Wales Rally GB - First Attempt

[RichD]

I went down to the Port Talbot stage with chrispons to have a first go at shooting a rally. Had a very enjoyable day out and came out with a few images I'm happy with. I'd love to get some feedback on what you think of these and any suggestions on what I could have done better. Thanks for looking.

#1http://www.zipp.co.uk/gall2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=53076&g2_serialNumber=4 #2http://www.zipp.co.uk/gall2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=53126&g2_serialNumber=4

#3http://www.zipp.co.uk/gall2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=53083&g2_serialNumber=4

#4
http://www.zipp.co.uk/gall2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=53198&g2_serialNumber=4

#5
http://www.zipp.co.uk/gall2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=53268&g2_serialNumber=4


#6http://www.zipp.co.uk/gall2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=53293&g2_serialNumber=4

#7http://www.zipp.co.uk/gall2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=53366&g2_serialNumber=4 #8http://www.zipp.co.uk/gall2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=53406&g2_serialNumber=4

Thanks. They were shot with a 30D and 28-300 L , other than #2 & #7 which were with a tilt shift lens I'm experimenting with. There are more at my signature link.

[KurtBlythman]

To be honest, that looks like it just came out a mag. Very impressive.

[NeherPhoto]

some of those look oversharpened and noisy to me

[Owain Shaw]

#1 is corking, the experiments with the tilt-shift are interesting but, not quite there yet, #7 works better than #2 which isn't clear enough in the effect and would work better if the focus was on the car, difficult to do but, that's got to be the aim ... Light is quality in #3 and the others are okay, but don't affect me overly.

[RichD]

some of those look oversharpened and noisy to meThanks Neher. It's something I have been struggling with getting the right balance on and its not helped by using gallery software to create the resizes - so in a way it is sharpening a resize of a sharpened image. I've had another experiment and have set it a lot lower now, though I'm not sure if some have lost their pop.

#1 is corking, the experiments with the tilt-shift are interesting but, not quite there yet, #7 works better than #2 which isn't clear enough in the effect and would work better if the focus was on the car, difficult to do but, that's got to be the aim ... Light is quality in #3 and the others are okay, but don't affect me overly.Thanks Owain. I totally agree with you on the tilt-shift ones, it shows promise to produce images that are a little different but I have a lot to learn on when is a good time to use in and simply using manual focus.

[Owain Shaw]

Manual focus is often easiest on the cheaper modern lenses ... something like a 50mm f/1.8 is brilliant for MF practise, as are the kit lenses ... first lens I ever used was the film kit 28-90mm and MF from day one. If I had some of my old motorsport shots from the film days of Manual focus I would post them ... but I'm not renowned for my archival back-catalogue to say the least!

I find L lenses take too long to MF (something your Tilt-Shift will likely have in common) whereas something like the 50mm has a quick ring with plenty of accuracy, nearly all my shots with it are MF. That's what I want for manual focus anyway, others may disagree ... I've had someone tell me that MF is impossible with a modern SLR camera before now, that just shows you the range of opinions there are!

Keep at it and practise MF, there's potential in these shots and you also never know when manual focus will save you!

[elvisrally]

Great shots #6 is my favourite

Thanks for sharing

Elvis

[zenarcher]

Good shots.

[Rhodri.Lew10]

Some very nice images there Rich, I particularly like the lighting and perspective on #1, you get a real sense of being in the middle of a forestry in the middle of nowhere.

#5 & #6 are just my type of shot, no arty farty just pure sense of speed and commitment, which is what rallying is all about.

The MG looks strangely like a toy car in #7, is that the effect of the 'tilt-shift' lense? I've never even heard one of those!

Rhod.

[RichD]

Yeah one of the effects a tilt-shift lens can be used for is making things look like miniature models. You can change the angle of the front element of the lens and move it side to side and this has the effect of tilting the plane of focus over so just a band of the image is in focus and it blurs as you move away (it can also be faked in PS - http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=581466)

The brain seems to ignore that the focus plane tilt and just sees it as a very narrow depth of field and assumes it must be a small object.

#1 was a bit of an error. It was one of the first shots of the day and I'd forgot to switch from jpeg to raw. When I've batch processed the images that has been over done a bit due to the in-camera jpeg processing already being applied, but it has come out 'interestingly' if not quite 'correct'.

#6 is my favourite of the day. I'm trying to get a few more frame filling shots rather than arty scenic ones.

Thanks all for the comments.

[JAcosta]

#6 Is something I would print as big as I could and hang it on my wall. Well done.


Great shots all around. Youre a madman for using a tilt-shift for rally. I love it.

[Sharpmaxell]

the one on the bottom left looks like it's a hot wheel. nice shots!

[Robf]

which TS did you use?

[RichD]

A Hartblei 45mm/f3.5 super-rotator with canon adaptor. I got it off ebay and it was a bit cheaper than the canon ones and has the advantage that the tilt and shift can be rotated independently to any angle. The Canons are fixed with tilt and shift at 90 degrees to each other.

[RoryOD]

your on the right track (excuse the pun).
I do a bit of rally photography, and recently managed to get accreditation nationally with motorsport ireland. so press passes all the way, and you get the best spots :-)
look at getting accredited in the UK.

have a look at these guys, great when looking for some fresh angles! IMHO i think they do some of the best shots ive ever seen in wrc.

http://www.mcklein-imagedatabase.com/imagedatabase/index.php?index=12&idb_cmd=show_collection&idb_collection_id=4312&idb_page=1&cat_id=2

keep at it.

[RichD]

Thanks for sharing that link Rory, some great images on there. And thank you for your comments. As far as I know there was only space for 12 UK photographers to be accredited for the Wales Rally GB so it's something that would need to be worked up to working on other events and even then you would need backing from a major publication.

[Robf]

The Canons are fixed with tilt and shift at 90 degrees to each other.

Ta, for the info. I believe that's solvable on the canon TS's though :)

[ejicon]

nice shot of the WRX

[ogre1231]

1 is by far my favorite. 6 is my second fav. I'd def hang them on my wall.