witolda_maruszewska

I like this - she has that cred... ;-). IMHO the narrow field of focus works well, shame she looks a little startled. LOL. Do you show her, she's gorgeous.

 

She looks a lot like my blue girl, btw. :-)

Here's my little blue girl out enjoying the late winter sunshine.

Opinions on composition, exposure etc gladly welcomed.

Here's Pearl eyeing up something - this is a typical pose for her as

she is naturally very nosey. I think it is a combination of the

lighting and pose that makes this shot, but I would love to hear

your thoughts and opinions on it.

I used the opportunity of a local horse trials to evaluate some new

glass - 300 2.8 & 2x TC. The extreme focal length was used in an

attempt to isolate the horse's head and the rider's hands from the

surroundings. Does this work? I'd like to hear some opinions from

photographers of equiestrian events, particularly since I mainly

shoot horsepower of a mechanical kind...

The last pace lap before the track goes green on a pick-up truck

race. Shot through the wire with the lens at maximum aperture to

focus the fence out. Thoughts and opinions welcome as always.

Michael Vergers with trophy and bouquet after another top-three

finish in SCSA 2005. Conditions were tricky with very low and

intense sun, necessitating the use of flash to lighten the shadows

somewhat. Opinions and critique are welcome as always.

A lovely moment to catch on camera of a nosey, curious, inquisitive cat. The composition works really well too.

 

What doesn't work quite so well is the fact that you have blown highlights in several places - a result of there being too much dynamic range for the camera to capture. As a result, there is loss of detail on the cat's white face, which is a bit of a shame.

 

I'm not sure what sort of manual exposure or metering functions your camera has, but in these cases you are better off exposing the photograph for the highlights as you can afford to lose some of the shadow detail IMHO.

I was working in pretty flat light so used a pair of graduated

filters (one tobacco and one grey) to try and add something to the

shot of this stock car. I like the effect I achieved but would be

grateful for some opinions as to whether this works well or not. ANy

thoughts would be very welcome.

Yeah, great humour here. I see my two doing this synchronised peering-at-something act too and it never ceases to make me laugh.

 

I find that the composition is a bit off but I can't put my finger on why I think that is the case. Perhaps shooting with a longer focal length would have allowed you to concentrate purely on the cats and would remove some of the elements in the image that I find a little distracting e.g. the tree to the right of frame.

 

Still, a very funny photograph nonetheless.

Cheers Rob - managed to see the second attachment. I see what you mean about the difference.

 

I hope that higher shutter speeds will help - when panning with slow(ish) shutter speeds, if you mis-match your body rotation with the movement of the car, it will make the image soft. A bit like camera shake, if you will. It's all about getting into a smooth rhythm.

Dead-centre shots smack of "autofocusitis"... I try to avoid having things dead-centre in the frame if I can, because it adds more visual interest into the image. Why aim for textbook shots if you can be more creative? ;-) For me, the real challenge is creativity because I am under pressure to produce something different from one meeting to another.

 

Bikes are notoriously difficult to shoot because they are so quick compared to cars. If you try this again, look for a spot where the speeds are not so great e.g. the exit of a slow corner, and then you will have time to track and pan the shot without having to rush. Because the blur in a pan shot is introduced by body movement, no one will be able to tell that the bike isn't travelling flat out.

Rob, you mentioned being aggressive with your shutter speed to get the blur. Out of curiosity, what shutter speed were you using? I find that I can get good blur at 1/200s or even higher with good body rotation - and get less binned shots too. FYI, most pan shots in my portfolio are shot in the 1/200 to 1/320 range, I rarely go much lower than 1/125 for panning.

 

BTW, I'm having trouble seeing the attachement...

Leading three cars in an SCSA Stock Car race - shot from the top of

the T1 stand at Rockingham. Would appreciate thoughs on composition

etc.

An atmospheric shot, Rob - looks like you were shooting in some pretty dismal conditions.

 

I disagree with the previous poster regarding the need to lighten the shot, it works fine as it is IMHO because you get the contrast between the poor light and the illumination from the car's headlights.

 

What lets this photograph down is the fact that it isn't as sharp or as well focused as it could be, though I suspect that might be partly down to the weather. When the light is poor, you have to be more careful with focusing - any mistakes and the results will be slightly out.

I don't mind the rider moving out of the frame, think that aspect of the shot works well. What isn't so great, is that the focus point is too far back - it should be on the rider's head. If you have pre-focused on the track, then that means you have pressed the shutter too late...

Singeing the bristles of a porker before it gets turned into hams and sausages, I think... Still, it is an interesting shot of rural activities - more so because it isn't something I'd get to see here in the UK in this day and age, but I do remember some old farmer friends of mine talk about doing this when they kept pigs. I like the monochrome presentation of the image and the motion blur in the two figures conveys the feeling of work going on, but I'm not so sure about the focusing. It seems the camera has latched onto the background as the foreground is a bit soft, which is a shame, as the overall idea of the image is good. Still, I'd much rather see less-than-perfect interesting photojournalism shots than perfect boring ones and I find this image interesting.

This is an evocative image which conveys the grim atmosphere of industrial decay very well indeed. Black and white suits the subject matter, as does the grain. The details show you've used 100 ISO film which should produce a smooth finish - did you achieve grain effect during the processing? If yes, how? I am curious to find out how this was achieved.

A nice idea and a good composition, very evocative of summer. I like the feel of this photograph.

 

However, technically this image could do with some improvement. It looks soft / blurred to me - difficult to tell whether this is down to poor focusing or camera shake.

 

Both of these issues can be improved with the use of a tripod and remote release as well as focusing manually when shooting in low light. This will avoid blur and improve focus accuracy.

A nice study of hunter and prey - it is not far off from sort of thing I see when my cats return with rodents or birds. It isn't something I've really looked closely at, which is why I find the subject matter of this image extremely compelling.

 

However, I do find the grass in the foreground a little bit distracting and IMHO the depth of field is a little too shallow - the result of the latter being that it removes some of the information which would put the situation more into context. If there was a fraction more definition to the birds in the background, rather than them just being amorphous blobs, the photograph would work better for me.

A very nice studio portrait - the high key lighting works well here, as does the composition and pose. The cat doesn't look too amused however...

I usually shoot SCSA stock cars from the fenceline, but was up in

the Turn 1 grandstand to get a different perspective of proceedings

when this wreck happened. The blue #17 spun and the yellow #31

couldn't get out of the way, hitting the stationary car amidships

before going backwards into the wall. Both drivers were a bit

battered and bruised though no lasting damage was done. Incidentally

none of my colleagues down on the fenceline captured the incident -

they were too busy ducking. This is my favourite shot from the

entire sequence, namely because it captures the exact moment of

impact - I'd be interested to know what your opinions are.

A nice moment to capture as the cat is very obviously interested in the water feature. The composition works very well and both the exposure and focus is spot on. What would have been nice to get (given the title of this image) is the cat actually lapping from the fountain... ;-)

Here is the new lady of the house, Pearl, in a quiet reflective

moment. She is a Cats Protection cat and is the companion to Toby,

my black boy. Any comments and critique would be gratefully recieved.

I don't mind the close crop as such because the angle of the shot makes it work quite well. However, I do agree that this image is spoilt by not checking for dust specks before posting the image - it is distracting and is the first thing that you notice about this photograph. Digital imaging means that you have complete control over image appearance and presentation, so any sloppiness in your approach reflects badly on your work.

Good capture of a neat sideways moment! One thing that does detract from the image is the red truck in the background - maybe you should have either picked the car up earlier or later than you did to avoid that problem.

 

P.S. I'm not a non-motorsports photographer either, but hey... ;)