Honda Classic- Barbers Motorsports Park

[tomwilli]

I had the opportunity to go out to the race on Sunday. It was a fantastic day. It was a clear blue sky day which made it a little difficult. I met a fellow POTN forum member, by chance, when I saw him with a 70-200 2.8L (which is on my wish list). I introduced myself and he offered me a lens to try. The following shots are with his 70-300mm IS. If you're out there, thanks again.

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I hope you enjoy. This was my first try with motorsports.

[tomwilli]

2 more

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[tomwilli]

Where's the love. I know it was my first time but are they that bad? Please CC

[zed]

They are not that bad. A few things that I can comment on is that they are all a little out of focus. In your group shots, I am not crazy about the framing. All the action is on the left and there is a bit of a dead space on the right side. On these types of shots, give the riders somewhere to go. The viewers eye wants to follow where the bikes are going. Tough part about big group shots is not cutting someone half out of the frame. I think the last shot is your best of the group, but still a bit OOF. The other thing I would say, after looking at your EXIF data, is, take it out of "sports mode". And don't use aperture priority. Try using shutter priority so that you can control the amount of motion you want to show in the shot. A lot of people will use either shutter priority or use manual. In manual, you can adjust the shutter to show motion and then adjusting the ISO to help set your aperture for your DOF. Nice thing about digital is you can try many different settings and find out what those settings were while you are reviewing them at home. Looks like it was fun out there. Post some more if you have them.


Jeff

[rcg]

I would say it's a good effort... Zed's comments are good and I agree. With the busy (but beautiful) background I would have tried for a shorter DOF.

Also I'm not sure what it is about the contrast and saturation of those images but they seem a little harsh. it looks to be very bright out and maybe I'm seeing the effects of the ambient light or maybe the "sports" mode of the camera is changing the SAT and contrast levels. With that light level I would have shot at 100 ISO at maybe 1/500.

The last image is the best composition in my opinon. All in all they look a lot better than my first race images :-)

Here are a few images from a recent club race to demo some compositional differences http://n8i.net/motorsports/060423inf/index.htm

[tomwilli]

Jeff,

Thanks for your comments. I normally shot in Manual for Portrait but was concerned I'd screw these shots all up. I agree they all look a little OOF. Why would this be? I'm I a little slow on the trigger? I was in Al servo. Thanks again for your time and comments. I have many others, I'll try to find a few that I took in "Creative Zone".

[tomwilli]

Rob,

Yes, I think Jeff had some good comments. And you are correct on the Contrast and Saturation. I probably over did it in PS. Besides cropping, Contrast and Saturation were about the only changes I made. Thanks again, Rob.

[tomwilli]

Here's another. This is was taken in Aperture Priority at ISO 100,f5 and 1/1000 sec. Just a little cropping.

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[rcg]

http://n8i.net/motorsports/in031706/sample_07.jpg


Here is an Attack Kawasaki Shot a few weeks ago.... The saturation on the last image looks over cooked to me. You said you cropped it - did you also play with levels and such?

[tomwilli]

Rob,

I think you're right, I over cooked the image. I processed the images late the night after the race. Here's a re-do on the previous photo. Is that better? I know it's OOF.

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[rcg]

Yes it's much better. Is this the un-processed image (other than crop)? Also notice the detail visible near the foot peg, between the fairing and Ben's boot in the above compared to the first version?

[tomwilli]

Yes, pretty much. Captured in RAW, I converted to jpg, cropped and lighted just a little. Thanks for your feed back. By the way, I really like your post.

I'm tring to decide between the 70-200L 2.8, non IS vs IS. Do you like your lens?

[rcg]

Yeah I love the 70-200. I have the non-IS (on purpose). I have never had issues with handholding and I have the 100-400 IS so I have the option - but for 500 bucks I skipped it on the smaller one. It's very sharp and has great contrast. You see every motorports photg with one if that tells you anything. Here is an image from Laguna Seca (top of the corkscrew) with the 70-200.

http://n8i.net/motorsports/ls021506/sample_1.jpg

[Trackday.Net]

If you've got steady hands, the f/4 version is actually quite nice. Laguna Seca, bottom of the corkscrew, under the bridge.

http://www.extremestreet.com/trackday/4.jpg

[rcg]

Show off!

[Trackday.Net]

:)

[Skip Souza]

Alright you guys. I'm jealous.