the floodlights were further away or the closest ones were out of shot where as elsewhere on the track they were much closer, or in frame and it ended up with this huge range of lighting from dark to 90m lumens in the shot

I tried aperture and shutter priority, I also tried manual and C-SF and Tracking C-AF

1) its quite difficult to take photo's (or at least good photo's) of high speed objects

2) I do not seem to be consistently bad (as in, they may all be bad, but not consistently in the same way)

3) I think I need to do it again - another track night - where I manual focus, have higher Shutter Speeds and then add in additional variables

4) I need to work on the metering and practice it all

agree / disagree?

I can't see any of the photo's you posted. What lens are you shooting with? If you are trying to nail extreme close-ups of a rider moving at 60mph in low light...it's just hard. I'd go manual everything, put it on 10FPS .jpg, and plan to spend a lot of time sorting and throwing away. I guess shutter speed is going to need to be 1/500 or faster if possible. I'd probably look for a slow area of the track as much as a well lit one.

While I can't see your images, the good news is you see how hard that sport is to shoot in those lighting conditions. Remember, one way to eliminate so many out of focus or back focus images is to create a speed box , which is a fixed point on the track where the rider will be in focus. Use the 10 feet/f4 rule - as rider enters the speed box 10 feet from you, they should start to come into focus and remain in focus until they exit the speed box 10 feet away.

Really difficult

The lighting situation is interesting as i did not shoot full manual. In aperture priority the camera set a relatively low ISO and the shutter speed was always to low - having gone back and looked through an awful lot of bad photos

The camera never set the SS for faster than 1/200

In a 20-30 lap 30 min MX race how many shots would you take?

Camera speed - ironically with the EM1 is not an issue. Even write speed isnt. I think if the shutter speed had been faster it would have been a much better result.

I would say i picked a good corner. Eventually all the pro's were camped out there. They'd obviously figured it out before me as they'd been there through practice etc but at least it demonstrated i knew what the best lighting was.

I think more than 90% of the photos were of where the bike was at focus moment. Not where it was at shutter closed moment. Unfortunate.

Why if i am at 10ft and i use f4 is the bike in focus front to back? Or is that side on?

Chatting to japanese guy. Qatar this week. Indonesia next. Then argentina. Then mexico. Then start of motogp then IOMTT. A mad lifestyle. One of those jobs that i suspect sounds attractive. Provides amazing opportunities but could be a huge burden on any sort of personal life.

(Photos not appearing due to smug mug settings)

Shutter speed is definitely the issue. SS & f-stop need to be set manually. The higher you set SS, the more frames per second (fps) you will be able to capture in that box. If you are panning with the rider as they move through the box, a majority or all of the rider should be in focus. Focusing this way has to be done madually, because your camera & lens combo in auto focus or tracking mode is not fast enough.

When I would shoot these type of events, I would shoot short bursts of a rider (may not be every rider. Short burst for me would be 5-7 images, but that was practiced, and it allowed allowed me more keepers. I tried not to shoot too many of a rider, because it would mean more work on the back end when it came to image editing.

I don't think I could ever handle being a photog that would follow a series like that. While travel might sound cool, I need more diversity in terms of subject material.