best picture of my car so far (a little large)

[steve k.]

This was taken last sunday by Jim at Printroom

i think this one is the best action shot that i have.

steve k.

[kangarooboy]

Neat! I like your wheeeeels...

[bmw1602.com]

nice!! It's my dream to get a picture of my car going thru a corner lifting it's front wheel.......freaking classic!

congrats!

[InkaSteve]

nice!! It's my dream to get a picture of my car going thru a corner lifting it's front wheel.......freaking classic!

congrats!

If you noticed, he even got the back wheel off the ground...great pic..

[TJW]

Sooo!! next adjustment is??

[NickVyse]

Fantastic shot - you must be pulling some serious G. It doesn't even look like a very grippy surface.

[f1reverb]

You can compare here with the same pic with a tiny amount of unsharp mask added it just looks clearer. Adding USM at this stage is not the best thing to do but it's still better. It would also be better if your car was separated from the background more. I can read the pic info, and it was shot at 1/500th of a second at F8.0, and the focal length was 420mm. When you have a crummy background you want to blur it as much as possible. With a 420mm focal length he was probably using a 300mm lens with a 1.4x teleconverter.

Assuming he was using a 300mm f2.8 lens, with the 1.4 TC he'd have an f-stop of 4.0 to use at the largest aperture. So if he shot at 2000th at 4.0 the background would be much more blurred, with the added bonus of potentially a sharper shot with the higher shutter-speed. It's tougher to shoot it this way as you have less room for error on the focus, and to me autofocus here is a negative (if it was used) when you can focus on pavement just after the patch on the ground and anticipate the placement of the car for the shutter release. A longer lens would even be better for blurring the background. I would have laid on the ground too, to show more air on the tires.

You and your car did their job and created a moment, but the photog only created an average shot of the moment. It's typical for event photographers to not spend the time to get the best shot they could get, as quantity is more important. The post-processing on the computer is usually done in a batch to save time, but working over each shot individually is necessary to obtain the best quality (not to mention that it's best to get it right in the camera in the first place). Better one great shot than a hundred good ones. Just one distorter's opinion.

[NickVyse]

Hey f1, personally I preferred it how it was, more depth to the colour and to the shadows, and less graininess. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

[f1reverb]

as the original jpg, which is already a file with information tossed out. I'm speaking of the sharpness of the original posted shot being less than optimal. Most people don't care if a shot is not as sharp as it should/could be, but not me. If a photo is not absolutely perfect, you learn from the problems and try to improve your shots in the future. Take it or leave it as you wish. When you look your B&B, or at other B&Bs, do you just say "Oh, how fantastic" or do you look at them with a critical eye? Do you think Steve's original (and I have a D200 as this pic was taken on so I know the files and what can come out of the camera) shot is not soft?

Steve will have moments like this again, and maybe even better ones (think GS Tuning). Maybe Steve will read this and talk to the photog so the next capture will be better when that moment occurs. My eye and my mind's eye judge all car photos with the standards of the golden-age of Road & Track photography -- anything less then they go back to school.

[robspeed]

as the original jpg, which is already a file with information tossed out. I'm speaking of the sharpness of the original posted shot being less than optimal. Most people don't care if a shot is not as sharp as it should/could be, but not me. If a photo is not absolutely perfect, you learn from the problems and try to improve your shots in the future. Take it or leave it as you wish. When you look your B&B, or at other B&Bs, do you just say "Oh, how fantastic" or do you look at them with a critical eye? Do you think Steve's original (and I have a D200 as this pic was taken on so I know the files and what can come out of the camera) shot is not soft?

Steve will have moments like this again, and maybe even better ones (think GS Tuning). Maybe Steve will read this and talk to the photog so the next capture will be better when that moment occurs.

while we are raining shitte,

his bumper's crooked, the windshield wiper arms are swapped left-to-right (and vice-versa!) and i cant hardly see the blue in steve's eyes! ball it up and start over!!! :-p

sorry just had to do that... =-p

on serious note, WOW F*#@$%ING GREAT PIC!! (both times, i think there is always room for improvement and there are many tricks to be tried photomographimically espeaking...

as for the "what needs fixing" posts, id say their grins need widening; other than that the thing looks nicely balanced. steve mentioned widening the track (i donno if hes done that yet), possibly trying to lower CG more??

here (edit) i played with the pic a bit more (did a crap johb doing the selection mask but anyway...)

[f1reverb]

(nt)

[slash02]

Ok, that is awesome! Is your car verona red?

[danjrusdug]

(What a bunch of passionless, blind weenies)

Not everyone has the same passion. Let's focus on the passion that we share, our 02s, and try to be respectful of the things that we don't all share passion for.

(Stepping down from soapbox....) : )

Doug - Today's assigned peacekeeper

'73tii Atlantik

'90 3251

[dubois]

"technically" Jay is right, but 99.99% of us won't be able to tell the difference. I think it is a great picture, but personally I like it the way it is, the details on the second cone (tire marks) just need to be captured to add reality to the shot. Also the rest of the parking lot incorporates a mundane familiarity that brings the viewer in and says: look at a couple nuts, having a blast in a improvised track on a parking lot - BRILLIANT!

I think if you isolate the subject, then it is just "another car picture", but this one is not about the car! Maybe, I am just too much in touch with my feminine side!

[Benz02]

I agree with Michael. This is a brilliant shot, even if it could have been better. I would title it "Happiness" or perhaps "Nirvana". I also like the second redone photo here that gives a great sense of motion--either way it's a good photo. Pro photographers, true pros, are experts and very very detail oriented. That's why they get 40 to 50 grand for one photo!