witolda_maruszewska

I usually shoot horsepower of a different kind (stock cars) - this

is my first try at photographing horses and I'd really appreciate

some opinions and critiques from experienced equine photographers as

to whether this is acceptable and if there are any tips and

techniques I could try in the future.

Not a bad effort, but this shot looks far too static. The car appears as if it is parked in the pit lane because there is very little evidence of movement. What you need to do is slow the shutter speed right down and pan as the car somes into the pit box. You might want to experiment a little bit, but shutter speeds of 1/125s or slower are what you should be looking at. The blur that suggests movement is introduced by the body rotation.

 

As an example, here is the link to a shot I took last weekend of a Stock Car travelling down a pit lane at a fairly slowly - with a shutter speed of 1/125s, body rotation and a wide-angle lens (35 mm) I managed to make the car look as if it was travelling really quickly.

 

http://v8.macmillan.co.uk/s_images/wittyfiles/pics/web_galleries/2005_scsa_02/pages/IMG_4531.htm

 

Hope this is helpful to you! :-)

I tried to show the major elements of the completion of a 24 hour

race in a single image; a car approaching the finish line, people on

the pit wall applauding the achievement and the flag marshal waving

the chequer at the end of a gruelling event. This was shot from the

start lights gantry at the top end of the pit lane as it offered

what seemed to me to be the best view of this last phase of the

race. Anyway, I like this image, but I'd be interested to hear what

you think of it. Comments and critique welcome as always

Norman, I was already kneeling very wet ground to take this; getting any lower down to shoot (and thus change the reflections) wouldn't have been an option as there is a tyre wall in the way which would have obstructed the view.

As a photographer who usually shoots oval racing, I usually don't

get to do much work in the wet, but the monsoon-like conditions at

Snetterton's EERC meeting provided plenty of opportunities. I got

soaked but kept the camera dry; this shot is one of my favourites

from the weekend. Opinions and thoughts are welcome as always.

Actually, I don't think I would change the camera angle in order to crop this - I don't agree with you here, Fred! ;-)

 

The reason why is that this shot screams "Silverstone" - I recognised it before looking at the image details and I think it adds to what is already a nice image. Sometimes it is good to be able to place a car at a given circuit rather than have a shot that could have been taken anywhere.

 

I like this - nice work.

A shot from last year but still one of my personal favourites

nonetheless, showing Colin White in his "office" i.e. the cockpit of

his SCSA Stock Car. I like this shot because of the eye contact in

this environmental portrait. Opinions and thoughts would be welcome!

 

Note: Autosport used this image in their latest issue (May 12th) to

illustrate a feature about Colin.

Just some thoughts to add... As a working motorsport photographer I am always under pressure to look for something just that little bit different. Yes, I have to produce the standard stuff that will either sell to drivers, teams or magazine editors, but I also have to develop a vision that is different to the guys I work with and different from one meeting to another. This is hard for me because I do most of my work at a single circuit and that circuit also happens to be an oval...

 

There are certain cliches in motor racing photography and the shot you've posted is one of them. IMHO Fred is right with his analysis and I agree with him completely.

Fred; yes, this is full frame with no cropping whatsoever. This battle went on for a few laps, with the lads running two wide near enough throughout but this was the closest they got.

 

It isn't in Autosport I'm afraid - they used two of my shots in this week's issue but one was a single car pan shot of Colin WHite's car and the other was a shot of Gavin Seager and Shane Brereton tripping over each other.

 

This however, is probably my favourite shot of the meeting.

A pan shot of the close battle between Rob Butterfield (#6) and Phil

White (#63) on the Rockingham pit straight. Comments and critiques

welcome as always.

Not bad for a first try but it does look very static as there is no motion blur on the wheels or in the background. What this means is that your shutter speed is far too high, but with point and shoot or integrated digicams lowering the shutter speed to the level suggested by a previous poster poses its own problems. Because the minimum aperture is usually limited to f11, using anything below 1/250 (and perhaps even faster shutter speeds depending on the light conditions) will lead to serious overexposure of the image. Unfortunately it isn't condusive to good pan shots... Generally I find (with a DSLR) that 1/200 or 1/250 will give me good blur - I get the effect more through body rotation than slowing the shutter speed right down. Hope this helps! ;)

Just returned from SCSA (stock car and pick-up) spring training at

Rockingham; had the opportunity to try a few new things and this

shot was the result of going where I hadn't gone before. Opinions

and critique would be gratefully recieved.

I totally agree with Fred - the points he raises are valid ones. IMHO this shot doesn't work well as it looks very static but it isn't anything that practice in technique and some thought about visualisation can't solve. One point I'd like to add is that while single car shots are satisfying to get right, they don't often convey the "happening" of a race and can often be quite boring. I know from experience that magazine editors more often than not look for shots of groups of cars as these offer far more visual impact than a shot of a single car. I've attached a shot I am hoping you might find useful.

 

 

These pretty bike-engined sports racers were a feature at

Snetterton's 750 Motor Club meeting over the Easter Bank Holiday; I

was experimenting with a non-typical vantage point for this

particular circuit (outside of Coram) and would appreciate knowing

if this shot cuts it.

I think this farm cat really didn't want its picture taken, and it

certainly didn't take a shine to me either... I did manage to get

this one frame before it ran away to hide; I like it, but I would

appreciate an opinion on this regarding lighting, composition etc.

Or otherwise...

 

"This is very undignified, I wish he'd put me down..."

 

The shot made me laugh though I do find the colours a little bit flat and I would rather see the focus point on the cat's eyes as opposed to the person's hands. Nice try though! ;-)

The Cockshoot Cup is a renowned series here in the UK for MG Midget

cars; when the series visited Rockingham, I had a lot of fun

shooting the racing and this is one of my favourite images from that

meeting. I did experiment a little here, shooting this photo with a

shutter speed a stop slower than I normally would to see what the

result would be like. I would appreciate reading your thoughts on

this photo.

This isn't bad - particularly if you are relatively inexperienced - though there is a fair bit that you could work on in order to improve your shots. The light you were shooting in looks pretty terrible and there's nothing much you can do about that, but there are a few other things that you can do something about.

 

While I do like the angled composition, I would much rather see a little more space in the upper left part of the frame so that considerably more, if not, the whole of car behind is included in the shot - it would put the battle betweent the two cars more into context and also show something of the circuit. As this picture stands, it could have been taken anywhere...

 

Also, focusing and sharpness are a little off; I know the 300D has some limitations, but you could either manually pre-focus on the corner apex and wait for the car or shoot this in sports mode so that you get full use of AI Servo focusing. Also, make sure that you are shooting at a shutter speed of at least 1/400 of a second to reduce any effects of camera shake and subject motion in order to improve the sharpness; while not a hard and fast rule, it is a good baseline from which to work.

 

In terms of selecting where to focus, always put the focus point on the driver's head of an open cockpit car or on the windscreen sticker / sun visor of a saloon car etc.

 

Hope this is useful to you! :-)

A portrait of a friend's British Shorthair - Persian cross. Exposed

for background, flash bounced to avoid shadows and blown highlights.

I found it nice being able to photograph a cat that cooperated for

the camera - would appreciate knowing whether this shot works well.

I like the angle, framing and the colours, but the focusing technique could be better. Ideally, you should be aiming to focus on the driver's head - in this instance, the point of focus is on the upper plane of the rear wing, which is why most of the car is slightly "out" and not as sharp as it should be. The blur is ok - IMHO that is down to a matter of taste. Not a bad try.

Yeah, I think it works very well - it gives the impression of a cat grooming itself at 200 mph which is somewhat amusing! :-) Worth it for the humour factor alone.

 

I use this technique when shooting mechanics working on a race car e.g pit stops in order to get the motion blur with say, a 1 second exposure and then freeze the last with 2nd curtain synch to finish off the image. Nice thing to do every now and again as it gives the impression of them being very busy! ;-)

I'm probably not the right person to critique a dog photograph, but my main issue with this particular image is that it is very overexposed and therefore detracts from the subject.

 

What you must remember is that the camera will meter for light-to-mid-grey tones when setting the exposure parameters for the point of focus, and if the main subject is dark, then on any of the automatic exposure modes, the image will be too light as the camera overcompensates for the darker tones. The best way around that is to use manual exposure settings if at all possible, or meter off a mid-toned subject e.g. the leaves first before recomposing the image.

 

It looks like you've used flash here too, which hasn't helped overly much either as it adds to the blown out feel of the image. As you don't state what camera you are using, it is difficult to add any specific comments regarding this.

 

HTH :-)

Rob, the revised crop looks much better. :-)

 

I can see what you were trying to achieve with the idea of spectator with the umbrella though - where you could have gotten that to work is if you were shooting the car head on instead if a vantage point were available for you to do that. ;-)

 

I have added a link to a shot that I took during the Gate-a-Mation Citroen 2CV 24 hour race at Snetterton that might be of interest to you:

 

http://v8.macmillan.co.uk/s_images/wittyfiles/pics/web_galleries/2004_snet_2cv/images/IMG_5061.jpg

I know what you mean about the tighter crop, Rob, and it is a valid point, but I've noticed that rally photographers tend to sompose more loosely than race photographers in order to put the car into context - which is what I did try and do. Perhaps it is down to personal taste... Regarding the angle of view, with most of that area being a live stage, there wasn't that much of a choice of safe places to shoot this corner from. Thanks for the useful comments though - something to bear in mind for next time.

I like this - very atmospheric, and you can see that the people don't want to be out in that rain. Perhaps a slightly tighter crop at the bottom of the frame would help the image along a little as the immediate forground is empty and therefore perhaps a little redundant. Even so, good work.