Photo critique!

[trackdemon]

Alex said:

360M pan and low-level Diablo are good. Rest average.

Jeez, thanks for your valueable input. Not. Muppet

[trackdemon]

ehasler said:

First comment - where's one of my car?? Second comment - great pics Steve. There's lots of pics, but my initial thoughts are: 1) The 4th one down (360 in motion) is my favourite action pic - in my view passenger, it's got the best combination of blur, positioning and colour. The two Lambos don't really come out as well I think, mainly because black and grey/silver don't have as much impact as the red Ferrari (a problem I've found trying to photograph my car, especially when it's not a particularly bright day) My fave is actually the B&W Murcie, but I rather like the 360 shot too Look closely and you'll clearly see a happy (recognizeable) passenger. 2) The static pics on the runway are good, but I think it may have been interesting to position them differently to use the black tar lines in the runway to lead the viewer's eye into the photo. Also the two cars in the background in the 2nd one down are a bit distracting - nothing a bit of Photoshopping couldn't sort out though I imagine. Agreed, really wish I'd been able to fully direct where cars were etc, but it was kind of a random thing so I pointed and shot. 3) Side on shot of the Diablo is very good, but would have been better with a less washed out sky - maybe look into using a graduated filter or taking two shots, exposing for sky and the car, then merging? There may even be enough info in the picture to tweak it out using Photoshop anyway - may be worth a play? Now we're talking. This is exactly the kind of technique I'd like to discuss with a more experienced photographers, maybe I could use a blue filter or suchlike to try and bring out some clour in the sky which is as you say otherwise featureless. 4) The 360CS shot is good too, but would have been improved slightly in my view by using a slightly smaller apperture to get more of the car in focus, and re-positioning the shot to get rid of the white thing in the background (or just photoshop it out). Possibly moving the yellow badge slightly to the right would have worked well as well. Opinion seems split on this one. I purposely used a wider aperture too blur the background and focus on the badge, with the slightly blurred wing mirror as a detail. I like it! I was basically trying to make the best of a bad situation as the background was incredibly dull so I tried to nullify it and maintain focus on the badge. Here's a similar shot I took of our MCS: http://photos.fotango.com/p/eba00361719f00000049.jpg I just wish I'd spent more time snapping - seeing great photos like yours always makes me want to grab my camera!

Thanks for the kind words Ed! I was hoping to see some snaps from you as I know you're a pretty keen snapper, but I guess you were behind the wheel most of the time - understandable! Sorry for not getting any shot's of your car but as you say, the black doesn't lend itself well to the lense when the background is as featureless as Brunters. I have this picture of your car in mind though:

Somewhere in the city at night, under tungsten lighting on a long exposure. The idea is that at the right angle the lighting will pick out the curves, and the long exposure will create a line of red light as a car drives past - I think you get the idea?

[trackdemon]

simpo two said:

Close-up with Ferrari badge shows nice use of DOF. Similarly the low-down shot shows you're experimenting with camera position, which is good. A wide-angle lens is always usful for extra drama. Promising stuff - you only learn by trying things and seeing what works.

Quite! Thanks

[yellowmr2]

would like to see how he could do better.

I was there on Sunday and the conditions were shit. So I think you have pulled some bloody good shots out the bag there.