2008 Motorsports Images

Hi all, looking for some critique on images from last season that I just finished editing/touching up. Revisited the season as a means of getting up to speed with Lightroom and killing time until the season kicks off this year. C&C greatly appreciated!

1.

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ALMS is the best, I travel up to Laguna Seca from San Diego every October, good times.

Nice pics, media pass? Do you use LR2 for PP?
Anyway, Thanks for sharing, #3 is my fav. and #5 being the least(too busy for me).

Thanks. Yeah, ALMS is one of the best series we get up here ever year.

No media pass these are all shot from the spectator areas behind the fence and yes I use LR2 for PP, I find it more reliable than PS for my editing needs and the workflow is much faster. The archiving is also nice and works well with my backup settings.

I really like the new processing!

Great shots. Picture 8 is my favorite, nice background on that one.

1 and 2 confused the hell out of me. I'm guessing you made the outside of the track B&W? It really looks like two pictures to me. Sorry, not into those ones.

3 is very cool. Love the lineup and colors. I feel it's the best one out of the bunch.

Just an observation ... It appears to me that you shoot the cars super low in the frame, causing massive head space. Which in the case of racing, ends up being not too much to look at. (see #7)

Maybe it's just me, but I'd like to feel more of the tracks curves and positions. And not so much what the bystanders are doing.

None the less, you definitely conveyed speed, and captured the aspects of racing nicely.

P.S.

I just saw this shot...

http://farm2.static.fl​ickr.com …69686754_b8a628​77e2_b.jpg

Really cool! You should inline that one, so people don't overlook it. Great stuff right there.

Hi Jerry,

Thanks for the feedback.

The desaturation is what throws you off in 1 and 2? 2 was a bit of an experiment to isolate the orange from the background whereas 1 was more or less trying to keep the focus on the Corvette as the background was rather bland and had some high contrast colours (bright blue trash can).

I shoot all over composition wise, I used to be one of those center focus only shooters and got a good smack upside the head from pros to expand my composition more. I shoot a lot of the outer AF points which on the 40D definitely leaves a lot of space like you mentioned. I try to show more than just cars on a track and incorporate the outside elements such as spectators. The goal of these images is basically to build a strong set of images and a portfolio to show next season in an attempt at getting credentials to cover events where hopefully I can get more of the twists and turns

Yeah, I should move that link up to the top as I was about to post and remembered I had that one as well so I just threw it in at the bottom.

Thanks again for the C&C, keep it coming!

smcclelland wrote in post #7030772
Hi Jerry,

Thanks for the feedback.

The desaturation is what throws you off in 1 and 2? 2 was a bit of an experiment to isolate the orange from the background whereas 1 was more or less trying to keep the focus on the Corvette as the background was rather bland and had some high contrast colours (bright blue trash can).

I shoot all over composition wise, I used to be one of those center focus only shooters and got a good smack upside the head from pros to expand my composition more. I shoot a lot of the outer AF points which on the 40D definitely leaves a lot of space like you mentioned. I try to show more than just cars on a track and incorporate the outside elements such as spectators. The goal of these images is basically to build a strong set of images and a portfolio to show next season in an attempt at getting credentials to cover events where hopefully I can get more of the twists and turns

Yeah, I should move that link up to the top as I was about to post and remembered I had that one as well so I just threw it in at the bottom.

Thanks again for the C&C, keep it coming!

Maybe they smacked you too hard! Cause those that are filled with cars look great but the others just leave me scratching my head. Maybe they send you off in another direction cause you were getting too close to them and they didn't want the competition.

acchildress wrote in post #7030838
Maybe they smacked you too hard! Cause those that are filled with cars look great but the others just leave me scratching my head. Maybe they send you off in another direction cause you were getting too close to them and they didn't want the competition.

It's good getting feedback like this as I find everyone has different likes and dislikes about motorsports images

So you prefer more of: http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …35953579_69c724​a539_o.jpg over something like http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …35988603_9eedf9​d5d5_o.jpg or http://farm4.static.fl​ickr.com …78968210_a301ed​4d0c_b.jpg ?

The desat and selective color works on some, but shone 1 just doesn't work for me... not sure why, but it doesn't. 4 works better for me for that style. Emphasizes people and sport. Cutting off the bottom of the Porsche on 7 doesn't work for me either. I like the idea of the shot though.

BTW - the advice you got was sound. Shooting center focus shots is a very basic skill, like panning. If you want to cover an event you need to see bigger than that because often the story isn't always on the track itself.

Hey Mark,

Thanks, I'll play with #1 some more and probably drop some of that desat. The cutton off of the bottom of the porsche in 7 was a crappy error on my part with framing, the bottom of the car is slightly clipped by a big ugly concrete wall so I was trying to cover the wall up by cropping. Thanks for the C&C.

this is off topic but how do you post so many pictures? i can only post 2 at a time

Link the photos off an external site and embed them using the Insert Image button (right beside the hyperlink button). If you attach the images then it only allows 2 but you can link up to 8 images offsite.

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