Digital Photography

[xHaZxMaTx]

Upped the contrast just a bit on this one.




I'm pretty sure I wasn't actually supposed to be up here, but I didn't see any signs saying so, and it wasn't fenced off, or anything, so...


This is very interesting. I used a polarizer filter for all of these photos, and one part of the sky (a wide band directly above and stretching down to the North and South) became darker than the rest. This was taken at about quarter past 7 PM.



Yay, silhouettes.

[Stereo]

The first one would be perfect if you had used a zoom lens (I'm guessing you used a wide/kit lens) and made it so there would only be the tree and a part of the hill.

[xHaZxMaTx]

I did have my 55-250mm lens with me (can you tell? ), but I wanted to show that the tree was alone on the hill, and what better way to do emphasize solitude/loneliness than lots of empty space surrounding the subject? I also wanted to catch a bit of the green hill in the background (check the name of the photo).

[Zero260]

This one.

(can you tell? )

UFO?

[xHaZxMaTx]

This one.

What about it?

(can you tell? )

UFO?

Bird.

[Zero260]

What about it?

I like it a lot.

Bird.

Oh.

[Stereo]

Woohoo my new 55-300mm lens is coming on Monday.

[xHaZxMaTx]

I'd say do want, but I've already got a 55-250mm lens. Wish I had enough for that 100-400mm, though.

Anywho, you may have seen this as my desktop; this is actually one of the first photos I took with my XSi, but I never uploaded it high-res, until a week or two, ago, and I'm not sure why. It's a great shot, in my opinion. High contrast and vibrant, yet soft colours.

[Stereo]

If only it wasn't for the vignetting.

Anywho, I got my 55-300mm. It's firetruckin' awesome!

[xHaZxMaTx]

Yeah, vignetting can be a problem when you're using filters.

Anywho, let's see what your new lens can do.

[xHaZxMaTx]

Edit:
RAWR

[Stereo]

omfg... Black widows are fckin scary.

[Zero260]

Two excellent photos, HaZ. Especially that first one. The colors of the sky, the highlights on top of the tracks, the clouds rolling over the hills... Doesn't get much better. I wish you included the vanishing point of the tracks though (if there was one).

So, as my sig suggests, I'm going to see some drift action this weekend. Just seeing if you guys had some tips for getting the best shots out of my camera (again, it's a PowerShot S3IS). Or if you know of any forums/sites that have some good tips on shooting action shots, that would be nice. I do have a 'sport' setting, but the quality is never too good when I use it.

Here's an example of a picture I took last year:

Same camera, in 'sport' mode, but with very low quality settings since I forgot my 2GB memory card and only had my tiny card that came with the camera... Definitely not gonna happen again.

[Stereo]

Set the camera to Tv (Shutter Priority) mode and I suggest using something like 1/750 or 1/1000 for car shots, if you have good lighting. If it's in daylight then that's perfect, and if you want you can bump the ISO up to 400 or 800 if need be...

[xHaZxMaTx]

ISO 800 may make the image a bit too grainy. Definitely take a few sample shots, beforehand, with different ISO settings, then adjust the shutter speed, once you're satisfied with the ISO. As Stereo suggest, something around 1/1000, which should be really easy to accomplish in direct sunlight. Also, if you can, be sure to have a very wide aperture (f/5.0, or so). Exposes the sensor more and will let you use an even faster shutter speed. It will also give you a nice, shallow depth-of-field that will make the cars stand out from the background, specifically while zoomed in.

Too bad your sport setting doesn't seem to work. The sport setting on my XSi is fantastic. Live auto-focus for constantly moving subjects, shutter speed optimization for the fastest shutter speed possible, up to 3.5 shots per second, and it even makes colours a bit more vibrant.

By the way, that shot is horribly grainy. Don't suppose you have specs available - ISO, shutter speed, whatnot?

[Zero260]

Sounds good. I'll try different settings while they practice/qualify and hopefully find something that works. Lighting should be good; forecast says sunny and it's in the middle of the day.

It will also give you a nice, shallow depth-of-field that will make the cars stand out from the background, specifically while zoomed in.

That would be ideal.

Too bad your sport setting doesn't seem to work. The sport setting on my XSi is fantastic. Live auto-focus for constantly moving subjects, shutter speed optimization for the fastest shutter speed possible, up to 3.5 shots per second, and it even makes colours a bit more vibrant.

Damn you.

By the way, that shot is horribly grainy. Don't suppose you have specs available - ISO, shutter speed, whatnot?

Just like every other photo I take with this piece. I'm not sure about the ISO, but 1/1250 shutter speed, and f/8.0 aperture.

[xHaZxMaTx]

You should probably set the ISO as low as possible. If the weather's right, and there's nothing but sun, You should be able to have an ISO of 100 and still be able to have shutter speeds as fast as 1/1000 - 1/2000, especially with a wide aperture. Also, it seems that whenever I'm taking photos out in direct sunlight, I overexpose the sensor just a bit, so if it looks a little too dark on your screen, that may be just right.

Good luck and have fun, tomorrow.

[Stereo]

I never trust the camera screen, especially in daylight. RAW and Lightroom ftw. I shoot only RAW now with my 16GB card and save it in jpeg for family viewing. My dad just got a refurb Rebel XT.

Anyways, haven't shot anything special with my 55-300mm because the rain comes when it's the weekend, and the other days, I have school, and don't have anything to shoot where I live.
I FCKING LOVE ITS BOKEH AT 300mm! Sooooo awesome. Check it outt:

[Zero260]

That's really impressive, Stereo. Can't wait to see more.

Thanks for the tips. Hopefully it won't be too crazy at the ol' tire wall and I'll have time to try a bit of everything. I'll be back with the results tomorrow night!

[xHaZxMaTx]

So apparently there's this thing called 'camera tossing' where you... well, toss your camera. Creative, right? Anyway, you set your camera to have a long exposure, then toss your camera up into the air (done at night in an area with lots of lights), letting it spin, while exposing the sensor. The resulting image is a series of light-ribbons and lines and curves and whatnot. Some of the results can be pretty nifty, from what I've seen. Though I'm not about to go about flinging my $800 camera around. I have, however, flung my camera around by its strap, which produces equally interesting results.

[baumaxx1]

Interesting... Yeah, I heard about that... and did the same as you and ended up with something looking like the windows vista desktop, lol.

[Zero260]

Well I'd say they turned out pretty good... There was a bit of overcast that the sun passed in and out of, so there were some pictures that were just about perfect and others that were put to shame by grain. I started tilting my camera to get that magazine-style shot which looks cool at first, but after seeing the majority of the pictures I took were like that, it gets a bit annoying. Definitely gonna keep that to a minimum next time (though it does help keep the whole car in the frame). There are a bunch, but here are some random ones I like:




The event was amazing, like always. I never get sick of this stuff... I'm in the process of uploading all the decent photos to photobucket. I'll post a link soonish.

[Stereo]

I <3 the 3rd one. Good choice on not using sport mode with the 3200 ISO, lol...

[Zero260]

Word. With the overcast, I ended up changing up the ISO quite a bit... At times I had it as low as 80, and others around 400 (that's when the photos started getting grainy). I'm yet to check out all the camera data and see which settings put out the best photos. I was generally using shutter speeds of 1/1000 or 1/1250, and around f/5.0 for the aperture.

Here's most of the decent photos from the day.

I'm also working on compiling all my video footage into a nifty video which I'll also post soon. What do you think: Add music (because music + drifting = awesomeness), or cut any music during the drifting so you can hear the orgasmic sound of BOVs and 700hp engines hitting the rev limiter? I can't decide.

[xHaZxMaTx]

Those are excellent shots, Zero - almost no grain at all in the better pics. I don't know why I didn't suggest this, before, but you probably could have tried using a slightly lower shutter speed (1/300 or lower) and following the car with the camera as you take the shot, to get motion blur. Oh well. Looks like fun; I've been wanting to go to some motorsport event like that, since I've had my camera.

Not a motorsport event, but I did go to Six Flag Magic Mountain, on Sunday. Apparently you're not allowed to use camera lenses longer than 3", but they didn't keep me from taking my 55-250 lens into the park. Not until I left to eat and came back, anyway. I used the Sport setting for all of these photos except for the night shots, which were full manual.