The full gallery is located >>here<< and you can get the bigger pics in there too.

User "Tuls" and myself took many shots over the weekend...here are some of mine...he took some great ones too that he's still going through them (took about 5x as much as I did...

I'll just post a few of the pics here...

 

hafid,

Great set of pics. Ever think about going to a track event or autocross and taking action pictures of MINIs? You might find a MINI on 2 or 3 wheels.

 

Great pics...however, I'm curious...why are you hiding your plate? Isn't it shown to the world when you drive?

 

You know it's funny. For some reason a long time ago, I started blurring the license plate. I'm really not sure why. Sometimes I think it's a distraction, but to some, it's distracting b/c it's blurred.

Minihune, my equipment sadly isn't good enough for track events...not a long enough zoom... :( Someday though!

 

Moved from MINI TALK to MINI Camera and Video per Hafid's request.

Love the black & white of the 3 MINIs by the adobe house....a great calendar piccie! *Wink wink!*

 

Thanks for moving Clo!

 

Hifid,
you posted some great pics. I would like to know what those of you that view this area of the board think of the following. They were all taken at an autocross on Sunday (9/5/04) near Washington DC. I would like feed back on how to do this better. As I am shooting Digital (Nikon D-70) I know to shoot lots of pics and just throw away the ones I do not like later.

This was the lead shot in a group of pics I posted on another board. I called it Cone Killer.

I was far away when I took the shot using a Nikon D-70 with Tamron 70-300mm glass attached. The ISO speed was set to around 1000 and the lense was at the extended to the full 300 mm. I had the camera set to full auto as things were happening fast and far away so I do not know the f stop or shutter speed (I think I got the terms correct. Please correct me if I am wrong.) The Vett nailed the cone, then I rased the camera and started shooting. I only got a few frames and none of them had the complete car (The zoom was to far out from an earlier shot.) At home I cropped out the door and windshield area as I do not think it added anything to the subject.


In the following I was using the same camera and lense. Again extended to between 250 and 300mm. I reset the ISO to between 320 and 400 and panned the shots to blur wheels and background. Is there a rule about film speed (for the lack of the proper term) and lense length and shutter speed? Does that rule apply to digital photos? These are uncropped just resized to post on the net.







Thanks in advance,
John

 

John,

The "rule" is: to avoid blurry photos, don't shoot slower than 1/focal length. So, with a 300mm lens, if you're shooting with a shutter speed around 1/300 second, you might have blur issues. It varies from person to person.

I'm not sure how the "crop factor" of a D-SLR gets factored in. But, since it's just a rule, and you're shooting digital, experiment and figure out for yourself. You may be able to shoot at 300mm 1/250 second with no problems. Someone else might only be able to shoot 300mm 1/500 second. Let's see... 300 x 1.6 = 480... that would make the magic shutter speed 1/480th... yeah...

I read somewhere today that, to be safe, you could use 1 / (2 x focal length) And that was on a non-digital site.

I know that I really should stop trying to shoot a 50mm lens at 1/30 second hand held. It never works for me. 1/60 second is iffy. I own a tripod, I should use it.

All of this is, if not meaningless, at least different if you're panning in your shots.

To my eye, all of your shots look pretty uniformly over-exposed (too bright).

 

thanks. I know the rule is in general. I also was having trouble with white balance. That is a learning curve issue. I normally shoot things that stand still or move slow adjust speed and opening to suit what I want to do. The camera has a default light setting so I can make the adjustment for exposure. I was thinking of knocking it down a stop. The sun was either very bright and then behind a large cloud. It was a fun day.
Thanks again for you insight.
John

 

I would get a circular polarizer (filter) and use that to help address the contrast/brightness issue. It will make the sky bluer and knock down the amount of reflected light.

With the D70 you can also adjust your exposure compensation by 1/3 stop increments.

Dave

 

I have a circular polarizer. I was took it off for some of the shots I have others from when it was on. These are grab shots - not composed or planned.