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Some shots I took from this weekends grand prix. First time shooting through fences, hence learnt alot about manual focusing and timing...C+C welcome...75-300mm USM used for track shots, 18-55mm IS for last shot.

BMW Sauber F1.09 Front wing detail

Renault R29, Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR4

Sebastien Buemi (SUI), Scuderia Toro Rosso Ferrari STR4

Albert Park Lake @ 6pm

Was the lake at Albert Park drunk at 6pm?

And I would seriously tone down your watermarks in these images. It's one thing, and an important thing, to protect your IP in the images.

But not to the extent that we cannot see enough of the images to effectively view and critique them.

The images look great - brilliant, in fact, considering you didn't have a press pass and were shooting through the fences.

I agree with Gary that the watermarks really take away from the ability to truly appreciate and critique the images.

Fantastic shots, and certainly the best of the GP I have seen so far, but I have to agree with the others here in saying that it really does take away from the shots, to a point where it's all im looking at, aside from that though excellent job.

I'm sure it's not easy shooting a venue like this,


Tim.

Great Shots Ivision, but support the others about the watermark.
Ist shot is a great capture, the pointy end of fast telling us where to go!!!
2nd shot is stunning--motion in progress!
3rd shot is awsome--totally wild Red Bull shot -- wish I took that!
4th shot is surreal contrast to the noise, the fumes, & the aggression of the F1 circus.
Keep this up and you will be giving up your day job.

Love the Torro Rosso shot, very nice

Also like the Albert Park Lake shot, but is that a lens flare above the buildings?

Love the pics, #2 is my favourite, really shows off the lines of the car and freezes the motion without freezing the tires.

Some nice shots there. That fence is a real bitch isnt it. I can just pick it up in a couple of the shots, and not sure in the other due to the watermark. How many did you shoot? I shot a few hundred a couple of years ago and reckon I got about five keepers.

Ant.

Thanks for the feedback guys greatly appreciated. I thought the watermark might have been a bit overkill, but had images lifted from forums before, so might've got a little protective, however will endeavour to adjust in the future. Took a little while to find the sweet spot, especially with the sudden change of light throughout the afternoon, and was estatic when I got it right particularly with the close-ups which were taken just before 6pm Friday...Ant will admit to taking alot of photos about 700 for the weekend but have around 100 keepers...once I nailed that Red Bull image I tried to get each driver possible...I know what corner I will be at next year! Here are three more from Saturday...not as clear but different and the best I could achieve given location/limitations..Will fix watermarks as of next post - thanks for the tip!

Williams Toyota

Slow shutter attempt of Toyota TF109

Renault R29 Rear wing/diffuser detail

LOVE!!

ivision wrote:

yes the watermarks are really bad!

ivision wrote: I thought the watermark might have been a bit overkill, but had images lifted from forums before, so might've got a little protective,

Part of the key here lies in the resolution of what you're posting. Reduce the resolution - significantly - but keep the same image size. As well as a discreet watermark, place something in the EXIF as well.

People will lift your images regardless, if that's their intent. Understand that we do not have locks on our doors to keep honest people out, and the dishonest ones will get what they want, regardless of what you desire.

gstark wrote:Part of the key here lies in the resolution of what you're posting. Reduce the resolution - significantly - but keep the same image size. As well as a discreet watermark, place something in the EXIF as well.

Do you really mean "resolution" here? The resolution (dots per inch) is completely meaning less for displaying images and essentially meaningless under other conditions. It is merely a guide for some (dumb) software to determine how to print. Most decent software ignores it completely.

If you have an image that is 800x532 pixels (as these are) they have 800x532 pixels (425600 total pixels) regardless if the resolution is 72 or 300 dpi. There is the exact same amount of information in the image file and someone stealing the image could do exactly the same things with the image.

Do you mean "quality" as in the amount of JPEG compression? Reducing the quality, increases the compression and reduces the overall file size while maintaining the pixel count. Of course, each pixel won't be as good as a higher quality and it means that someone is less likely to be able to interpolate the image to produce a larger one. The down side is that the loss in quality may be noticeable in the displayed image.

ATJ wrote:

gstark wrote:Part of the key here lies in the resolution of what you're posting. Reduce the resolution - significantly - but keep the same image size. As well as a discreet watermark, place something in the EXIF as well.

Do you really mean "resolution" here? The resolution (dots per inch) is completely meaning less for displaying images and essentially meaningless under other conditions. It is merely a guide for some (dumb) software to determine how to print.

Yes, exactly.

By lowering the resolution, you achieve a number of goals. It reduces the filesize of the image file, something which, for web display purposes, is good. For web display, 72 dpi is just fine.

And as you correctly point out, it affects the manner by which printing of the image is performed. To the point that it's very difficult - almost impossible - to pull a high quality image as a print from an image that's been displayed in low resolution. Basically, reduce the resolution of the image, and the best you can print is the equivalent of a 35mm contact print. That seems, to me, to be a fairly effective way to protect your IP in the image, without resorting to obliterating the image with watermarks.

If you want to go the watermark route, perhaps one in each of the corners will work. That should be enough to provide protection.

And if you see your image posted elsewhere, then a polite email to the owner of the site pointing out the situation, and asking for the situation to be corrected, should be sufficient to fix the problem.

Increasing the compression also helps; both measures should be taken, IMHO.

Gary, you completely missed my point. Resolution means nothing. It is a number stuffed into the file and is completely ignored by any browser.

Let me demonstrate. Here is the exact same photograph with resolutions of 72, 300 and 1 dpi. The files are the same size*. The have the exact same number of pixels. You could print the photos to exactly the same size with the same detail.







Resolution means nothing

* The 1 dpi file is 4 bytes smaller than the 300 dpi file because the resolution is stored as a decimal - 300x300 takes 4 bytes more than 1x1.

So to clear up...rather than reduce resolution...say in PS when I save the image I just adjust the scale of the image quality from very high to low/medium, right?

ivision wrote:So to clear up...rather than reduce resolution...say in PS when I save the image I just adjust the scale of the image quality from very high to low/medium, right?

Yes. Adjust it so that the image still looks reasonable when displayed, but if you tried to print it large or interpolate, you'd see the poor quality. I assume PS should give you a preview of how it will look.

Last group of images with single watermark, located in bottom right hand corner...better? All your comments have been much appreciated, thanks.

Kimi Raikkonen (FIN), Scuderia Ferrari


Attempt of BMW Sauber F1 shooting at 1/25...travelling at around 290kph...didn't really work...but posted for somethin different.


Seb Vettel (GER), Red Bull Renault - after tangling with Kubica and the wall.