One of the best pictures I almost took - Twice

Drat !

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Ouch! I HATE when that happens. Definitely would have been a portfolio type shot....

If you have any other ones of that person showing the full helmet, photoshop them together to make one good one.

I've had a couple of those for far, and I did you photoshop to fix two of them and they both turned out great

Yep, photoshop is an option, but I'd rather take the photo than "fix it" in photoshop.

I don't like to be cruel but, to miss once is bad luck, to let it happen again is bad planning and should never happen.

So how did you manage to miss both of them? They look like relatively simple head on shots. Were you too close?

Have you tried cropping the first shot in really tightly?

"Being cruel ..." yep I go along with that

Interesting corner - you can only hear them coming. The shooting spot is in between the trees about 10 feet lower than the corner. There is a safety fence between you and the straight before the corner. The karts pop into view moving towards you and left to right. The safety fence effectively stops you picking up the kart early and following them to the apex.

The easy option is to go further away from the corner and get them on the down hill exit. Makes the photo a bit flat though. 300mm is the right length - I was trying 420 to see if I could get in nice and tight. The price you pay however, apart from getting ribbed here, is that when someone doesn't follow the established line through the corner (or close to it) you might miss the shot.

The other thing I noticed was just how much a x1.4 slows the auto focus down.

as the saying goes...close but no cigar!

Oh, so at 420 there was not much room for error. The autofocus speed can be resolved by good old pre-focusing (with enough head room). Better luck next time.

Oh man I know how you feel. Sorry dude.

Just to rub salt in the wounds... they would have been really good shots!

What camera are you using? If you've got enough megapixels, wouldn't it be better to stick with the 300mm and crop them tight when you get home, so you don't risk missing body parts?

Did you manage to get any other good shots, where everything was in the frame (even if the cart was on all four wheels)? Post a couple of them - you'll feel better and we'll get a treat! Judging by these, I'm sure you'll have some perfectly decent shots.

Go on, you know you want to

Kevin.

The other 200 or so where I got the drivers head in are on the web site. I'll pick a couple out for you to pass learned and considered judgement over.

The camaera is a 20D (until I talk the wife in the letting me buy a Mk3) and there is always the option to use Raw Shooter (RIP) to add in the pixels if required.

Bottom line, 300 is the way to go on that corner