Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone

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Garry Spight

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Garry
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Hi everyone this is my first photo post on the forum, Taken at silverstone on the saturday.

This image has made it into print of the year competion in the advanced section of my photography club, which I'm really pleased about as I was a new member this year at the club and got put in advanced class after an intial assesment.

Strange that this one scored so highly as I had some great panning shots too but the judge really liked this one and scored 20 points on the night.

WDYT?

All critique welcomed.


END_OF_AN_ERA_by_Garry_Spight.jpg
 
Personally.... shutter speed way too high (zero movement), not enough space in front, no rule of thirds or leading lines composition and the vignette is my pet hate.

Plus points Lewis Hamilton is a famous person.

Don't take it too hard, but thats my honest opinion :D

Remember here we tend to be motorsport specialists rather than general photographalists ;-)
 
Its a nice sharp shot and I like the composition.

If I was being critical, I would like to see some movement in the wheel - it looks a bit like the car is parked and I am not too ken on the vignette, but I am sure that is a very subjective thing.
 
Thank you guys, Thes shutter speed was a main concern of mine I have plenty of them whilst panning at 1/80 etc.

Just thought I would post this up here as the camera club seemed to like it. I know as photographers we always have a way we look at things, I know I do and like you said you do more motorsport here than general photos. We also have to look at it from other points of view that general public like stuff we dont which also confuses me no end.

I will post a panning shot up it a little while and you can crit that too
 
Shutter speed far too high and don't like half a car.

It is nice and sharp and colours are good.
 
Think you overdid the saturation and perhaps cropped too much to the top, otherwise OK.
 
Funnily enough apart from a quick pull of the sliders in curves I did no saturation work. Just set a white and black point.

Do you really need to have a full height crop? Will seeing some blurred cars and safety fence add to the image?

Thats the top of the wall anything else is no rally important to the pic, We know its at a race track, we know its a car will having the centre of the track help when seeing them image I dont think I agree with you on that one.
 
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Hi Garry,

I've got to agree with many of the above comments on your original picture. As for your second shot - good picture, but as Mike says - needs a bit more saturation. Have a go with the shadow & highlight filters, too. One of the things which I don't like to see is elongated pictues, I much prefer they're kept in their original 2x3 ratio. Change the angle of the car is a good way of filling out the frame and adds to the drama of the picture, too.

One other thing I would do, is use the cloning tool to get rid of the dark patches of grass - where you've shot through the fence.

Neil
 
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I agree with the comments regarding your first picture, but from a non motorsport photographer, i think the second is really good. You've created a sense of movement by blurring the wheels, I personally like the crop (post the full version to let others decide) and I disagree about there being too much saturation - if anything, I would increase it slightly.
 
Thanks Neil,

I guess picture crop shapes is down to personal taste really.
Like I said before I prefer the panning shots myself but just wanted to share the photo that was selected for print of the year.


That was a judge that liked the first over a panned one.

As for the saturation. Mike was suggesting there was too much. Not that there wasn't enough

Well done for picking up the fence. It was just a quick edit curves and crop.

When entering comps or printing I would take more time with the edit. Using the lighten tool is probably the best way to remove that as you don't effect the pixel position

Thanks for taking the time to comment
 
Steven001 said:
I agree with the comments regarding your first picture, but from a non motorsport photographer, i think the second is really good. You've created a sense of movement by blurring the wheels, I personally like the crop (post the full version to let others decide) and I disagree about there being too much saturation - if anything, I would increase it slightly.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I think crop is down to a matter of taste personally.

I may give it a bit more boost on the saturation. I think people are moaning about the grass. It always tends to have a real green feel to it after it rains and the sun hits it.
 
Hi Garry,

A bit of advice/something to look out for - when you go to circuits like Siverstone with their high fences - lookout for slots in the fencing in various places around the circuit. I've found by sitting on the floor, behind the barrier, you're the right height to get pictures of the cars and you don't get any bits of blurred fence in your picture. There's a good one which I use at the exit of Maggots at Silverstone. A typical example below

FF_D9Q9961.jpg


Neil
 
Neilly said:
Hi Garry,

A bit of advice/something to look out for - when you go to circuits like Siverstone with their high fences - lookout for slots in the fencing in various places around the circuit. I've found by sitting on the floor, behind the barrier, you're the right height to get pictures of the cars and you don't get any bits of blurred fence in your picture. There's a good one which I use at the exit of Maggots at Silverstone. A typical example below

FF_D9Q9961.jpg


Neil
Click to expand...

I did try and get that postion thanks a lot for the pointers, There are a few places that I tried to shoot from but got kindly moved on as they wanted access.

I was thinking of sitting on the floor but the mud told me differently.
getting rid of the fence is quite easy if we are honest though.

Great example shot.
 
Garry Spight said:
Funnily enough apart from a quick pull of the sliders in curves I did no saturation work. Just set a white and black point.

Do you really need to have a full height crop? Will seeing some blurred cars and safety fence add to the image?

Thats the top of the wall anything else is no rally important to the pic, We know its at a race track, we know its a car will having the centre of the track help when seeing them image I dont think I agree with you on that one.
Click to expand...

Didn't see the wall to be honest, thought your photo stopped at the top grassy bit:eek:

It was the very green grass that gave rise to my saturation comment too.
 
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That last one is a total corker!

Looks slightly a bit too much "white" to me on this crappy laptop screen, but it could just be my crappy laptop.

Easily fixed.

Should have entered that one, that's bang on the money.
 
I actually like the first shot apart from the fact that is all looks very stationary I think the rest of it looks really good!
 
That will be because at 1/gazillion'th of a second, the image will be sharp and crisp no matter how bad your technique is :D
 
I'm not really feeling the love on either of the OP's shots either.
Lewis just looks like he's just sitting in a car parked somewhere on the track and the God awful vignette does absolutely nothing for it either.
There's no real interest to the shot - there's nothing special about front 3/4 at some insanely fast shutter speed (1/4000sec would be my guess - maybe quicker).
I'm struggling to find how any photography judge worth their salt could say that it's worthy of being considered for progression in a photo of the year comp - unless there was very few images or the standard was low.

The pan shot of Vergne's Toro Rosso is better but still not great. It looks like your technique is not too bad, but I reckon it's a bit overexposed and the colours look to be out of whack - particularly the grass and on my calibrated monitor, there appears to be a slight magenta cast right through the image.
Even though I understand why it was cropped the way it was, it didn't really work.
The Dutch tilted version isn't really much better either, mainly because of the ugly shed in the background - a tighter crop would help that.
Although tilting a pic can add interest to an otherwise ordinary shot, it doesn't necessarily work all the time - for this shot, this is one of those times. You need to be selective about when you use it and understand why you use it rather than just gratuitously tilting for the sake of it.
 
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Love all the pics, i really like the first one, although the lack of any movement in the wheels is the only thing that i would of critiqued.
 
Garry Spight said:
Here is the second shot with the fence removed and a normal crop at a slant

Slanted_pan-framed.jpg
Click to expand...

As an F1 fan and a photographer, must say I really do like this. Shame its not a better team ;)
Would love to get to Silverstone and try my hand at a few myself.
 
What a nice thread - 24 responses and no-one's yet done anything other than offer constructive comment intended to help the op. If only all threads, especially started by self-confessed beginners ran like this and didn't slip into becoming destructive shouting matches.
Well done too the op on taking the comments in the spirit in which they were given.
I'm not a "clubby" person myself so have never had the urge to join a local camera club and compete but I was fascinated by the fact that the original shot had been singled out for praise.
 
Actually, positive threads are the norm in the motorsport section... we don't often have a dummy spit here.

Sometimes its hard to get a thread moving along, but when it does we tend to play nicely.

Perhaps we should make a move to overthrow the wedding photography section and start a "nice revolution"
 
tikkathreebarrel said:
What a nice thread - 24 responses and no-one's yet done anything other than offer constructive comment intended to help the op. If only all threads, especially started by self-confessed beginners ran like this and didn't slip into becoming destructive shouting matches...
Click to expand...
It's the race fuel fumes...
They just send us into a state euphoria and keep us all calm and docile.
 
I would tend to agree with most of the comments here. I for one am not a fan of heavy cropping images. A small subtle amount may be fine but you should look to get a good image in the first place when taking the photograph, not relying on cropping afterwards in post production. Rather than doing this, look for ways of using your surroundings and environment to your advantage and incorporating them into your image. Here are a couple of examples:


1110_F1Korea_279 by Chris Gouge, on Flickr


1208_Lotusfest_221 by Chris Gouge, on Flickr

Also, it is possible to be stood behind one of those big annoying wire fences and still get a good image. Try getting as close to the fence as you can and open your aperture as wide as possible. If done effectively this will place the fence out of focus to the point where it can no longer be seen. As another example the image below was taken stood behind a wire fence:


1109_BTCCKnockhill_110 by Chris Gouge, on Flickr

Hope this helps

Chris
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www.chrisg-photography.com
Twitter: @TheArtofRacing
 
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