Light, Camera, Action

[terence]

Originally Posted by John Turner

Terry, you're beginning to sound like a two bob watch!

Yes John,that may be so,sorry for that but my passion for "Historics" wont go away [unfortunetly!] Just not prepared to sit back and ignore these cars I'm afraid on the grounds that they are wrecking the whole idea of racing a historic! Where doe's it go from here,or,how much longer will we be racing a car that still bears some resemblence to its "period" state?

[SAMD]

Originally Posted by rogerwills

Off topic sorry, but there is a ride height test for HTP etc I believe. Surely this doesn't pass?

erm.. what about, he is obviously braking heavily as he comes up the hill? and the smoke from the locked up wheel was digitally removed

[wolf sun]

Appropriate, as Hales/Shipman car seems to generate some errm, interest, shall we say...
Image is cropped quite a bit, lacking in focus for my taste - but I do like the look of the gleaming headlights, as well as the heat effect behind the car. I've tried to incorporate some of Grant's advice regarding luminosity - does it look overly tweaked, though?

[morninggents]

Originally Posted by wolf sun

Appropriate, as Hales/Shipman car seems to generate some errm, interest, shall we say...
does it look overly tweaked, though?

The photo? No. The car? A tad too far!

[tatounet]

last year with some good light

[grantp]

Originally Posted by wolf sun

Appropriate, as Hales/Shipman car seems to generate some errm, interest, shall we say...
Image is cropped quite a bit, lacking in focus for my taste - but I do like the look of the gleaming headlights, as well as the heat effect behind the car. I've tried to incorporate some of Grant's advice regarding luminosity - does it look overly tweaked, though?

It seems that many of the cars have some very low air ducts. I noticed with some of the E-Types as well.

As for the photo - no idea how the priginal lloked but this looks ok on the basis of the headlights being the main target for processing.

It lacks a touch of contrast, perhaps, or maybe what some software apps call 'Clarity' when they offer a tool for its adjustment. It is easy to overdo those adjustments and you need to consider that small web files at low resolution 'need' more sharpening and general definition enhancement than do much larger high resolution images. With noise, in general, the opposite is true .... so to be realistic if you are producing small versions of files and large versions of files and/or using on screen display but sometimes printing .... you are likely to need slightly different post-processing settings for type of output to make the shot look its best.

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by terence bower

Yes John,that may be so,sorry for that but my passion for "Historics" wont go away [unfortunetly!] Just not prepared to sit back and ignore these cars I'm afraid on the grounds that they are wrecking the whole idea of racing a historic! Where doe's it go from here,or,how much longer will we be racing a car that still bears some resemblence to its "period" state?

Good to meet up at Silverstone, yesterday, Terry. I know well the point you are making as you have made it before but this really is not the thread for this issue to be discussed; the TVR one would be better!

[eigger]

Originally Posted by wolf sun

Appropriate, as Hales/Shipman car seems to generate some errm, interest, shall we say...
Image is cropped quite a bit, lacking in focus for my taste - but I do like the look of the gleaming headlights, as well as the heat effect behind the car. I've tried to incorporate some of Grant's advice regarding luminosity - does it look overly tweaked, though?

I find that when taking these shots that the headlights upset the autofocus on my olympus dslr

[grantp]

Originally Posted by eigger

I find that when taking these shots that the headlights upset the autofocus on my olympus dslr

I'm not familiar the Olympus system but most of the dSLR systems work on phase detection based on readings from something that offers a suitable level of contrast resolution. They will also have a secondary methed, if they have live view facilities for example, based solely on contrast detection.

Also the perceived shaprness will be affected, to some extent, by the exposure reading, especially if you are saving the files as jpg output processed in the camera.

On top of that there is the question about which settings you have in use for focus assessment. Whole frame? Area of the frame? One particular spot in the frame?

A lot of variables there.

It's quite easy to get situations where the systems will not quite work as expected. If it is a problem with no obvious solution as far as camera settings allow the way around it may be to focus manually.

So you can try to pick a spot at which you want to take the shot and then focus on something at the same distance - possibly a kerb or the edge of the track. Do this manually or use the AF and then lock the focus.

You can then time your shutter button operation to capture the subject when it reaches the point that is the same distance as the focus is set. Bear in mind there will usually be a need for some anticipation due to shutter activation delay - fractions of a second.

Now, unless you are doing that very regularly you may still get quite a lot of out of focus shots, especially if using a long lens with a narrow depth of field. However with the ability to shoot comparatively high frame rates and with the lower cost of shooting thousands of digital images compared to working with film back in the manual days, even a high failure rate is not so bad.

Sorry that this is rather general information. Hopefully another Olympus user will be along soon to offer further input.

[SAMD]

Grant, have you ever worked on automatic gearboxes?..

[grantp]

Originally Posted by SAMD

Grant, have you ever worked on automatic gearboxes?..

Er, nope (he said trying to work out the connection ....)

Driven a few though.

[grantp]

Something a bit out of the ordinary here.

I was at Donington for the CSCC meeting that included some after dark racing activity.

The daytime stuff was mostly under solid grey cloud which, you would expect, would give quite consistent light - which it does but can still provide a range of exposure values and some challenges if changing shutter speeds and working with limited viewing opportunities.

'Flat' light is good on some respects but not quite so helpful when the clouds are as thick as they were. It becomes a question of how much one wants to tweak things to make the images 'pop'. Plus if you are using a lens where the max aperture available at the optimum available working length for the subject is f5.6 or higher you start to challenge the abilities of the AF system. Dark subject (especially black cars) can be difficult to obtain focus. White will usually be much better. Anything in the middle might be somewhat erratic when you see the results.

During one of the races I took some time to try out my recently acquired tripod and ball head (got it just before Spa but did not use it there). More practice required! I also fitted my old manual focus 600mm to the recently obtained body for the first time - hence the need for the new tripod ...

An interesting experience. Several things to consider from that not the least of which was finding it almost impossible to get a focus that worked. I was wasting too much time and had too many variables (and dull weather!) so decided to wait for another opportunity.

The night racing activity, on the other hand, proved most interesting, though I mainly stuck to the well lit pits area having heard some comments about the use of flash in the vicinity of the track. Would have needed a media pass to get to anywhere that flash would have been viable and the opportunities in the pits looked more tempting.

So the flash kit stayed in the bag/car and I took what I could get with the available lighting. It seemed to work better than I had expected, the camera doing a surprisingly good job with white balance considering the vsariety of light sources - but I am hardly a dispassionate judge about that.

The full set (of things that looked reasonable at least (or interesting in some cases, or just a 'record' of activity in others, or captured Tenthers in some cases) can be browsed here;

Daytime:

http://scene-from-above.com/web/SFA/...m?dir=4617&s=3

Night:

http://scene-from-above.com/web/SFA/...m?dir=5002&s=3

I think the daytime stuff is not at all inspiring but the night stuff provides a few ideas to be tried at the next opportunity - whenever that might be!

[OldSinger]

Grant,

The night time images are very interesting. I particularly like images 190, and pt 2 16 and 105.

I like the idea of trying night time photography. I had the chance to photo a a few laps earlier in the year while it was getting darker (but not dark). I tried some light trails with naff results but it was literally a few laps so I didn't get time to experiment or move. I think I need to concentrate on finding a good view of a corner or series of corners to make a more interesting trail. Or work a way to make the car more visible (very long pannig?).

One thing I did find was that with a protective filter on the lens I picked up green lens flare spots from light sources (i.e. headlights). Easily fixed taking the filter off but it took a short time to notice.

Makes me think about going to the Britcar 'Into the Night' Race next week...

Here's an example of the lens flare and the light trails.

[grantp]

Originally Posted by OldSinger

Grant,

The night time images are very interesting. I particularly like images 190, and pt 2 16 and 105.

I like the idea of trying night time photography. I had the chance to photo a a few laps earlier in the year while it was getting darker (but not dark). I tried some light trails with naff results but it was literally a few laps so I didn't get time to experiment or move. I think I need to concentrate on finding a good view of a corner or series of corners to make a more interesting trail. Or work a way to make the car more visible (very long pannig?).

One thing I did find was that with a protective filter on the lens I picked up green lens flare spots from light sources (i.e. headlights). Easily fixed taking the filter off but it took a short time to notice.

Makes me think about going to the Britcar 'Into the Night' Race next week...

Here's an example of the lens flare and the light trails.

Hello OldSinger and thanks for the comments.

I think pt 2 16.5 would have been a great shot . But I was already running the FPS at a higher speed than the exposure could cope most of the time with so moving it up to 10fps from 5fps probably wouold not have helped. Really you just have to press the button and hope. Mind you without the fences ....... hmm. There wouold still be some elenment of luck, car by car, lap by lap, in getting the front and rear lighting close to being 'right'.

I will admit to running(mostly) without filters for the reasons you mention about filter flair. However some lenses, especially on compacts, can produce the same flare results if shooting generally in the direction of brighter than ambient light sources. I was using a 14mm a few wekes ago, noted by one Pro on the net as being one of his favourite low flare lenses, only to discover some rather extensive sun induced flare. At which point I suddenly became a convert to the benefits of flare and took an interstin in PS type filters that will add flare where none exists. Those are in addition to the filters that add flair where none exists .....

You might like to have a browse here for some night shots.

http://www.octanephotos.co.uk/2010br...ace/index.html

The Donington Britcar round last weekend.

The night set shows all the challenges one faces especially when shooting in otherwise completely unlit areas with either no additional lighting or an on-camera flash. You can probably tell from the varied locations that more than one photographer is represented.

The light trails on the Craner Curves are nice - although I saw them on an iPad the following day and they came across better on that than they do on my notebook screen. The other classic night subject is, of course, the glowing brake disk.

Years ago, back in the days of film and many night stages on the RAC rally, I experimented with long 'bulb' exposures and a manually activate flash (needs to be a powerful flash gun) to get light streaks with frozen subjects. It worked quite well but as a technique gives you images that have limited interest - they 'date' quickly.

I'm not sure about long pans at night at very slow shutter speed. Several of my night shots are long pans but multi-shots rather than single shots, even though the shutter speed might be relatively low. Still, at least with digital you can try it, see the results, and then decide whether to continue to work with the concept, modify the approach or do something else!

[John Turner]

I can't keep up with you guys on all the technical stuff but I thought I'd throw in a few Snet pics taken back in 2009, to bump the thread up:-

[wolf sun]

I like this one, taken at this year's Belcar/BTC 12-Hour meeting. I haven't edited this shot at all.

[grantp]

Nice separation and good potential for tweaking.

It reminded of somthing I had been wondering about recently.

Which eye do people prefer to use when looking through the viewfinder?

In theory using the left eye is the poor option. Right eye use allows the left eye more scope for keeping a view of the general situation as things develop whisl the right eye tracks what is in the viewfinder. It's a great technique but for many requires a lot of practice - for very few does the idea come naturally - the 'wiring' in the brain has to be correctly arranged!

If you have a 'stronger' (or preferred) left eye the design of cameras (mainly for righthanded people) means that the view of the righ eye is somewhat restricted and so less able to be used of tracking peripheral activities. Indeed it may be impossible.

On the other hand with a long telephoto lens fitted there is not very much chance of seeing more than you can through the camera's viewfinder anyway!