MotoGP at Donnington

[Lowner]

The first results of a weekend at Donnington with the rented 500 f/4. This shot was taken at the Melbourne hairpin during the first practise on Saturday.

While I'm a Rossi fan, I have to say it was a great race and nice to see three different faces on the podium. And at least "The Doctor" has increased the lead over his rivals.

[peeps27]

Nice shot but can't quite figure out where you were standing. Were you in the paddock?
I am a Stoner fan so my interest faded after the lights went out and he went backwards.

[ned1]

This was taken on the Friday.......wet practise, downpour, spray and through the safety fence, you can just see the fence wire, is there anyway to overcome this problem !!

Thanks for looking
Ned

[Lowner]

Ned,

The fencing is a cross we all have to bear and it's not obvious in your shots. It looks as though you were shooting from the exit of the Foggy Esses? I shot from there last year (in the pouring rain as you just have) and found I could get up on the bank and see over the fence.

peeps27,

You are right, I was on the Paddock side. We were guests of Suzuki for the weekend, we were shown around the garage (strictly no photos, as the fairings were off and they were very sensitive about whats hidden away under there!) and managed to get Chris V's and Loris Capi's autographs. CV and James Toseland were both kind enough to sign A3+ photos I'd shot from the Esses last year.

Heres a shot of Edwards from the same spot.

[GO BIG]

Hi Rich, the two pictures you've posted look a little soft to me but that could be my end. Do the full size files look OK and what was it like using the 500 f4?

[Ghostrider86]

Awesome stuff, keep em coming! I love the first shot, you can really get a feel for the motorcycle dynamics with the front tire all smashed up! :D

[Lowner]

GO BIG,

The originals are fine. I've been shot down in flames here for showing shots "over sharpened", so I for this site only I now purposely avoid too much.

The 500 was very good, but ENORMOUS! which creates it's own handling issues. Nothing that practise would'nt solve. For a 1.6x crop camera it seems a good match. I suspect it would be too small for a full frame camera.

[Lowner]

Another two. I could not resist the idea that our Honda chappie was up to a little industrial espionage.

[Cyclop]

Nice captures! MotoGP racing, always a pleasure to watch.

[Lowner]

Just been working on this shot of Lorenzo. As you can see the practise session started overcast, but it did improve and was sunny and reasonably warm later. Shooting from behind the fence, the working pro's were a PITA, constantly walking this way and that. I have a number of out of focus images of scuffy 'togs to treasure.

[CTM]

Fantastic Shots!! I nearly fell off my chair when I saw Rossi take a little tumble, I am really glad he got the bike started again!

[Lowner]

CTM,

Rossi's fall was my wifes fault. She knows it.

In all the MotoGP events we have been to, Vale has never won once. The only time he won she had twisted her ankle very badly the day before at the track and watched the race on TV from her hotel bed. We gave our tickets away.

Or maybe it's me. I wished Chris Vermuelen luck before the start and look what good that did!

I had only just commented that maybe Rossi would let Dovizioso go past and just follow for a few laps, with hindsight that would have been the sensible call. We watched the race from Redgate, Goddards would have been more exciting.

[Cyclop]

Although I like the "Doctor" and think he is a brilliant and talented MotoGP racer, I still favor the beautiful red Ducati's ridden by Stoner and Hayden. I would hope that one day Ducati and the "Kentucky Kid" can make it to the podium before the end of the racing season.

[RolyRatman]

Yet more fantastic captures from the weekend,thanks for sharing.
Anyone get any of Prince Harry on the back of Randy Mamola?

[Lowner]

I saw T- Shirts around saying something like "I've been round Donnington as fast as Randy Mamola". Apparently he almost managed to high-side it recently with a pillion aboard.

[Lowner]

Not at all sure this qualifys as a "competitive motorsport" photo, but I see someone else has posted Caseys second. This was his first, at the Melbourne hairpin, on Saturday.

[Cyclop]

What a shame, poor DUC!

[ned1]

The first results of a weekend at Donnington with the rented 500 f/4. This shot was taken at the Melbourne hairpin during the first practise on Saturday.

While I'm a Rossi fan, I have to say it was a great race and nice to see three different faces on the podium. And at least "The Doctor" has increased the lead over his rivals.

Richard
How do you get your colours so good (vivid) is it because of the camera or is it done in photoshop and if so where...because I cannot seem to get my colours anywhere as good as yours.
thanks for any help with this

Ned :confused:

[Lowner]

ned1,

It's not in camera because I don't let it make those sort of decisions!

I shoot in RAW and open in DPP where I've set my preferences to start in "faithful" and aRGB, rarely changing away from that. I also do not let DPP do anything else to the image before exporting to Photoshop as a TIFF, using it only as a RAW converter.

I adjust saturation for bike images on a seperate layer, so that I can cut the very gaudy green grass back to something realistic and leave the bike colours as I think they should be. I find greens are the worst.

I don't fret about an accurate colour balance, what I try to achieve is something close to what I remember of the original. With the shots I've put up on the zenfolio link below, sharpening has only been applied to the subject, not the background. Sharpening can have the effect you noticed, I use pixel Genius' Photokit Sharpener as a plug in.

I have used a low frequency "wide" sharpen, followed by a medium frequency "medium" sharpen, brushed on and then reduced to 25% opacity. For printing I'd go a lot harder and then follow up again with a print sharpen.

It's interesting that an image uploaded here looks different to the zenfolio upload and I don't know why. The only difference is the resolution of the uploaded jpegs.

[Lowner]

Again, not a "competitive motorsport" photo, but James Toseland comes across as a very friendly soul.

[Michael.McBee]

Awesome pictures with great detail. Check out the sidewall on the front tire in picture one.