Cal Club Autocross Forums

but if you look at the front bumper of Ken's car, it looks like a bad paper scan.

Have you looked at Ken's bumper! I don't take the time to photoshop it clean every time! ... just kidding. I was just playing around using Mike's posted file. Strange ... over the years, I've realized that I tend to like my "prints" on the light side.

so, that whole thing about heat waves distorting the pictures. there's something to that. shots at the same spot (i'll dub it as the "most hated 2 cones on the right side", for obvious reasons) seemed to have much less problem being in focus in the morning when it was overcast, vs. after the sun came out and warmed up.

also noticed that white cars, are bad for the camera's auto focus.

and that i can't stop laughing every time Sebastian comes across my camera's viewfinder.



smoke em if you got em?



anyways, i didn't take the time to go through them all yet.. like i said, not very happy with the results, but they are what they are.. take a look.. pretty sure i caught everyone who was there on track on Sunday. they *should* be in chronological order.

http://www.ikonique.com/Pro_eltoro/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

^ that's where it'll be once it's all uploaded. current guestimate = 25 more minutes.

edit: 2 more minutes, and i take no responsibility for motion sickness while browsing the index sheets. tilting the camera seemed like a good way to add a bit more punch to the pictures, but when you see them ALL at odd angles, it's kinda disconcerting.

edit 2: obviously you guys are better at spotting yourself than i am, so if you see a picture you like, let me know the file name, and i'll see if i can make the picture look better at a higher rez (100% sure i can make it look "better", 90% sure i won't be happy with the results myself though )

Holy crap Jeff, your photos are amazing!!!!! I don't mean to slight our other photographers, but these pics have a pretty epic quality to them and are instantly my favorites.

Now, in this pic, Gary was clearly misbehaving, as this sort of behavior is only appropriate in rear engined cars:


I never thought I would see the Viper lift a tire, that's some pretty crazy stuff...

hmmm time to turn up the shocks a bit up front

Jeff, I'll have a list of images for you soon - these are awesome!

I had to combine a few, this is my favorite sequence:

I don't mean to slight our other photographers, but these pics have a pretty epic quality to them and are instantly my favorites.

I agree ... Really long lenses and low angles do make things Epic !

I started to shoot wider because I had people telling me they wanted a sense of Place.

^^^^ uh, that can't be good.

[quote="Mako Koiwai"]Here is what Karen did with one of her ProSolo photos:



I love that check

Mako Koiwai wrote:

I don't mean to slight our other photographers, but these pics have a pretty epic quality to them and are instantly my favorites.

I agree ... Really long lenses and low angles do make things Epic !

I started to shoot wider because I had people telling me they wanted a sense of Place.

Don't get me wrong Mako, your shots are really good too (I know I've paid for them at least a couple times!), and I think you do an especially good job of capturing the atmosphere of the moment in people's expressions. I also enjoyed Palero's captioned series of photos from the Tour.

But for me, what I'm always hoping to find in pics, is information and feedback that tells me how well the car is working with the setup I've given it. Jeff's pics caught the car in highly loaded moments, and had the right exposure/brightness levels to provide good information about the tires and their slip angles. While I wouldn't make setup changes based solely on an exterior pic, they do help validate what the setup engineer is observing from tire wear/temps and from behind the wheel.

In any case, seems like we've had more photogs out at our events this year than ever before, which I think is great both for the quantity of pictures, but also to see the variety of styles.

Keep up the good work everyone!

But for me, what I'm always hoping to find in pics, is information and feedback that tells me how well the car is working with the setup I've given it. Jeff's pics caught the car in highly loaded moments

That was EXACTLY what I like to do ... until I started to get other types of request. Like using slower shutter speeds that showed more blur = speed.

I'm hoping to eventually use the new HD video capability of the latest generation of still cameras to shoot short cornering sequences, at 30 frames per second ... with individual frames sharp enough to produce decent stills.

So many great shots!

I find adding the human element really adds to the shots.

Jeff ... which Canon, what focusing mode and all focus sensors active?

canon 40d with only the center censor... kinda got used to it with birding since the targets are usually so small, that if i have all 9 firing, i end up misfocusing. i shoot on AI Servo so that it tracks the object as i pan with it.

great for shots like this where the target is coming right at you:



can't believe how much heat wave distortion there was which i didn't notice through the viewfinder.

It's compounded because you have to be pretty far back to shoot a car compared to a bird, ie. LOTS of concrete/asphalt between you and the subject matter, even if you can't actually see heat waves.

I wonder if you would have had more focus success with all of the focus points working. The Center Point is ALWAYS the most sensitive one ... and then it hands off to it's neighbors using AF Servo. But I sometimes switch between All Active to Center or Bottom, depending on framing ... and then I forget which one I picked when I switch to a different framing.

One of the things I've found with my longest lens (a Canon 100-400L) is that sharpness varies quite a bit with focus distance when shooting at full telephoto. At 400mm a subject that is far away will almost always be soft, even if the focus is correct. I have more success with sharpness when I let the subject get closer. That's why a number of my photos are framed real tight. I always use the center AF sensor, too.

Oh and Jeff, thanks for the pictures of me during my one run in the Challenge. ;) I think this this one is my favorite from an action standpoint - looks like I'm real close to that outside cone accelerating hard on three wheels.



These two are pretty dramatic too.
http://www.ikonique.com/Pro_eltoro/slides/IMG_1340.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.ikonique.com/Pro_eltoro/slides/IMG_1341.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Unless these web-sized images are highly compressed I don't see a focus issue, what I see is softness from the lens.

I sent my Canon 100/400 back after one event ... just seemed a bit soft at 400 mm, but I realized later I had taken some with an extender, some with a old thick pola filter and it was a hot day at El Toro. I found out later that one must use a special, EXPENSIVE super thin pola, when used in front of the lens. The extender of course magnified any problems.

here's a few bigger pictures after i dropped the exposure down to what it should have been, and then did some minor USM. I'm resisting the idea that the lens is soft, because it's produced quite a few sharp pictures while birding, and the first thing i did when buying the lens was to do a test picture on a sheet of text, tripod mounted with remote trigger, it came out crispy sharp..

anyways, some pics:







and.. this one was shot at the long end of the 600mm reach, at those 2 hated cones. early in the day when heat wasn't as much of a problem.

A high-quality prime-focus lens like Jeff's that isn't going to be soft. In fact at f/4, it's airy disk is going to be smaller than a pixel on the camera's sensor - try taking some star pictures, preferably straight up so minimize the amount of air you're shooting through. Excepting focus, camera shake, and internal reflection issues, I'd attribute any softness in autocross photos almost entirely to atmospheric distortion. And actually, a faster shutter speed can help as the atmospheric distortion is a moving "subject" and it's movement will soften the image even more than if you "lock" the distortion in time.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutori ... graphy.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And the diffraction-limited Aperture for several Canon bodies:

Model - DLA
1000D - f/9.3
450D - f/8.4
400D - f/9.3
350D - f/10.4
300D - f/11.8
50D - f/7.6
40D - f/9.3
30D - f/10.3
20D - f/10.3
10D - f/11.8
5DII - f/10.3
5D - f/13.2
1DIII - f/11.4
1DIIN - f/12.7
1DII - f/12.7
1DsIII - f/10.3
1DsII - f/11.6

Right, atmospheric, which when it's warm is roiling around and highly compressed with a 600. That's why Jeff's shots when it got warmer get sharper as the subject gets closer to his position. The Canon 600/4 is well known for being very sharp ... as it better be for it's price! $7,600 new ... the newer model with Image Stabilization ... from a major discount seller like B&H PhotoVideo, THE mail order house used by Pros.

Read the User Reviews! Everyone raves about this lens:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1 ... ml#reviews

haha.. i've done quite a few great deal trades, and worked my trades up to the 600 f/4, which is actually a 18 year old lens.. so definitely not $7600..

i won't tell ya how much i paid for it, but it's low enough that i can sell it 5 years from now, and probably still make a profit.. :gpower:

very interesting read on the diffraction photography though.. makes a lotta sense, just not something i had come up against until now..

Here is the wide shot and then an enlarged extraction:



See the heat waves distorting the background:

On the subject of heat-induced blur, one thing I enjoyed about this one, you can see the blurred area to the side of the car from the hot exhaust-

LOT's of good Digital Basics here: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm

THANKS WILL !

Jeff Shyu wrote:very interesting read on the diffraction photography though.. makes a lotta sense, just not something i had come up against until now..

I used to do a fair amount of astrophotography which really tends to bring out the technical optical details. Stars are perfect lens testers because they are point sources of light that have a virtually zero angular size against a perfectly black background.

Will Kalman wrote:

Jeff Shyu wrote:very interesting read on the diffraction photography though.. makes a lotta sense, just not something i had come up against until now..

I used to do a fair amount of astrophotography which really tends to bring out the technical optical details. Stars are perfect lens testers because they are point sources of light that have a virtually zero angular size against a perfectly black background.

those rigs are really expensive.. >_<

i wanted to build one of those barn-door things powered by a small motor, but kinda got sidetracked..