Quote:
Originally Posted by wnut
You are kidding right, take your iPhone to a track and try and take action photos of this quality and you will quickly appreciate just how good Bauble's picture are grantp.
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That was not my point though. The majority of photo takers never or very rarely try action shots unless its video. Even if they do it's more likely to be a person moving at much slower pace than a car.
That said a friend of mine with a not very impressive smartphone by modern standards and a fairly average camera (to be polite about it) took a track side shot of a steam train passing at about 50-60mph an a dull and dark day.
The result was a fairly unpleasantly small jpg file that nevertheless looked reasonable, as a memory of the activity, on his phone.
With a little additional editing work I managed to stretch it to an A4 (with borders) sized print that looked OK viewed at a typical viewing distance - which was all he wanted.
I'm well aware of what it takes produce action shots and especially motor sport based action shots.
But the point that struck me was that Bob's older Canon 350D images do indeed look good today despite the 15 years of development in digital camera technology that influences modern opinion - especially amongst groups of photographers and most especially those in the groups that are always seeking an edge, commercial or otherwise, by upgrading to the latest and greatest kit.
I bought my first digital camera back in 1999. It was amongst the best available at anywhere near a sensible price at the time. (I think it was listed at £1000 but was an outgoing model after 6 months, the new model having a few more pixels) and was discounted to £500.
It was an interesting plaything but was rubbish. I still have it somewhere.
By 2005 I was still using film for SLRs but by then had a a small pocket digital camera for travelling. Not bad but only 2Mpix. Not an action camera but I think it could do video though limited.
A year or so later I bought a Canon 400D (the one after Bob's 2005 Classic shots camera) and immediately abandoned film.
Somewhere in that period I picked up a few other camera devices for different purposes most of which I used for relatively short periods of time.
The primary use for some of them was taking action shots of cars.
Others were generally unsuitable for the task, though one often saw people using similar equipment anyway. If they were happy that was fine.
Mentioning iphones, at the Monaco Historique back in iirc 2012, I saw a fully accredited media crew that seemed to consist of 3 or 4 teenagers and an iphone keeping themselves very busy.
Of course Monaco has its own rather unique potential to create opportunities that might not be possible elsewhere but nevertheless the point is it's not impossible to create at least decent action shots from relatively lowly kit and skills. Just not easy to do so reliably and in large volumes and using the full potential for photographic composition that pukka cameras provide.
That said with in-device or external digital editing features, the majority of viewers (across all image categories, not just motor sport) would probably not be able to tell the difference and nor would they care much if they could.
Just my opinion of course.