Menlo Park Grand Prix Crit Race 3.8.09

jpimages

Shot a race here in Northern California this past weekend. Would like some C & C from the sport shooters here. Going to be shooting a Stage Race this weekend! Thanks for looking!


1. a700/ 70mm @ 3.2/ISO 200


2. a900 / 16mm Fish Eye @ 3.2/ ISO 200


3. a700 / 200mm @ 3.2 / ISO 200

ian408

If this was recently, the cloudy days probably didn't help much with the 'pop'.

I like the second. A nice wide view. I'd like to see it processed a bit to even up the exposure a bit.

mercphoto

I'm not digging the first shot too much, but I like the second a lot! And the third is pretty good too, but maybe a bit tight on the crop. the background in that first shot just isn't pleasing, there has to be a better place to take a picture than there.

ian408 wrote:

If this was recently, the cloudy days probably didn't help much with the 'pop'.

Yeah, but clouds can sure help an awful lot with the bad shadows you will get on people when in direct sunlight. I'd much rather shoot something like this on a cloudy day and spend some time bringing some "pop" into the image later, than shoot on a bright sunny day and have shadowed eyes and chests. Even a simple "auto levels" in Photoshop can do a lot in terms of pop to cloudy images, and that you can batch over a large number of images easily. I used to do it in my early days of karting and motocross photography. Or just bump the in-camera contrast and saturation if shooting JPG.

I shot a charity race once in Austin. The hardest part I had, by far, was finding a way for the riders to find their photograph quickly so that they could place an order.

ian408

mercphoto wrote:

Yeah, but clouds can sure help an awful lot with the bad shadows ...

I don't disagree the light is more even--and that is almost always better than direct sun.

Tee Why

Good action shots. I like the composition of the second one the most. I find it most dynamic of the three.

jpimages

mercphoto wrote:

I'm not digging the first shot too much, but I like the second a lot! And the third is pretty good too, but maybe a bit tight on the crop. the background in that first shot just isn't pleasing, there has to be a better place to take a picture than there.


Yeah, but clouds can sure help an awful lot with the bad shadows you will get on people when in direct sunlight. I'd much rather shoot something like this on a cloudy day and spend some time bringing some "pop" into the image later, than shoot on a bright sunny day and have shadowed eyes and chests. Even a simple "auto levels" in Photoshop can do a lot in terms of pop to cloudy images, and that you can batch over a large number of images easily. I used to do it in my early days of karting and motocross photography. Or just bump the in-camera contrast and saturation if shooting JPG.

I shot a charity race once in Austin. The hardest part I had, by far, was finding a way for the riders to find their photograph quickly so that they could place an order.

The first shot is in an Industrial area of Menlo Park. It's a Crit Race, so I don't really get to choose where they race! Most CRIT races are shot in an Industrial Park area of the city, where they can have at least 4 corners to turn, hence the "busy" background.

Thanks for the feedback regrading the crop. There was no crop in this picture actually, but will use your feedback regarding compostion.

jpimages

ian408 wrote:

If this was recently, the cloudy days probably didn't help much with the 'pop'.

I like the second. A nice wide view. I'd like to see it processed a bit to even up the exposure a bit.

Hmmm, on my monitor I'm getting a lot of "pop!"