The Final Showdown - Pukekohe, and meeting with V6Goose with 100-400L

[Wazza]

Had a blast again, on day 3.

Met up with POTN member V6Goose, just before 2pm, and he was kind enough to let me try out his 100-400L. I didn't even have to ask. ;)
The lens was awesome, and only when I get home, I can see how much better it is than my Sigma 70-300.

Here are a few of yesterdays shots.

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-01.jpg
100-400L

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-02.jpg
100-400L

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-03.jpg
100-400L

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-04.jpg
Sigma

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-05.jpg
Sigma

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-06.jpg
Sigma

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-07.jpg
Sigma - Jones hitting the pit entry after sliding off track, getting airborne, and landing sideways. Lots of dust, hard to see clearly.

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-08.jpg
Sigma - ISO1600, 1/200th, in semi darkness. Nice glowing brakes. Got some better ones a few min later, but ISO3200, and pretty grainy!

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-09.jpg
100-400L

http://wazz*****scity.com/20d/v83-10.jpg
100-400L

[Skip Souza]

Nice shots. Love the glowing brakes. Yeah, the 100-400 L is awesome, it is at the top of my Christmas wish list.

[chrisvw]

Good shots!! I like photo 1 and 5 nice! What camera did you use???

[joeseph]

Fabulous Wazza! I was hoping you'd got a good one of Mr Jones - great!

[v6Goose]

Hi guys...

Yep, another great day at the last V8 meet at Pukekohe... :(

Good to meet up with you Wazza and hang out for a day shooting cars and girls :D ah... heaven.

You forgot to mention the rain, the expense & the 2 snogging at the hairpin! *lol*
You also forgot to tell the boys of your panning skill in shot 8 - The cars are starting their braking prior to the hairpin here. They are doing 200 kph and the gap in the fence to shoot them is around 40m wide - a viewing angle of around 10 degrees.
Not even the 100-400L could save me, well done.

Great stuff... later!

Goose

[Croasdail]

Awsome stuff..... what shutter speed are you using to get the suttle wheel spin blur... I couldn't find it this weekend and it would have really helped some of my shots.

[v6Goose]

Wazza uses 1/250th on a 300mm lens, I can only manage 1/320th on a 400mm lens (handheld incl IS). Start with 1x your lens length and go up till the body is sharp.

You guys should see Wazza in action, he's a serious CF card HOG! *lol*... filling 2 x 1GB CF's in the time it takes me to fill one 512k!! :D

Goose

[Keith-S]

Awesome shots wazza and great to see murph win again..... didn't see you guys on the tele but you wern't that photog in the pits with murph when being interviewed after race 2 were you ?

cheers keith-s

[theflyingkiwi]

Wazza uses 1/250th on a 300mm lens, I can only manage 1/320th on a 400mm lens (handheld incl IS). Start with 1x your lens length and go up till the body is sharp.

You guys should see Wazza in action, he's a serious CF card HOG! *lol*... filling 2 x 1GB CF's in the time it takes me to fill one 512k!! :D

Goose

well there's nothing wrong with 1/250 @ 300, done that myself a number of times and have got some really good shots :) also some really good ones at 1/160 ;)

one thing that I have learned, is memory is the key, shot and more offen than not you will get some really great photos :) there is only one problem. the number of photos one has to sort.

[Wazza]

Thanks Goose!

The shutter speed was a bit wrong. ;)

90% of the shots were done at 1/200, and I also did some at 1/100, 1/125, 1/160..
Only on the 100-400 I was doing 1/250, 1/320 and 1/400 generally.

I only cleaned my sensor a week ago. Anything shot at f8 or higher revealed about 20 dirt spots. At least I cleaned it, as shooting 1/200 in bright conditions, made f13/f16.

Also about shot 8, and shooting in that extremely tight gap. I was soley going by the noise of the vehicles, as the last 100m I was blinded by the fence, and just had a feel of when they would appear, and track at the same speed each time. That's how I managed 20+ nicely framed shots in a row. ;) It did take a few at the beginning, but once I had the rhythm going, it was really easy.

I wasn't in the pits after race 2. Goose was wandering around pits however, checking out the different girls there. Couldn't quite decide who was the best... Pump? Hauraki? Pit Lane girls.. Too many. :)

PS. I have 3983 files from the 3 days, minus quite a few deletions on Friday and Saturday. I was also shooting Large Standard most of the time, but changed to Large Fine when using 100-400 to really get the best quality. The shot info is saved in each pic. Just save, and right click file in Win XP, Properties, Summary, and you have all the exif data.

Chris: I was using a 20D.

I also looked like a spaceman at one stage, when Goose here clicked on his 420EX flash unit, with diffuser, whilst 100-400 was attached. (For the girls shot shown here). First time I've ever had a flash unit attached. Will try and get my own one soon, as well as battery grip, 100-400L..... Thanks Goose for really showing me how to spend my money. LOL

[Mills]

Great Shots! Fantastic work. Nice job fitting in the pretty women too. :D

[Jeff Becker]

Great pics Wazza. I love that classic "in the turn" shot. I aspire to take photo's like these, keep them coming.

[Wazza]

Great Shots! Fantastic work. Nice job fitting in the pretty women too. :D

Hehe, thanks Mills. I was on 100mm there, and standing about 4 metres back. Very tight. :D

I have many girl shots, but no way near as many as V6Goose. :p
I need to post them on my website, or in the People section.

--
Good luck Jeff, I was a newbie at sports only a week ago. This was my first shoot of a track racing event, and the previous weekend, was my first attempt at any sort of racing at the WRC. I guess as long as you find a good position, and I was on the sun side, so I had no shadows, it probably helps a bit.

[v6Goose]

Thanks for the shutter corrections Wazza...

Girls! Ha! Well yeah... only 51% there for the cars mate :D

Oh for those of you who want to know what Wazza looks like and cant get a good idea from his avitar....

Oops!

Later!

Goose

[Wazza]

Haha, I look up to see Goose pointing this monster setup at me, first instinct was to put my camera in my face.

At home, I do have a couple of candid shots of you mate, plus of course Whenuapai. :p

We were quite wet and sticky at that point. At least our cameras are still working. Although my AF stopped working for a couple of minutes.