C&C-motorsport photos

frostie500

I've tried to use the feedback from last month to try and improve on my snaps so Im looking for some C&C on these shots from a couple of races I've been at recently. In the first couple of shots the colours are much better because the later ones have been photoshopped to be web-ready and therefore are washed out to give a smaller size etc

---

Spanish Grand Prix MotoGP

AnimalRights

Way to many to C&C, sorry.

frostie500

AnimalRights wrote: »

Way to many to C&C, sorry.

Fair enough, sorry give me a few minutes and Ill take most of them away. Wasnt thinking just saw a load that I liked!

lisatiffany

I have to agree there are a lot to do a proper C&C but I do like the 1st one the best. It's the sharpest of all the images and I like that you caught the rider on the corner with such a great look on his face, you can tell he is really concentrating on the race. I used to live in Monaco and knew right away your biggest problem would be exposure, you need to drop it down a little or work out some of the highlights so they are not getting washed out.

If you shot in RAW then you are in luck, if not maybe try a little burning. The third shot is good too, I like how you caught Jenson's car taking off but still have a bit of blur on the rest of the team. The sixth shot of Vettel is sharp at the back and blurred at the front which is a shame but I know how hard it is to catch those cars when they are on full burn around the track. The last shot with Rosebergs Merc AMG could definitely do with a either some burning or level adjustments, I do like the angle though.

Like I said the only real issue I see is the highlights being washed out here and there due to the light and maybe a lack of sharpness but its not that easy to catch those cars in the first place. What camera were you using and do you have any of the settings? also maybe one or two of them could use a little more colour saturation, when you are up close to a lot of those cars you can almost taste the paint jobs but a few of them looks a little flat.

Either way I like them, well done Stephen.

frostie500

Thanks for replying, its great to get some feedback. im still fairly new to photography and its pretty much only racing that Im shooting except for some stuff when Im on the road. not really sure what the procedure is with C&C to be honest so thought I post up a few-Ill know to keep it to only a couple of images in the future!

The first shot is one I really like, when I was flicking through the viewfinder after the session it was the one that really popped out to me. Its great to see the level of concentration. Its also the only one that I didnt make web ready which really does wash the colours out of the image but yeah Monaco was really tough to get the lighting right, dont know how the pros do it to be honest! I was just trying to use the light guide on the camera, not sure what you call it!, as best as I could. Id imagine its a case of getting used to shooting and then knowing which way to get it done

For the Button shot I was actually just looking to keep him and the car in focus and try and blur out the mechanic. The last shot was pretty much done just to keep the bus stop in the image!

Whats the main differences with shooting in raw? Is it that youre able to make a lot of changes to the image in post processing and not lose the quality? Is there much that can be done with the light issues? I cant really do much in photoshop yet, just some of the basics so Im not really sure what all is available to me in it!

Im using a Canon 60D and for most of these shots (monaco at least) I was just using a short lens (55-135mm)

lisatiffany

That's your light meter so, it happens though even with the best of cameras so its always best to fire off a few shots and then have a look at the monitor and the histogram. I had a similar issue recently with the Nikon D7000 it was over exposing the shots even though they looked fine on the monitor but luckily RAW saved the day.

I think a lot of people are mixed when it comes to RAW vs Jpeg I personally will never use Jpeg ever again as it just seems like going backwards in technology. I like RAW because you have an uncompressed image with better dynamic range making it easier to see and work with shadows and highlights and colours, also depending on what software you are using you can enhance pretty much every aspect of the image after you have taken the picture. Some people saw RAW is not as sharp but then that's always something you can tweak yourself with the RAW file. It's a bigger file too so you need more space if you are planning on doing a lot of shots on the same card, I usually shoot with twin 8gb or 4gb cards but then I have hundreds of images to process.

Jpeg is pretty much the standard for a lot of cameras and software packages and I think its open source so more companies use it. You get less dynamic range but because its compressed you don't have to process it yourself and its suitable right away for things like web posting and printing. It's got a higher contrast than RAW but then contrast is easy to tweak in RAW once you have the basic software tools. Most people find no need to really fix the image up its kind of like what you see is what you get. It can be worked on but loses a certain amount of data with each tweak, RAW doesn't.

I think it depends on the photographer really, I know casual shooters who use RAW all the time and I know people who shoot for the likes of Vogue and they swear by Jpeg. It helps too if your camera is fast enough to capture RAW images right after each other, I think I use about 6fps on RAW and never had any speed issues. Some people don't like the time spent adjusting and enhancing images especially if its one after the other but I can personal do 5 to 6hrs on about 50 images and its bliss. If you want to just set your shot up and are happy enough with the results then Jpeg is fine because you can do some simple enough adjustments on the image afterwards, you just have to accept the loss of data. If you want I could try have a go at adjusting one of the images? I don't usually work with Jpeg at all but i don't mind doing a before and after as an example if it helps.

frostie500

lisatiffany wrote: »

That's your light meter so, it happens though even with the best of cameras so its always best to fire off a few shots and then have a look at the monitor and the histogram. I had a similar issue recently with the Nikon D7000 it was over exposing the shots even though they looked fine on the monitor but luckily RAW saved the day.

I think a lot of people are mixed when it comes to RAW vs Jpeg I personally will never use Jpeg ever again as it just seems like going backwards in technology. I like RAW because you have an uncompressed image with better dynamic range making it easier to see and work with shadows and highlights and colours, also depending on what software you are using you can enhance pretty much every aspect of the image after you have taken the picture. Some people saw RAW is not as sharp but then that's always something you can tweak yourself with the RAW file. It's a bigger file too so you need more space if you are planning on doing a lot of shots on the same card, I usually shoot with twin 8gb or 4gb cards but then I have hundreds of images to process.

Jpeg is pretty much the standard for a lot of cameras and software packages and I think its open source so more companies use it. You get less dynamic range but because its compressed you don't have to process it yourself and its suitable right away for things like web posting and printing. It's got a higher contrast than RAW but then contrast is easy to tweak in RAW once you have the basic software tools. Most people find no need to really fix the image up its kind of like what you see is what you get. It can be worked on but loses a certain amount of data with each tweak, RAW doesn't.

I think it depends on the photographer really, I know casual shooters who use RAW all the time and I know people who shoot for the likes of Vogue and they swear by Jpeg. It helps too if your camera is fast enough to capture RAW images right after each other, I think I use about 6fps on RAW and never had any speed issues. Some people don't like the time spent adjusting and enhancing images especially if its one after the other but I can personal do 5 to 6hrs on about 50 images and its bliss. If you want to just set your shot up and are happy enough with the results then Jpeg is fine because you can do some simple enough adjustments on the image afterwards, you just have to accept the loss of data. If you want I could try have a go at adjusting one of the images? I don't usually work with Jpeg at all but i don't mind doing a before and after as an example if it helps.

Thanks Lisa that's a lot of info and really helpful! As I said Im fairly new to this so it's great to get good detailed advice like this! If you wouldnt mind I'd love to see a before and after! Thanks again!

lisatiffany

Okay I had a go at 3 of the images. I modified the levels and tweaked the shadows and lighting a bit along with a few sharpness and contrast tricks to try and make it pop a bit more. The third one was just an experiment to see how much detail I could pull out of the car by doing a lot of hand painted detailing and contrast tweaks. You can see on the far left near the watermark it appears kind of blocky that's because the tweaking has made it lose a little data. If the image being worked on was RAW it wouldn't be like that. I tried not to go too dark on the first one because it is always so genuinely bright and you don't want to lose the feel of the location. You will get a hang of it in no time at all and no one is brilliant right off, its really the exposure that was throwing up problems because it can wash out so much detail and highlights. Anyways I hope you don't think I butchered your work thanks for letting me try a few tweaks.

frostie500

That's class, the colours really do pop off the screen. I really like the second one, the red of the Ferrari looks class and even the road markings look much better to contrast the colours in the shot. I really appreciate you doing this Lisa, it shows me what can be done to an image with a bit of work. Gotta get working on it so that I can do this myself!

Paddy@CIRL

First of all, I'm insanely jealous of your F1 accreditation.

Regarding your shots, it's great to hear someone looking for honest feedback rather than gloating about the events they've been shooting. All the shots you posted are fine, but have the potential to be really special. I would remove the second bike shot (I'm not sure where the focus is here), the shot of Massa at Monaco (the car seems to be very soft?) and the shot of Vettel at Portier corner.

It seems with most of the shots that you're sometimes caught between two minds when shooting - when shooting low shutter pans, shoot LOW shutter speeds, like really low. If you half arse this aspect, you end up somewhere in the middle where there's not enough blur to convey speed, yet it's not sharp enough to emphasize clarity. Don't be frightened of winding down to a speed lower than your comfortable with, as usually this is where the magic happens.

Shooting RAW is an absolute must IMO, although some will say it's not necessary. Grab yourself a copy of Lightroom (99.9% of my track / action based work is all processed through Lightroom) and start playing around with the sliders but remember, less is always more.

If you want to be inspired, check out Darren Heath's F1 work - it goes beyond what motorsport photography is. Incredible is too shy a term to describe this work.

frostie500

Thanks Paddy, I liked looking at your stuff in the last couple of months, they're really nice. As I said earlier its great to get the feedback and Im looking to learn so its nice to get feedback from yourself and Lisa. I only started going to the races last year as a journalist so getting the photographers access was a bonus that I thought I couldnt afford to miss so now I want to try and get as much out of it as I can!

Yeah you're right about the second bike shot, I was looking to keep Cortese in focus because it looked like he had a good run out of the last corner but I can see that it's not great to have the lead bike out of focus. In the Vettel shot I was trying to get the front of his car slightly blurred to try and get it to show the speed while keeping the rest of him in focus, it probably would have been better just to get him all in focus-I must have a look through the folders and see if I have one with it all in focus instead. What do you mean by "soft" in the Massa shot? Again its all new to me!

I think I'd agree with you about getting caught between two modes. I like to try and get a nice panning shot but its so hard to make the entire image clear and crisp when Im using the quicker shutter speeds. Maybe its just that I cant adjust on the fly enough with the manual focus-I dont like using the auto too much because you always tend to get the background in focus not the actual target of the image.

How low would you recommend shooting for the panning shots? Ive tended to use about 1/80 or so-any lower and im completely out of focus. Also I think one of the big things that Im trying to figure out is how to use all the settings. There's just so many of them that I get lost and with the limited track time its tough to spend it experimenting etc.

Yeah I love looking at Darrens stuff, I was actually standing with him in Monaco down for the shots at Portier and the hairpin just trying to get a feel for what he does framing shots. I always think that he's one of the few guys shooting F1 or other motorsport that captures so much more than just the bike or car. As you say he's beyond a motorsport photographer, he's one of the few artists doing the circuit.

Thanks again, I really appreciate the feedback and the advice

Paddy@CIRL

frostie500 wrote: »

Thanks Paddy, I liked looking at your stuff in the last couple of months, they're really nice. As I said earlier its great to get the feedback and Im looking to learn so its nice to get feedback from yourself and Lisa. I only started going to the races last year as a journalist so getting the photographers access was a bonus that I thought I couldnt afford to miss so now I want to try and get as much out of it as I can!

Yeah you're right about the second bike shot, I was looking to keep Cortese in focus because it looked like he had a good run out of the last corner but I can see that it's not great to have the lead bike out of focus. In the Vettel shot I was trying to get the front of his car slightly blurred to try and get it to show the speed while keeping the rest of him in focus, it probably would have been better just to get him all in focus-I must have a look through the folders and see if I have one with it all in focus instead. What do you mean by "soft" in the Massa shot? Again its all new to me!

I think I'd agree with you about getting caught between two modes. I like to try and get a nice panning shot but its so hard to make the entire image clear and crisp when Im using the quicker shutter speeds. Maybe its just that I cant adjust on the fly enough with the manual focus-I dont like using the auto too much because you always tend to get the background in focus not the actual target of the image.

How low would you recommend shooting for the panning shots? Ive tended to use about 1/80 or so-any lower and im completely out of focus. Also I think one of the big things that Im trying to figure out is how to use all the settings. There's just so many of them that I get lost and with the limited track time its tough to spend it experimenting etc.

Yeah I love looking at Darrens stuff, I was actually standing with him in Monaco down for the shots at Portier and the hairpin just trying to get a feel for what he does framing shots. I always think that he's one of the few guys shooting F1 or other motorsport that captures so much more than just the bike or car. As you say he's beyond a motorsport photographer, he's one of the few artists doing the circuit.

Thanks again, I really appreciate the feedback and the advice

Panning, whilst it may seem simple enough at first, is actually an art unto itself. You need to adjust for the speed of the car, radius of the corner, surface of the track, turning focal plane amongst other things. There's no real set safe shutter speed, it's a simple case of trial and error. I've often shot at a 1/5th of a second and got good results whilst there have been times where 1/160th was still too slow - there are just so many variables!

As a general rule of thumb, when shooting head-on or almost head on, I'll shoot wide open with the intentions of freezing the action and using the lens to throw the background and foreground completely out of focus. When shooting side-on, I'll attempt to capture as much movement as I can get away with.

ScumLord

Frostie500, would you be using a very shallow depth of field? The red bull car is in focus at one end and not the other, other than that I love all the photos and the content is amazing.

lisatiffany, I think you've gone to far with the saturation and blacks. A lot of the detail is gone from the bike photo which is what I liked about it. The ferrari picture looks fine though.

frostie500

ScumLord wrote: »

Frostie500, would you be using a very shallow depth of field? The red bull car is in focus at one end and not the other, other than that I love all the photos and the content is amazing.

Yeah I was trying to get a shallow depth for some of them, maybe too shallow because I was looking through some more from that corner and they are all slightly out of focus on the front wing, to try and get the cars to "pop" off the screen but again to be honest Im trying to mess around with the settings on the fly so I find it hard to really figure out how to set up the image correctly and also how to use the available light. I think with hindsight maybe this was a better image for a headon shot .

ScumLord wrote: »

lisatiffany, I think you've gone to far with the saturation and blacks. A lot of the detail is gone from the bike photo which is what I liked about it. The ferrari picture looks fine though.

I really like the colour difference though in the bike shot after the work was done on it, the purple looks really cool in the tweaked shot

Kat1170

First shot of Number 82 in Moto 2 looks fantastic, although he is a she, Elena Rosell.