I have posted my photos from Kettering 2011 at
As usual, these are free for non-commercial team and personal use.
Please contact me for any other use.
Enjoy.
Very very cool shots…Thanks for sharing.
Fantastic as always!
A question: How much of a challenge was photographing the minibots? I had some blurriness issues (admittedly with shutter speeds too slow for an FRC competition), but your pictures from only a couple yards away from me (hence things like this) seem great.
Amazing shots Dan. Thank you so much for taking these.
Photographing the minibots was quite a challenge. They’re fast and tiny, sometimes not much wider than the pole. Autofocus is the only thing fast enough to keep up, but it’s often confused with what to focus on; the pole, the light at the top, or that barely noticeable blob racing up the pole. My “hit” ratio with minibots was much lower than with all other subjects. I did pick a spot on the pole and prefocus a few times, which worked out better sometimes, but I was often disappointed when the minibot I chose to cover didn’t even make it up the pole, and another one next to it did, but I wasn’t set up for it.
My suggestion is to shoot a little wider scene, focusing on the top of the pole, and shoot many frames. Also, if you have any leeway in shutter speed, you’ll want to overexpose a bit as the meter usually picks up the overhead lights and underexposes the subject.
As for shutter speed, I usually shoot in aperture mode, wide open, and iso as high as I’m comfortable with (1600 ~ 2000), which usually yields an adequate shutter speed. But it’s always a compromise. Depending on your lens, you may have to push iso higher and put up with some noise, or even underexpose. But that’s just my personal preference. I’d rather see a slightly underexposed, noisy image with no blur, than a correctly exposed blurry one.
Thanks for sharing, you have great talent.
Your watermark on these say copy write 2010…
That’s me, living in the past.
Thanks for catching that. Happy new year!