NTAXS Winter Autocross, 1/29/2012, Pennington Field

[OZMDD]

Really, McShame? Sour grapes.

[TexasStig]

Really, McShame? Sour grapes.

M is next to N = likely an honest mistake.

Then again, maybe not!!!! Very sour and immature grapes indeed; I resemble that remark!

McShouldbeanotherclass would have been too obvious.

[p4R4d0x]

Moar pictures!

Whole album (161 pictures) HERE:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alstauf...7629109125317/




Some Samples:

wrx8-143 by alstauffer, on Flickr


graymiata5-44 by alstauffer, on Flickr


evo5-18 by alstauffer, on Flickr


jj3-96 by alstauffer, on Flickr


77m4-32 by alstauffer, on Flickr


mini4-123 by alstauffer, on Flickr


blackstang3-137 by alstauffer, on Flickr


30miata5-129 by alstauffer, on Flickr


bluemiata4-86 by alstauffer, on Flickr


mymiata11-113 by alstauffer, on Flickr

[p4R4d0x]

Sorry for the double post, but I reached my picture limit on the last one.

Does anyone know who's shooting with the big Canon lens in the photo below? He told me he had pictures of me driving, but my memory is terrible and I can't remember the website he told me to find them on..

IMGP3611-88 by alstauffer, on Flickr

[OZMDD]

Don't recall his name, but he was in a Smurf Blue NA.

[slowchildmiata]

Don't recall his name, but he was in a Smurf Blue NA.

Papa Smurf?

[p4R4d0x]

Some of my (slooooww) runs from the race Sunday plus a little intro I made with clips I shot experimenting with my new DSLR's video. The lens I was using is really stiff, and the video feature is manual-focus only, so it's far from smooth but I think it came out pretty cool anyway.


Comments on the video and/or the driving are welcome.

[jrj512]

Cool vid.

[Squid]

My pics -- From groups 1 and 3 (the second run group-in the morning session)

https://picasaweb.google.com/KE5PUX/...eat=directlink

Dang Google is having storage issues. I have 76 of 250 pics uploaded. I will try to finish again later.

[Ataim]

My intensions are to help others to become better photographers not to insult. Most of the pictures do not show any speed. When taking pictures of the profile reduce your shutter speed to about 1/20 to 1/30 and PAN with the cars. That way the background and the tires are blurred but the car will remain in focus. You want to take the pictures when the car is in a steady state of speed. It’s harder to keep the car in focus if they are braking or accelerating. However, for the head on shots you need to increase the shutter speed to prevent blur.

[CosmosMpower]

Some of my (slooooww) runs from the race Sunday plus a little intro I made with clips I shot experimenting with my new DSLR's video. The lens I was using is really stiff, and the video feature is manual-focus only, so it's far from smooth but I think it came out pretty cool anyway.


Comments on the video and/or the driving are welcome.

You mounted a DSLR under the front bumper of your car? You must have balls the size of basketballs.

[p4R4d0x]

My intensions are to help others to become better photographers not to insult. Most of the pictures do not show any speed. When taking pictures of the profile reduce your shutter speed to about 1/20 to 1/30 and PAN with the cars. That way the background and the tires are blurred but the car will remain in focus. You want to take the pictures when the car is in a steady state of speed. It’s harder to keep the car in focus if they are braking or accelerating. However, for the head on shots you need to increase the shutter speed to prevent blur.

Pictures like that were my goal, things just didn't work out. I couldn't use 1/20 to 1/30, it was so bright that my aperture was 'maxed' at 1/100 That plus I'm shaky (I'm not that stable to begin with, but add in adrenaline from just driving, and wind, and it's not pretty..). I took a number of panned profile shots at 1/100 but all but this one were too blurry:



I had Shutter-Priority mode set to 1/100 (and when I saw those were too shaky/blurry, 1/160 and 1/200 later on), and Aperture-Priority set to f8.0 (which was giving 1/500-1/1500), and was switching between the two, Tv as they were driving across in front of me, and Av when they were coming towards (below) or away, so I could try to get both styles of shots, it just didn't work as well as planned


Related questions - did you use a monopod for those shots? I've been considering one to help the whole shaky situation.. I was using a heavy, cheap 70-300mm lens for these, I might also try switching to my much lighter 50-200mm to make the panning more stable next time.

You mounted a DSLR under the front bumper of your car? You must have balls the size of basketballs.

No way, that would be scary - I would have been even slower than usual trying to keep it on there, lol. I took the out of car footage in the intro part with my DSLR, but all of the mounted video is a GoPro.

[OZMDD]

Monopods are great, a must-have IMHO. The 50-200 is probably a better choice, though I would personally use a fixed length prime lens and crop later. That only works if you can get a really close vantage point unless its a 100mm+ lens. I've shot similar stuff with a 50mm 1.8 and been really pleased, after blowing it up about 200%. As far as panning, it just takes some practice to get the camera moving at the right speed BEFORE you snap the shutter.

[p4R4d0x]

Monopods are great, a must-have IMHO. The 50-200 is probably a better choice, though I would personally use a fixed length prime lens and crop later. That only works if you can get a really close vantage point unless its a 100mm+ lens. I've shot similar stuff with a 50mm 1.8 and been really pleased, after blowing it up about 200%. As far as panning, it just takes some practice to get the camera moving at the right speed BEFORE you snap the shutter.

Why prime, just for image quality? The only autofocus prime I've got is a 50/1.7 - I think I'd have to be on course to be close enough for that. I'll have to see if my dad has a monopod he's not using he could send me.

[CosmosMpower]

Primes are usually sharper, especially when used at wide open apertures (not that you could do that on a bright sunny day). A 50mm prime definitely wouldn't cut it for motorsports. I'm thinking something along the lines of a 200 F1.8 or 200 F2.8. For motorsports I'd usually shoot a mid zoom something like a 70-200 F2.8 IS

[p4R4d0x]

Primes are usually sharper, especially when used at wide open apertures (not that you could do that on a bright sunny day). A 50mm prime definitely wouldn't cut it for motorsports. I'm thinking something along the lines of a 200 F1.8 or 200 F2.8. For motorsports I'd usually shoot a mid zoom something like a 70-200 F2.8 IS

Just did some price checking and that focal length prime for my camera is worth almost as much as my body and all of my lenses together.. It looks like 90-105 are the longest primes I could afford. There is some redundancy in the lenses I have that I could sell off, but the ones I'd be able to part with aren't worth all that much. I like using my 70-300 just for the extra reach over the 50-200, which isn't such a huge deal at Pennington field I suppose, but technically my 50-200 is the 'better' lens; the 70-300 is just a cheap Quantaray (Tamron copy in this case).

I wonder if a crop of a photo taken with a solid 200mm F2.8 to the same area covered by the 300mm lens would be noticeably better despite being 'smaller'?

[CosmosMpower]

Just did some price checking and that focal length prime for my camera is worth almost as much as my body and all of my lenses together.. It looks like 90-105 are the longest primes I could afford. There is some redundancy in the lenses I have that I could sell off, but the ones I'd be able to part with aren't worth all that much. I like using my 70-300 just for the extra reach over the 50-200, which isn't such a huge deal at Pennington field I suppose, but technically my 50-200 is the 'better' lens; the 70-300 is just a cheap Quantaray (Tamron copy in this case).

I wonder if a crop of a photo taken with a solid 200mm F2.8 to the same area covered by the 300mm lens would be noticeably better despite being 'smaller'?

Yeah the long primes are pricey and glass will always be a larger part of your investment than bodies. A 2.8 or faster 200+mm prime will cost you easily 1-2K for most brands even used. The most economical lens for motorsports is probably something like a 70-200 F4 type lens. I mostly have experience with Canon, not sure about Nikon, Sony etc.

[p4R4d0x]

Yeah the long primes are pricey and glass will always be a larger part of your investment than bodies. A 2.8 or faster 200+mm prime will cost you easily 1-2K for most brands even used. The most economical lens for motorsports is probably something like a 70-200 F4 type lens. I mostly have experience with Canon, not sure about Nikon, Sony etc.

Yeah, that kind of money is getting close to what I paid for my car though, lol. Maybe someday. Next event I'll see how monopod + the 50-200 works out, and maybe keep it set to 100mm for a while to see if that focal length would be useful to me, since there are a few reasonably priced used ones near 100mm and I might be able to offload some of the zooms the body came with that I don't use. I shoot Pentax, so it's just the relatively low-end DA 50-200mm f/4-5.6 ED, but their next step up in that focal range is 6x the price!

[Ataim]

I know that with Nikon you can always buy an "old" 35mm lens and use it on your camera.( I'm not sure if Pentax can though) Before FX sensors where made you could pick them up for a song. Now with FX sensors becoming more common the prices have started going up on them. The image circle is larger so the effective focal length will be longer. Newer modern zooms are MUCH better than the older ones. Also typically a lens is sharpest about 2 stops from full open.