Homebush V8's

[barry]

Spent some of yesterday at Homebush in the heat shooting cars through wire fences. Felt like I was in jail there was that must fencing.

Anyway what I learnt tho is that to have any chance of a good shot you needed a long, opened wide lense with fast shutter speeds, hence little chance for wheel blur.

I also found it easier to shoot manually, as the AF went looking for the fence a quiet a bit.

All these shots were taken with a D700 and 70-200 with 1.7TC.

[surenj]

Anyway what I learnt tho is that to have any chance of a good shot you needed a long, opened wide lense with fast shutter speeds, hence little chance for wheel blur.

This is certainly the one of the reasons I didn't go with my 85mm 5.6 lens!

I think you have done well with the equipment you had! I especially like the #2.

Perhaps you could improve on the black point on these images. They seem a little washed out my work monitor. Can the others comment on this please?

[barry]

Thanks surenj,

The washed out look could be the effects of the fence, as seen in #4. Maybe I need to saturate a bit more.

If it hadn't have been for the fence I would have have come away with a lot more keepers.

[biggerry]

If it hadn't have been for the fence I would have have come away with a lot more keepers.

If there was not fence ya might of come away with a wheel as well! - That famous case where the bloke was killed by the out of conbrol separated wheel which found it's way through one of tyhe few gaps in the fence..

The 2nd image is the best of there series, I think a bit of contrast and saturation would not go astray

[ian.bertram]

Number two is a cracker. It doesn't seem to suffer from any 'fence blur' at all. Did you find a gap?

[barry]

Ian,

All these shots were taken through the fence. I found that the further the car was away from the fence the better the chance of blocking out the fence. In the second shot the fence was about 3-4 metres in front of me and the car was about 80 metres away. In the last shot, the fence was about 3 metres away and the car was about 12-15 metres hence some fence showing.

If there was not fence ya might of come away with a wheel as well!

[gstark]

I found that the further the car was away from the fence the better the chance of blocking out the fence.

That's an expected outcome.

You need to try to move as close to the fence as you can, and at the same time, increase the distance between the fence and your subject. Try to shoot with a faster lens and aperture setting to help reduce your apparent DoF, and then, if you can prefocus on a spot on the track so that you don't encounter any AF issues as you're trying to make an image.

[chrisk]

i feel your pain buddy. still, the mini shot is a great action photo. very nicely done !

[Raskill]

Nice Barry. Did well for shooting through the fence. Sorry we didnt catch up.

Just a tip for anyone, not that you could do it this time, but if you are covering an event and shooting through the fence, spray it with black spray paint. Makes it almost invisibile in your images then. It's an accepted practice. Just make sure you arent standing next to anyone when you do it, spray paint travels on the wind and is a bugger to get off lenses.