Photo Techniques - Page 12 - Drifting forum

cranky · 29-06-2006, 14:08

Anyone?

Paddy · 29-06-2006, 14:26

Usually when you push some lenses past a certain point they do begin to loose sharpness and contrast. My old 75-300 was pretty much unusable after 200mm but below that it was fine. You can always try a wider shot cropped in, I've had to do that for most of my Silverstone shots as I didnt have enough reach with the 70-200 2.8.

Just read that your using a prosumer camera, but still bear the above in mind, lol !

Is your digital zoom or Optical zoom ? I'd imagine its probably optical up to a certain point then the digital zoom kicks in. Try and keep your camer out of the digital zoom as its only zooming in on the available pixels on screen. My Old fuji would optically zom to a certain point then you could hear it digitally zooming instead and the quality was atrocious from digital zoom.

Ross · 29-06-2006, 14:48

TBH mate i think you did a great job, the focus/sharpness problems might be that the lens is a little soft at full zoom and the auto focus is never going to be as quick as a slr lens, im not all that familiar with your camera but in the auto focus settings does it have a contiuous setting of a tracking setting? if so try using that cause other wise the camera will lock on to the subject but not adjust as you pan with the car or as the car is moving towards you, the other thing is you have the camera at full zoom an equivalent of 430mm ish i dont care what anyone says panning with that aint easy to do even a slight movment at your end will be massive at the subject (try a portrait at full zoom at 1/60 hand held its a bugger you cant even breath, unless your names juz and your freakishly steady

) so the softness might have come from that, just practice panning and being fluid with your movments, not sure about the lack of colour, but even auto levels and auto colour can make the world of differnce in photoshop

you should be proud dude you got some great shots

EDIT: you beat me to it paddy

cranky · 29-06-2006, 16:48

Cheers for that fellas, the AF was set to "single" so now i've changed it to continuous

I'd also turned the digital zoom off so it was always at the max 12x optical zoom so I might try and find an extra 3x lens to help, so the cameras optical is not always at max.

Jamie B · 02-07-2006, 15:58

I have three camera's all good for their own purpose

Nikon D50
Kodak Z740
Olympus dunno what model it is

The olympus was good for some D1 pics but best thing is my D50 for motion pics

Anyone know cheapish lens sites for a D50 or sell me a bigger lense?

Paddy · 02-07-2006, 16:27

http://www.onestop-digital.com/catalog/

Thats your best bet dude !

cranky · 02-07-2006, 22:02

Any cheapish sites you know of that cater for the sony H1/H2/H5 lenses as I don't fancy an ebay special?

Ross · 04-07-2006, 08:24

cant help you on that one dude, but ebays not all that bad ive had good stuff from hong kong supplyers digital rev are pretty good and somtimes and garrentee no tax on delivery.

cranky · 04-07-2006, 22:16

Me again

I'm trying to find a good guide on what settings to use and how to decide what to use in different conditions, iso/exposure/focus etc?

Ross · 10-07-2006, 10:19

a guide to all conditions would be a mystical thing

baisicly conditions will dictate your settings so its kinda hard to say exactly what works well and where, if you look through my exifs you will very rarely find two pics with identical settings (mainly cause of my stupidly short attention span i will tend to move around alot when taking pics so i dont realy have a set plan) the only ones that stay uniform are realy iso settings i keep them as low as i can get away with, the rest is dictated by what the shot needs to make it work.

what i find usefull in drift is the 3 qualifing runs,
run 1: keep it nice and safe so at least if everything else goes tits up you still have a shot, so 1/80- 1/100 ish again this depends on conditions scottland the "safe shots were 1/125- 1/160

run 2: take what you dont like about your first shot and do somthing about it so composition, shutter, apeture, all buggered around with to get it where you want.

run 3: if youve got it then get funkey, drop the shutter to the floor and see what comes out, anything is possible even if its a lucky shot you've still got it and thats what counts (belive me i love the lucky shot i have loads

) 6th of a second bring it on woo hoo

it all comes with experence just picking up a camera and knowing what to do instantly doesnt happen this is the diffence between pro and hobbyist looking at a situation and knowing roughly where to start im not a pro and it takes me at least an hour to start getting stuff im happy with. a good thing to do ( atleast for me) is pick up a car mag EVO is good for this and look at the pics and try to work out what the photographer has done and learn from it

cranky · 10-07-2006, 10:23

Cheers again fella time to invest in a shedload of batteries and regular trips to oulton park to practice

Driftreport.nl · 08-08-2006, 21:52

pffff. cost me some day's to read the whole topic

But I learned a lot. Especially from Ross. At first I also made pictures with high shutterspeeds. I can't remember I dropped below 1/750 just cause I'm scared comming home with no pictures

I knew the panning technic, but never really had the guts to try it. Then someone told me that he usually starts with the shutterspeed wich was the same as his focal length. For example, if he shot on 200mm, he used 1/200 with the panning technic.

Now I do the same, it's such a difference. You just get lot's more speed and action in your picture.
I keep on experimenting now. At this time I am playing with de cam parameters for sharpeness etc etc. I always thought my shot's were to soft. But saterday I tried some shots of a concert in the dark and they were awsome. Now I have to wait how parameters do on the track..

Another tip I have for the starters on DSLR's and zoom lenses: With drift pictures, don't use all of the AF points automaticly. When I use the 200mm I always set my cam to only use the middle AF point. Beceause when you are panning a car and between you and the car is another object, like an bundle of tires or a piece of gate, the camera might focusses (is that english?

) on that object and that could screw your run. Some say it ain't practical with the twindrifts but even than I only use the middle AF point. Maybe this was already said here, sorry about that, in that case I over looked it.

I'm shooting with Canon EOS 350D with the standard kitlense and I have an Canon 70-200mm L USM F4 lense. What a great baby!!

Here are some pics of mine.
http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...MG_0642-DR.JPG
http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...MG_1158-DR.JPG
http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...L%20752-DR.jpg

And some with the old wrong way

http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...ICT2362-DR.JPG
http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...ICT2414-DR.JPG

Trung_EP3CTR · 20-08-2006, 03:40

Driftreport.nl
Do you have anymore photos taken with the Canon L 70-200mm?
They look great

Driftreport.nl · 20-08-2006, 20:45

Thank you for the compliment!!!

Here are 2 links with event event I coverd with the L. Some pics aren't but far most of them are with the L.

http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...s.php?album=29

http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...s.php?album=31

Cheers!!!

Graham · 24-08-2006, 18:52

and as evidence of what ross says play untill you can't get a picture anymore, at silverstone i managed a few perfect ones of te time attack and especially love this one at 1/30 but luck had a lot to do with it, especially without an IS lens a slight bump in track going through solid suspension can rape what should be a great shot

it is crisp clear perfect and sharp at full res which dont happen much as notmally the front or back is out of focus due to the curved shotting arc which i dont fully understand but heard about

Driftreport.nl · 24-08-2006, 19:01

its a great shot! Is this made by hand or with a monopod?

Graham · 24-08-2006, 19:02

handheld, i cant pan with a monopod at all

Ross · 24-08-2006, 20:09

yep thats a bad ass pic alrighty.

Trung_EP3CTR · 21-09-2006, 02:45

Monopod makes panning difficult from what I've learnt 2 weeks ago at Silverstone 24hr race.
I guess it's usefull for you to rest heavy lens for head-on shots

silveR_S12 · 30-09-2006, 19:26

Had a chance to try and practice my photographing skills today on a trackday. Haven't taken a single drift pic since the set I posted ages ago. Back then Mrs. P told me to lower the shutter speed, so that's what I did.

This is probably the best of the set, with 1/125 shutter speed. Nikkor 18-55 lens, D50 camera. http://www.racesilvia.com/pics/radal.../haverinen.jpg No photoshopping in that, just resized.

In several pics either the front or the back of the car is sharp, but the other half is blurred. Looks kind of cool in some pics but I quess it shouldn't happen.. Any ideas on how to work on from here?

29-06-2006, 14:48	#223 (permalink)
Ross CQB 241 Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 1,010	TBH mate i think you did a great job, the focus/sharpness problems might be that the lens is a little soft at full zoom and the auto focus is never going to be as quick as a slr lens, im not all that familiar with your camera but in the auto focus settings does it have a contiuous setting of a tracking setting? if so try using that cause other wise the camera will lock on to the subject but not adjust as you pan with the car or as the car is moving towards you, the other thing is you have the camera at full zoom an equivalent of 430mm ish i dont care what anyone says panning with that aint easy to do even a slight movment at your end will be massive at the subject (try a portrait at full zoom at 1/60 hand held its a bugger you cant even breath, unless your names juz and your freakishly steady) so the softness might have come from that, just practice panning and being fluid with your movments, not sure about the lack of colour, but even auto levels and auto colour can make the world of differnce in photoshop you should be proud dude you got some great shots EDIT: you beat me to it paddy

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29-06-2006, 14:08	#221 (permalink)
cranky dorifto kingu! Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Creweski Posts: 1,389	Anyone?

29-06-2006, 14:26	#222 (permalink)
Paddy PIMP Snapper Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Waterford, Ireland Posts: 1,040	Usually when you push some lenses past a certain point they do begin to loose sharpness and contrast. My old 75-300 was pretty much unusable after 200mm but below that it was fine. You can always try a wider shot cropped in, I've had to do that for most of my Silverstone shots as I didnt have enough reach with the 70-200 2.8. Just read that your using a prosumer camera, but still bear the above in mind, lol ! Is your digital zoom or Optical zoom ? I'd imagine its probably optical up to a certain point then the digital zoom kicks in. Try and keep your camer out of the digital zoom as its only zooming in on the available pixels on screen. My Old fuji would optically zom to a certain point then you could hear it digitally zooming instead and the quality was atrocious from digital zoom.

29-06-2006, 16:48	#224 (permalink)
cranky dorifto kingu! Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Creweski Posts: 1,389	Cheers for that fellas, the AF was set to "single" so now i've changed it to continuous I'd also turned the digital zoom off so it was always at the max 12x optical zoom so I might try and find an extra 3x lens to help, so the cameras optical is not always at max.

02-07-2006, 15:58	#225 (permalink)
Jamie B doughnutter Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 37	I have three camera's all good for their own purpose Nikon D50 Kodak Z740 Olympus dunno what model it is The olympus was good for some D1 pics but best thing is my D50 for motion pics Anyone know cheapish lens sites for a D50 or sell me a bigger lense?

02-07-2006, 16:27	#226 (permalink)
Paddy PIMP Snapper Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Waterford, Ireland Posts: 1,040	http://www.onestop-digital.com/catalog/ Thats your best bet dude !

02-07-2006, 22:02	#227 (permalink)
cranky dorifto kingu! Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Creweski Posts: 1,389	Any cheapish sites you know of that cater for the sony H1/H2/H5 lenses as I don't fancy an ebay special?

04-07-2006, 08:24	#228 (permalink)
Ross CQB 241 Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 1,010	cant help you on that one dude, but ebays not all that bad ive had good stuff from hong kong supplyers digital rev are pretty good and somtimes and garrentee no tax on delivery.

04-07-2006, 22:16	#229 (permalink)
cranky dorifto kingu! Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Creweski Posts: 1,389	Me again I'm trying to find a good guide on what settings to use and how to decide what to use in different conditions, iso/exposure/focus etc?

10-07-2006, 10:19	#230 (permalink)
Ross CQB 241 Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 1,010	a guide to all conditions would be a mystical thing baisicly conditions will dictate your settings so its kinda hard to say exactly what works well and where, if you look through my exifs you will very rarely find two pics with identical settings (mainly cause of my stupidly short attention span i will tend to move around alot when taking pics so i dont realy have a set plan) the only ones that stay uniform are realy iso settings i keep them as low as i can get away with, the rest is dictated by what the shot needs to make it work. what i find usefull in drift is the 3 qualifing runs, run 1: keep it nice and safe so at least if everything else goes tits up you still have a shot, so 1/80- 1/100 ish again this depends on conditions scottland the "safe shots were 1/125- 1/160 run 2: take what you dont like about your first shot and do somthing about it so composition, shutter, apeture, all buggered around with to get it where you want. run 3: if youve got it then get funkey, drop the shutter to the floor and see what comes out, anything is possible even if its a lucky shot you've still got it and thats what counts (belive me i love the lucky shot i have loads ) 6th of a second bring it on woo hoo it all comes with experence just picking up a camera and knowing what to do instantly doesnt happen this is the diffence between pro and hobbyist looking at a situation and knowing roughly where to start im not a pro and it takes me at least an hour to start getting stuff im happy with. a good thing to do ( atleast for me) is pick up a car mag EVO is good for this and look at the pics and try to work out what the photographer has done and learn from it

10-07-2006, 10:23	#231 (permalink)
cranky dorifto kingu! Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Creweski Posts: 1,389	Cheers again fella time to invest in a shedload of batteries and regular trips to oulton park to practice

08-08-2006, 21:52	#232 (permalink)
Driftreport.nl gripper Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 23	pffff. cost me some day's to read the whole topic But I learned a lot. Especially from Ross. At first I also made pictures with high shutterspeeds. I can't remember I dropped below 1/750 just cause I'm scared comming home with no pictures I knew the panning technic, but never really had the guts to try it. Then someone told me that he usually starts with the shutterspeed wich was the same as his focal length. For example, if he shot on 200mm, he used 1/200 with the panning technic. Now I do the same, it's such a difference. You just get lot's more speed and action in your picture. I keep on experimenting now. At this time I am playing with de cam parameters for sharpeness etc etc. I always thought my shot's were to soft. But saterday I tried some shots of a concert in the dark and they were awsome. Now I have to wait how parameters do on the track.. Another tip I have for the starters on DSLR's and zoom lenses: With drift pictures, don't use all of the AF points automaticly. When I use the 200mm I always set my cam to only use the middle AF point. Beceause when you are panning a car and between you and the car is another object, like an bundle of tires or a piece of gate, the camera might focusses (is that english? ) on that object and that could screw your run. Some say it ain't practical with the twindrifts but even than I only use the middle AF point. Maybe this was already said here, sorry about that, in that case I over looked it. I'm shooting with Canon EOS 350D with the standard kitlense and I have an Canon 70-200mm L USM F4 lense. What a great baby!! Here are some pics of mine. http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...MG_0642-DR.JPG http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...MG_1158-DR.JPG http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...L%20752-DR.jpg And some with the old wrong way http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...ICT2362-DR.JPG http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...ICT2414-DR.JPG

20-08-2006, 03:40	#233 (permalink)
Trung_EP3CTR touge runner Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: S.E. Essex Posts: 175	Driftreport.nl Do you have anymore photos taken with the Canon L 70-200mm? They look great

20-08-2006, 20:45	#234 (permalink)
Driftreport.nl gripper Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 23	Thank you for the compliment!!! Here are 2 links with event event I coverd with the L. Some pics aren't but far most of them are with the L. http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...s.php?album=29 http://www.driftreport.nl/cpg/cpg132...s.php?album=31 Cheers!!!

24-08-2006, 18:52	#235 (permalink)
Graham spl dori master Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Comber, NI Posts: 283	and as evidence of what ross says play untill you can't get a picture anymore, at silverstone i managed a few perfect ones of te time attack and especially love this one at 1/30 but luck had a lot to do with it, especially without an IS lens a slight bump in track going through solid suspension can rape what should be a great shot it is crisp clear perfect and sharp at full res which dont happen much as notmally the front or back is out of focus due to the curved shotting arc which i dont fully understand but heard about

24-08-2006, 19:01	#236 (permalink)
Driftreport.nl gripper Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 23	its a great shot! Is this made by hand or with a monopod?

24-08-2006, 19:02	#237 (permalink)
Graham spl dori master Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Comber, NI Posts: 283	handheld, i cant pan with a monopod at all

24-08-2006, 20:09	#238 (permalink)
Ross CQB 241 Join Date: Sep 2004 Posts: 1,010	yep thats a bad ass pic alrighty.

21-09-2006, 02:45	#239 (permalink)
Trung_EP3CTR touge runner Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: S.E. Essex Posts: 175	Monopod makes panning difficult from what I've learnt 2 weeks ago at Silverstone 24hr race. I guess it's usefull for you to rest heavy lens for head-on shots

30-09-2006, 19:26	#240 (permalink)
silveR_S12 doughnutter Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Finland Posts: 73	Had a chance to try and practice my photographing skills today on a trackday. Haven't taken a single drift pic since the set I posted ages ago. Back then Mrs. P told me to lower the shutter speed, so that's what I did. This is probably the best of the set, with 1/125 shutter speed. Nikkor 18-55 lens, D50 camera. http://www.racesilvia.com/pics/radal.../haverinen.jpg No photoshopping in that, just resized. In several pics either the front or the back of the car is sharp, but the other half is blurred. Looks kind of cool in some pics but I quess it shouldn't happen.. Any ideas on how to work on from here?