Jeff Carter
Jeff has over 25 years’ experience as a pro photographer specialising in motorsports although he is known for his commercial and fine art work too. Since 2009 he has worked for the FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) providing stills and video for its website and social media feeds.
He was a Fujifilm X-photographer from 2015 until 2022 and helped the brand with the development of its X Series system and continues to work with the company. His current outfit includes the Fujifilm X-H2 and X-H2S. www.macleanphotographic.com
The first thing with any genre of photography – and especially action – is get to know your camera system inside out. If you’re there looking through menus thinking what to do, you’re not concentrating on what’s going on in front of you. Using your camera should be instinctive and everything should be set up for the genre you’re shooting. It’s the biggest step to getting sharp images.
I’m not averse to bumping up the ISO to get the required shutter speed and the noise performance of the X-H2/XH2S is remarkably good. It’s a very different situation from a few years ago when I was shooting rugby at Murrayfield using the X-T2 with the 100-400mm lens. I was at ISO 12,800 and the results were grainy, but I needed the high ISO to get 1/1000sec. When I bought the Fujifilm 200mm f/2 I could shoot at ISO 1600 which was so much better.
Which shutter speed I use depends on the shot I am going for. Panning is something I do a lot. I start with a shutter speed of 1/125sec and go slower from there. But this is the arty stuff I do after I have the sharp shots the clients want and at races such as Le Mans I have plenty of time.
For sharp head-on car shots, I use a minimum of 1/1000sec, maybe 1/2000sec or 1/4000sec. Being able to do this without increasing ISO is the beauty of having a fast-aperture lens.
The autofocus on the X-H2 and, in particular, the X-H2S is lightning-fast. In all honesty, I thought Fujifilm AF was slightly behind the game compared with Canon and Sony, but I feel Fujifilm has caught up and the X-H2S is now Sony-good. I did a test at 40fps using the camera’s electronic shutter – normally I use the mechanical shutter – and shot a car coming towards me doing over 130mph and the 200-odd shots in the sequence were all sharp. I was impressed with that.
As a car approaches, I aim the AF point on the windscreen sun strip that the cars I shoot have. I’m mostly on single point, sometimes the 3x3 zone, and move the point around as needed. I’m always aware that the AF system can misbehave at critical moments, so I tend to be old school and put the focus point where I want it.
The AF can struggle with cars coming towards you with their headlights on or with reflections off the windscreen. Such occasions can throw the AF off, but it’s only for the odd shot and if the camera does lose focus it’s reacquired quickly.
At night, with cars coming straight towards me the AF will be all over the place so it’s over to manual focusing. I just focus on a bollard or something at the side of the track and shoot just before the car gets there.
I try not to show any wheels because shooting at fast shutter speeds the wheels are frozen and the cars look like they are parked even though they are doing 130mph. So, to show speed when shooting head-on I have cars side by side or one just slightly behind the other; a single car on its own won’t look good unless there is something going on.