Race cars for critique

mercphoto

I posted a pic from the race in the Whipping Post and someone requested I posted a few more at one time here in Sports. So here goes.

This is the Corvette C6-R, and is the only shot in this sequence that I cropped.


I like close crops like this myself, but not sure if they "work" or not. This is not cropped, it was photographed this way.


Again, photographed tight on purpose, not sure how well it works.


I think this Audi came out nice. It won its class.


Mario Dominguez should have won the race but he made one mistake that put him down to third, just after his teammate Paul Tracy.


Thanks for any feedback.

xtnomad

Great Shots
Wish I could have been there.

Jeffro

xtnomad wrote:

Wish I could have been there.

Me too! Thanks for not making us wait I like how some tire rotation is showing in some of them, helping show the motion.

Nice!

ChrisJ

I like the full car shots better than the tighter crops. #5 is my favorite of the whole bunch, then #4, then #1... it loses some punch because the yellow car matches the background a bit too much. The wheel blur in #2 is though.

ian408

In general, I like the crops you've chosen for these over that posted in
the Whipping Post. I like them because they have more car and less background.

Ian

galaxycowpoke

Nice exposures.

I like three and five.

Two is good, but I don't like the orange cones in the background

I think the yellow GEHL banner in the background is a major part of the image, especially since it stretches the entire length; so I would prefer it be either straight across or at an extreme angle.

Effectively close cropping a fast action sports capture is very difficult. Some can pull it off. But it's much easier to crop post-capture.

I think that one tight capture (three) you have works well.

I'd also like to see shots from different angles.

mercphoto

Saxon wrote:

I think the yellow GEHL banner in the background is a major part of the image, especially since it stretches the entire length; so I would prefer it be either straight across or at an extreme angle.

Effectively close cropping a fast action sports capture is very difficult. Some can pull it off. But it's much easier to crop post-capture.

I think that one tight capture (three) you have works well.

I'd also like to see shots from different angles.

Thanks for the input. Good idea to crop after, rather than try to crop in-camera. And I would have loved to have been able to shoot different angles, but as a mere spectator that was really the only angle I had that I could keep any catch-fencing out of my way.

Micah Weber

i would use a slower shutter to catch some more wheel movement and speed

Bfox

Great stuff, Bill.
I think the first shot of the C6-R is nearly perfect.
You've got everything you want in there. The crop is great because it allows the subject (the car) to breath a bit with that gap around the edge. Super sharp too. Great colors. What more could you want? The next two I'm not as crazy about, at least compositionally. I find the Paul Tracy shot awkward, the car doesn't really fit comfortably in that cropping. It's not really a vertical subject after all. And the Sebastien Bourdais shot bothers me a bit too. The front wing causes a lot of visual tension the way it just almost touches the bottom edge of the shot. I know how it is to shoot cars...you're often left with something that just won't do at you want after it's shot.
The Audi is as good as the Corvette shot. Fantastic.
You were shooting "over the fence" yes?
Got more shots from the day?
-Brad

mercphoto

Bfox wrote:

You were shooting "over the fence" yes?
Got more shots from the day?

Thanks for the comments. And no, was shooting through the fence. There are two rows of fences. One of them I could walk right up to, so you put the lens against that fence. Then there is a space where media folk and safety workers are. That inner fence has the occasional hole for the media photographers and the corner workers. So you position yourself to shoot through that fence. Hence, my angles were very limited. There was really only one spot worth shooting from.