BTCC Quali, Thruxton

ukaskew

ukaskew

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Name
Chris
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Bit of a mixed bag, a few 'straight' shots mixed in with yet more slow-shutter speed experimentation, all the slow stuff is between 1/40 and 1/80 if I remember correctly, comments welcome...


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More here: http://chrisharrison.smugmug.com/gallery/4957543_j4Jeu
 
Matt Sayle said:
I like them all, exoect i am unsure about 3. Great shots all the same!
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It's an ugly car and the only interest is the wheels off the ground, so I got rid of the other stuff :) Not sure if it works either, but there were 10s of people firing off at 5fps or more every time a car bounced off those kerbs (I'm a 1 at a time boy!), so I figured I should do something different.
 
I like the heat haze and the fact the wheels are off the ground! It is growing on me! Oh and I am a one shot boy too. The only reason being I have a bridge camera that seems too cry when it is put on Burst Mode!
 
They are all great shots. Personal fave would be #1. Like the way you managed to get it head on. What lens are you using to get such close shots? Also what's going on with all the lines on the track in some of them? For some reason, it looks a bit 'unnatural'?
 
Nice set. Agree with you about the Chevrolet being ugly! I do like this shot though.

High speed distant pans are most interesting for me here. The last one doesn't quite work as there's a bit too much blur on the front of the Clio. Favourite shot is probably the "Old One" Honda, the pan has done a great job of blurring out a nasty background. Composition on it is rather nice too :)

300 f/4 is doing a grand job!
 
Torpedo said:
They are all great shots. Personal fave would be #1. Like the way you managed to get it head on. What lens are you using to get such close shots? Also what's going on with all the lines on the track in some of them? For some reason, it looks a bit 'unnatural'?
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The head-on ones were with the 30mm f4, you really are quite close at that part of the circuit.

The lines are tyre marks, Thruxton has very a very light surface which shows them off very vividly.
 
Matt Sayle said:
Have you got any of the seats?
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Cupra Championship or the BTCC ones? Got loads more pics but I only bother uploading slightly different ones, can't see any point in having 50 shots of the exact same location just with different cars.
 
gribbsy said:
Nice set. Agree with you about the Chevrolet being ugly! I do like this shot though.

High speed distant pans are most interesting for me here. The last one doesn't quite work as there's a bit too much blur on the front of the Clio. Favourite shot is probably the "Old One" Honda, the pan has done a great job of blurring out a nasty background. Composition on it is rather nice too :)

300 f/4 is doing a grand job!
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I don't like the 300mm! I put the 80-200 back on at every opportunity.

Haven't worked out how to get that Clio shot yet on that corner (tried last year as well), as it's a corner it moves out of the slow pan too quickly, so the front is always going to blur.
 
gribbsy said:
Wow, I am amazed about that.

I hardly ever take the thing off and absolutely love it - it's so sharp! What don't you like about it?
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Just not as flexible as my 80-200, I tend to get ideas (which probably shouldn't work) and want to try them immediately, with the prime I'm kind of stuck with what I've got.

Also I find my shooting style changes with the 300mm, I end up taking shots like the first few in my original post, which although sharp are in my opinion dull as hell and similar to what most people would take (I call them 'money shots', the more money you've got the better those sort of pictures can be, not really any skill involved), as soon as I put the 80-200 on I go bonkers and have so much more fun.
 
A good selection there... the bouncing over the curb shots are nice, probably the second one is better because there are two cars in in.

Probably the only one I don't like is the #34 Porsche.. just not sharp enough really or enough of anything else to pull it through.

Thats a lovely panning shot of #77... :D
 
Great shots, I really like the composition of all of them although I think they all look a little underexposed and flat.

I did a quick edit of one to show what i mean.
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mole2k said:
Great shots, I really like the composition of all of them although I think they all look a little underexposed and flat.

I did a quick edit of one to show what i mean.
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Interesting but not as I remember it to be honest, the grass wasn't that green and the track (even the coloured kerbs) do look very washed out in reality. I think somewhere in the middle of the two would be about right.

I am interested in how you did it though, as I can't get my whites right at all and that's the one thing in the re-edit that personally appeals to me. I only really ever do a slight crop on some of my pics as I'm not into Photoshop (but willing to learn!), never do any sharpening or anything (I 'processed' 600 pics in an hour!)
 
I did quite heavily edit that one to really boost it up but it would be quite easy to do a midpoint to lift the tones a little but not make it look quite as bright.

I basically adjusted the levels mostly. I dragged the white point down so the whites are nearly being clipped so they are almost pure white, I then adjusted the black point to give a bit more depth to the shadows then the midpoint just slide it a tiny bit to even up the exposure again.

Then use an unsharp mask at Strength 20%, Radius 60px, threshold 0. This will really boost the colours and contrast up.

Make final colour adjustments with the hue/saturation/lightness tool to drag down the green saturation and the curbs. (this gives you a vibrant car on a more drab realistic background, I do this a lot in my rally photos)
 
ukaskew said:
Just not as flexible as my 80-200, I tend to get ideas (which probably shouldn't work) and want to try them immediately, with the prime I'm kind of stuck with what I've got.

Also I find my shooting style changes with the 300mm, I end up taking shots like the first few in my original post, which although sharp are in my opinion dull as hell and similar to what most people would take (I call them 'money shots', the more money you've got the better those sort of pictures can be, not really any skill involved), as soon as I put the 80-200 on I go bonkers and have so much more fun.
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I know where you're coming from with this. I had to force myself to use the 300. Now I've spent quite a lot of time with it, I'm pretty happy I can use it to creative effect as well as something a bit shorter. It gives opportunities you just don't get with a mid range zoom. That said, it does depend a lot on the circuit and I find it a lot more useful for bikes than cars.
 
mole2k said:
I did quite heavily edit that one to really boost it up but it would be quite easy to do a midpoint to lift the tones a little but not make it look quite as bright.
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May I thank you, kind sir. I was hugely reluctant at first but I just spent 5 minutes playing with the levels settings, I'm blown away! I will make sure I spend a lot more time tweaking in future (particuarly for photos I'm really pleased with)

Old:

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New:

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I'm almost embarrassed that I never embraced photoshop sooner!
 
Welcome to the Photoshop Revolution comrade... the reactionaries will hate you now :D
 
Hello there. What zoom mm lens were you using. I frequently attend BTCC events, but missed Thruxton as I expected rain so watched it all on ITV4.

Very good pics, exactly why I have upgraded my camera to cater for BTCC events :)
 
thepharcyde said:
Hello there. What zoom mm lens were you using. I frequently attend BTCC events, but missed Thruxton as I expected rain so watched it all on ITV4.

Very good pics, exactly why I have upgraded my camera to cater for BTCC events :)
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A mixture of:

1) 80-200mm

2) 80-200mm + 1.4 TC (112-280mm)

3) 300mm

4) 300mm + 1.4 TC (420mm)


Although I think combo #2 was my most frequently used.
 
Great shots, I really love the blur! Great inspiration to do some myself!

Josh
 
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