Motocross with the FX6 and Sony 100-400mm lens

Doug Jensen

Doug Jensen

Carbonite Member
Sony loaned me four telephoto lenses to evaluate their suitability for wildlife shooting. And I couldn't resist the chance to use the 100-400mm f/4.5 for a couple of hours last weekend during a motocross practice session. Is the grading heavy and not to everyone's taste? Probably, but I felt like doing something different with it. I'll post some footage from the other lenses as I get time to edit it.

When the riders asked what I was doing, my answer was, "Same as you -- practicing." I know for sure that my follow-focus skills have gotten rusty during Covid.

 
I love what you did with this. The shooting, obviously, but the grades are really interesting too. Thanks for posting, Doug.

Bill
 
Some great shots and editing in that, Doug. And I like the grading. In the previous bit you posted I disagreed with your choice of slowmo but here I agree with it. I’m sure you’re thrilled at that!
 
Very nice—I really liked the grade, especially since it pushes into an area that looks different from most other footage I'm seeing.

What were your thoughts on the 100-400mm? I rented one a few weeks ago for a project but barely got to use it, as it was mostly on an A7S3 that was being operated by another cameraperson. I wish I'd played around with it a bit more...
 
stewhem said:
Some great shots and editing in that, Doug. And I like the grading. In the previous bit you posted I disagreed with your choice of slowmo but here I agree with it. I’m sure you’re thrilled at that!
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Yes, I am thrilled that you approve of the slo-mo! You were at the forefront of my mind when I was shooting it. :-) All kidding aside, I appreciate the comments and I certainly don't expect everyone to agree with my choices. That's the "creative" part of our business.
 
drboffa said:
Very nice—I really liked the grade, especially since it pushes into an area that looks different from most other footage I'm seeing.

What were your thoughts on the 100-400mm? I rented one a few weeks ago for a project but barely got to use it, as it was mostly on an A7S3 that was being operated by another cameraperson. I wish I'd played around with it a bit more...
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The 100-400 is a very good lens for the money if you need a zoom lens in that focal length range. In general, 100 isn't wide enough and 400 isn't tight enough for my needs, but I must say that it was just about the perfect range for something like a motocross track. Sony loaned me a 200-600, 100-400, 70-200, and 70-300 for a couple of weeks so I could evaluate them for a wildlife shooting master class I'm working on -- and not surprisingly the 200-600 got 80% of the use. It came down to the last couple of days and I hadn't done any serious shooting with the 100-400 so I left the other three lenses home so I'd be forced to use it when I went out looking for something interesting to shoot. After I used it at the track I kind of regretted not using it more before I had to send it back.

I thought the telescoping design of the lens would really bother me (gets 3" longer when you zoom in), but in practice, I never noticed it once while I was using it. The zoom and focus rings stay at the same place so it's really a non-issue. I'm glad Sony loaned me the lenses because they all exceeded my expectations for such inexpensive glass.
 
Doug Jensen said:
The 100-400 is a very good lens for the money if you need a zoom lens in that focal length range. In general, 100 isn't wide enough and 400 isn't tight enough for my needs, but I must say that it was just about the perfect range for something like a motocross track. Sony loaned me a 200-600, 100-400, 70-200, and 70-300 for a couple of weeks so I could evaluate them for a wildlife shooting master class I'm working on -- and not surprisingly the 200-600 got 80% of the use. It came down to the last couple of days and I hadn't done any serious shooting with the 100-400 so I left the other three lenses home so I'd be forced to use it when I went out looking for something interesting to shoot. After I used it at the track I kind of regretted not using it more before I had to send it back.

I thought the telescoping design of the lens would really bother me (gets 3" longer when you zoom in), but in practice, I never noticed it once while I was using it. The zoom and focus rings stay at the same place so it's really a non-issue. I'm glad Sony loaned me the lenses because they all exceeded my expectations for such inexpensive glass.
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How did you feel about the manual focus on this lens? I think the image quality is good and I like the compact design and focal range of it. But I've always struggled to manual focus this lens, especially when compared to the Canon 100-400 L II I used to own. It's a great lens overall and I've had one for three years now, but man, the manual focus is something I struggle with on it.
 
Yeah, I'd have to agree with you that manual focus on the 100-400 is less than ideal. I wouldn't expect to become fully comfortable with it after such a short time using it, but I didn't care for the feel of it. The 200-600 that Sony loaned me was much better for manual focusing. Almost as good as my $11K Canon 200-400, so pretty nice for a $2K lens. I liked the 200-600 so much that I went ahead and ordered one from B&H. It arrives today.

Getting back to the 100-400 on the motocross shoot, towards the end I experimented with auto-focus and got pretty good results as long as I helped tell it WHAT I wanted to focus on. As soon as I saw a bike I wanted to shoot I'd real quickly focus manually on it -- and then get my fingers off the focus ring and let the FX6 take over. With the right AF menus settings the camera was pretty good at tracking focus on those bikes coming straight towards me at 40-50 mph. But if I just pointed the camera and hoped it would find the bike on its own, the bike would be past me before the camera ever figured it out. The key was to focus manually first, and then let the camera take over in a split second. Keep in mind that those motorcylcles are going 5x faster than what you see in the video, so the "moment" is over before you can blink.

The focus tracking wasn't perfect, but it had a higher success rate than I did at trying to track the action manually with that lens. As Joshua says, it is not a fun lens for manual focusing. I think it is a great feature that none of the Sony lenses I've tested are ever 100% auto-focus. You can always turn the focus ring manually and override it whenever you want without having to flip any switches or anything to turn off AF first.
 
Doug Jensen said:
. But if I just pointed the camera and hoped it would find the bike on its own, the bike would be past me before the camera ever figured it out.
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I wonder if the "car AF" on some new canon cameras changes this equation and if it focuses on bikes too. It amazes me how quickly the A7SIII will detect an eye and focus on it
 
Hi Doug,

I'd be interested in what you think of the sharpness of this clip using the 100-400 with 2x extender (plus a segment using clear image zoom). I posted this in the main FX6 thread but it got lost with other posts. Moon is 2 days off full, clear night. Shot using S&Q 4fps on a 50fps base, No ND, F32, Mix of 800mm and 1200mm (clear Image Zoom). This lens looks nice and sharp to me! A bit of handling wobble as I zoomed in/out at this focal length but I'm pretty impressed on the detail you can get at these sort of focal lengths. This clip is longer due to the the 4fps over 1fps but the better temporal resolution works (and hence looks sharper than the earlier ones I did at 1fps).

Thanks
Nathan

https://behome.dyndns.info/index.php/s/fj58wHfp87mpiX2
 
Unfortunately I am shooting in Yellowstone this week and Grand Teton next week and do not have the bandwidth to transfer files or watch videos. If you remind me in a couple of weeks I could take a look at the video and tell you what I think. But I'll warn you that it might not be positive comments. :-)
I'm very suspicious of the f/32 exposure. I haven't seen the video, but I'd be very surprised if it is sharp. I would never purposely shoot anything at that f-stop. It sounds counterintuitive, but digital cameras are actually less sharp at very small apertures due to diffraction. Every time I have shot the moon it has always been about 2-stops down from maximum f-stop, 0dB Gain, and always some level of ND was absolutely needed. No way would I shoot it at f/32. That's what ND is for.
 
That's fine, it's all about learning! When you have time.

edit - for some reason I thought zoom lens tended to be sharpest in the middle of their range and with a 2x extender this lens is F11
 
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jmone said:
edit - for some reason I thought zoom lens tended to be sharpest in the middle of their range and with a 2x extender this lens is F11
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I've heard stuff like that too, but I don't take it as gospel. I think you'd have to do your own testing with your own lens to see if/where there is a sweet spot, and then decide if it makes any difference to you. Personally, I shoot 90% of the time wide open or within a stop or two of wide open on every lens and camera that own. If a lens can't be used wide open, why would I use it at all? About the only time I am not shooting wide open is when I've run out of ND, or the DoF is a little too shallow for the look I want, which isn't very often.

Focusing is far easier when the lens is wide open, debris on the sensor becomes invisible, it minimizes depth of field, I can shoot in lower light, and I avoid any image degradation due to diffraction. Wide open is the only way to fly.

On the something like the full moon, I usually back off maybe 1-2 stops from max aperture just to give me a little breathing room. I'd also expose around 70% for S-LOG and no higher than 80% for REC709.
 
Doug Jensen said:
digital cameras are actually less sharp at very small apertures due to diffraction. .
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But film cameras are also softer at small apertures because diffraction is unrelated to the recording medium. It's just an aspect of optics. Unless I misunderstand what you're saying

Re:shooting wide open, you never stop down to f/8 or 11 for deeper focus on a specific shot? Those apertures are often the limit of a given lens before diffraction starts to degrade the image. I, too, often shoot wide open or just a stop closed down. But just for aesthetic reasons. I have no qualms about going to f/11 if I want deep focus. (Though it generally seems like faster lenses start to suffer diffraction after f/5.6 or 8? And slower lenses after f/11 or even 16?)
 
ahalpert said:
But film cameras are also softer at small apertures because diffraction is unrelated to the recording medium. It's just an aspect of optics. Unless I misunderstand what you're saying

Re:shooting wide open, you never stop down to f/8 or 11 for deeper focus on a specific shot? Those apertures are often the limit of a given lens before diffraction starts to degrade the image. I, too, often shoot wide open or just a stop closed down. But just for aesthetic reasons. I have no qualms about going to f/11 if I want deep focus. (Though it generally seems like faster lenses start to suffer diffraction after f/5.6 or 8? And slower lenses after f/11 or even 16?)
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You're probably right that diffraction happens with film cameras too, but my personal experience is limited to video cameras, so I don't want to make assumptions.

Obviously I'd stop down if I ever wanted deeper depth of field, but I can't recall the last time that I wanted deeper DoF and don't foresee it happening anytime soon. I'm totally serious.
 
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