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just recenlty finished uploading most of my files taken at last weekends calder park drift comp.(http://www.geocities.com/copyrighthaittran/)
I would really like some thoughts on some of my photos. i get pretty much dead responses on dpreview hopfully you guys can help out.

all of them were shot on the d70 with the 80-200 2.8af 2-touch,
kit lenses and the 24-120vr unit. i had the sb800 out but i stopped using it when i realised that i caused 3 cars to spin out
decided to shoot extremely slow 1/13 panning shots.

Looking good mate

I like the MX shots, one thing I would do is try & get the hole bike in the frame Wheels & all, that to me is about the only thing wrong with the shots.
Exposure is on the money.

The car images are great, some good action shots captured there mate.

Well done

Cheers
Ray

Hmmm.

Now i know what 'Drifting' is. (coating bitumen with good quality rubber)

Ok. Now to the critique.

There are some excellent shots in there. You have taken a difficult subject and captured some great images. Well done for that.

Now put on your thick skin mode

Please avoid 'angle' shots. Every now and then they might look fine, but don't overdo it. It is the kind of image a new art student would take in an effort to look 'funky'. Have a look at what the professionals show in car magazines and learn from their photos. Sometimes the cover of the mag will show an angled view, but this is not the norm and should really be avoided unless it looks 'cool' and on subject. That's not to detract from your images, which look fine, but there is a plethora of angled images.

When you display your images to the world (or even just us ) then do you really want to show us the blurry ones?

Oh, and one other thing i noticed is that virtually all your photos are taken from the same angle. I assume this is because of where you can access the track limits your angle of view, but if you can move around a bit more and take photos from many angles then it will add a lot more interest to the viewer.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Anyhow, considering the difficulty you would have faced to take these photos i reckon you have done a suberb job. My hat goes off to you.

Keep up the good work and please show us some more in the future.

Choice...

Killakoala wrote:Hmmm.

Now i know what 'Drifting' is. (coating bitumen with good quality rubber)

Ok. Now to the critique.

There are some excellent shots in there. You have taken a difficult subject and captured some great images. Well done for that.

Now put on your thick skin mode

Please avoid 'angle' shots. Every now and then they might look fine, but don't overdo it. It is the kind of image a new art student would take in an effort to look 'funky'. Have a look at what the professionals show in car magazines and learn from their photos. Sometimes the cover of the mag will show an angled view, but this is not the norm and should really be avoided unless it looks 'cool' and on subject. That's not to detract from your images, which look fine, but there is a plethora of angled images.

When you display your images to the world (or even just us ) then do you really want to show us the blurry ones?

Oh, and one other thing i noticed is that virtually all your photos are taken from the same angle. I assume this is because of where you can access the track limits your angle of view, but if you can move around a bit more and take photos from many angles then it will add a lot more interest to the viewer.

I hope this is helpful to you.

Anyhow, considering the difficulty you would have faced to take these photos i reckon you have done a suberb job. My hat goes off to you.

Keep up the good work and please show us some more in the future.

Choice...

Thanks Killakoala, I appreciate all your comments. The reasons for the slightly angled look is because it looks cool!, but really it sometimes really hard to fill the entire frame with the car. when i first did panning shots i founded that i always ended up with too much free space on the top and bottom frame. hence by titling the camera slighty i can increase the width coverage but keep the areas on top and bottom smaller.This resulting in a larger pic of the car and less free space.others may argue it may be the wrong approch, but thats how i feel about it.

With the repeatness of the same angeled photos. calder park in my opinion find more differcult to shoot in now. as the overpass bridge which provided a excellent view from right about the track has been closed off. I guess to prevent ppl from dropping stuff onto the track. other areas were completely soaked from the rain leaving unsightly ponds of mud and frog eggs .
There was another excellent spot to shoot, it was facing the oncomin cars but the outter side of the track. however some of the drivers thought it would be "fun" to drift straight into the drit, i got covered completly in dirt and dust, including the d70 and lenses. this happened about 3 time before giving up the spot, to clean myself and equipment.
I left the some of the blurry photos from the night racing to some how differcult it was to shoot in almost complete darkness with the headlights of the cars to mess around with the metering as well. to some point it dropped to about 1/10 at 5.6 at 200mm, then i thought i should stop for the night. although i had a sb800 with me it would be more wise to not use the cause any serious accidents. The blurry photos were also inspired from some of the rally shots i saw the other day where the photog use shutter speed of 1/20 to create a feel of speed in the photo.

Thanksyou for your comments Killakoala:)

Raydar wrote:Looking good mate

I like the MX shots, one thing I would do is try & get the hole bike in the frame Wheels & all, that to me is about the only thing wrong with the shots.
Exposure is on the money.

The car images are great, some good action shots captured there mate.

Well done

Cheers
Ray

Thanks Ray, didn't have much chance to propery photograph these bikes.
I got caught out most times with ppl blocking my view too much smoke, and i kept my distance as there were 3 bikers moving back and forth on the track.

The reasons for the slightly angled look is because it looks cool

The beauty of art is that different people interpret things differently. This is one part of art that we have just discovered

I've been to Calder Park a couple of times so i understand how difficult it is to get really close to the action (with the exception of the drag strip), including the rain

Still, i thought your pics were pretty good for the situations you faced.

Well done anyhow

Plus you educated me as to what 'drifting' is. I always thought it was something done in combi-vans by hairy hippies.

Killakoala wrote:

Plus you educated me as to what 'drifting' is. I always thought it was something done in combi-vans by hairy hippies.

Steve,

That's freebasing, isn''t it ?

redline wrote:The reasons for the slightly angled look is because it looks cool!, but really it sometimes really hard to fill the entire frame with the car.

A few points here, if I may. Yes it can look cool, but probably only in moderation. You need to be wary of the "I have a hammer, so every problem is a nail" approach.

Longer lenses can, of course, help to fill the frame. Perhaps overfilling the frame might be legitimate too?

And where you feel you have adequately filled the frame wth the car, but have too much above or below the vehicle, then crop to suit. There's nothing wrong with that approach.

Finally, changing your angle of view can also change the perspective. Getting up high can be an issue, but sometimes it's easy to get down low.

I left the some of the blurry photos from the night racing to some how differcult it was to shoot in almost complete darkness with the headlights of the cars to mess around with the metering as well. to some point it dropped to about 1/10 at 5.6 at 200mm, then i thought i should stop for the night. although i had a sb800 with me it would be more wise to not use the cause any serious accidents. The blurry photos were also inspired from some of the rally shots i saw the other day where the photog use shutter speed of 1/20 to create a feel of speed in the photo.

Night racing ...

A couple of points here too.

Select a point where you think you'll be shooting at, and prefocus for that location; turn AF off. Compose, frame, and anticipate the cars coming through that point. If you've prefocussed correctly, the imges will be sharp.

Metering ... forget about it.

Almost. You shooting conditions, in terms of lighting of the subject matter will essentially be static. Once you determine the appropriate settings, there should be little need to change them.

Switch to manual exposure, bump your ISO, determine the EV, and set your camera with a good compromise of shutter and aperture. With prefocus plus correct exposure, you'll be surprised at the images you're getting.

Avoid flash, partly for the reasons you mentioned, but more because it's a waste - typical safe distances will be greater than the flash's output can reasonably support.

gstark wrote:

redline wrote:The reasons for the slightly angled look is because it looks cool!, but really it sometimes really hard to fill the entire frame with the car.

A few points here, if I may. Yes it can look cool, but probably only in moderation. You need to be wary of the "I have a hammer, so every problem is a nail" approach.

Longer lenses can, of course, help to fill the frame. Perhaps overfilling the frame might be legitimate too?

And where you feel you have adequately filled the frame wth the car, but have too much above or below the vehicle, then crop to suit. There's nothing wrong with that approach.

Finally, changing your angle of view can also change the perspective. Getting up high can be an issue, but sometimes it's easy to get down low.

I left the some of the blurry photos from the night racing to some how differcult it was to shoot in almost complete darkness with the headlights of the cars to mess around with the metering as well. to some point it dropped to about 1/10 at 5.6 at 200mm, then i thought i should stop for the night. although i had a sb800 with me it would be more wise to not use the cause any serious accidents. The blurry photos were also inspired from some of the rally shots i saw the other day where the photog use shutter speed of 1/20 to create a feel of speed in the photo.

Night racing ...

A couple of points here too.

Select a point where you think you'll be shooting at, and prefocus for that location; turn AF off. Compose, frame, and anticipate the cars coming through that point. If you've prefocussed correctly, the imges will be sharp.

Metering ... forget about it.

Almost. You shooting conditions, in terms of lighting of the subject matter will essentially be static. Once you determine the appropriate settings, there should be little need to change them.

Switch to manual exposure, bump your ISO, determine the EV, and set your camera with a good compromise of shutter and aperture. With prefocus plus correct exposure, you'll be surprised at the images you're getting.

Avoid flash, partly for the reasons you mentioned, but more because it's a waste - typical safe distances will be greater than the flash's output can reasonably support.

thanks for your post gstark,
yes i agree i got a little carried away with the sliglty tilted look.
i should have shot more from the bridge but i didn't like the fact most drivers didn't drift into the area it covered so i decided to stay below.
The reason for not using either maunal focusing and exposure was that not every driver drifting into the exact same spot hence i left af on, and the time was close to 8pm with the sunlight quickly drawing in complete darkness. i would spot meter part of the car; exposure lock it and photo the car, by the time the next car came the value had changed until it was constant- then i switched to manual exp. to be honest i really don't like bumping the iso over 400.
thanks for the pointers though gstark