3 Cheers for 3 Champs! (big post)

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Congratulations to Ben Spies, Josh Hayes and Roger Lee Hayden for well deserved championships and a great racing season!!

Ben Spies: 2007 AMA Superbike Champion!

























Josh Hayes: 2007 AMA Formula Extreme Champion!


















Roger Lee Hayden: 2007 AMA Supersport Champion!












Thanx again everyone!

Chris :photo

Prezwoodz

Your photo's are amazing...the quality and crispness is just astounding!

kdog

Not bad. Keep practicing, you'll get it!

Haha, I make a leetle joke. These are as good as it gets.

Cheers,
-joel

BeamCatcher

Hiya Chris!
Firstly: Fab shots in this post of yours! Like Kdog says... kind a hard to fail you!

I live in Dublin and plan a business and leisure trip to Chicago mid November, and will then pick up some new equipment. The way the currency is right now more or less ANY decent lens is half the price of what it is over here! Go figure!!!

Anyhow... for my use any bigger than 70-200 f/2.8L IS is not really a requirement at this time. So I will stick to that and possibly add a body. I'm tripping between EOS-1D Mark III (DS is over my budget), or D5, but really fancy the Mark III due to all the goodies and speed. My only concern are all the articles etc, on the focus, and my understanding is that Canon even stopped the launch in Australia until it's rectefied! Here lies the question... would you share a bit of your set up in terms of equipment... other than black bodies and white lenses?

Cheers!
Ivar :-)

nipprdog

Prezwoodz wrote:

Your photo's are amazing...the quality and crispness is just astounding!

Agreed.

I watched that race on Speed.

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Prezwoodz and Nipprdog,
Thank you! Those are mighty nice compliments!

Kdog...that was good, thanks

BeamCatcher,
The bodies I use are a 1D MarkII and a 1DS MarkII. The 1DS is not my first choice for sports (I use it for my architectural work) but it makes a great second camera and will allow for full frame wide angle lenses.

Lenses...I use the Canon 400 2.8 about 95% of the time and the Canon 70-200 2.8 for most other coverage. The 400 is beautiful but honestly, if you're willing to carry that kind of weight all day; you may want to consider the 600mm. I rented one and was deeply disapointed in the quality of sharpness :cry. I may have had a weak lens and you also have to account for the fact that it may have been abused by many others (plus the fact that routine shipping could cause some issues) so the jury is still out with that conclusion.

Now, I met up with a fellow snapper who had just bought the 1DS MarkIII and he asked me to put one of my cards in and have a go with it. I only fired off two shots and the first one was a little off but the second one (shown below) was spot on! The image is as sharp at 100% as it appears here in low res form. I was panning both shots so I would say that the first one was off because of me and not the camera. However, Barry (actual owner) said he was very disappointed with the majority of the shots from the weekend as almost all of them were out of focus or soft.

Soooo, my feelings and what I will personally be doing this winter is looking for a very good condition used Mark IIN which I have also tried and enjoyed very much. The reason being is that they will only come down in price as more people get hooked into "gotta have the latest and greatest" mode and those Mark IIN's are excellent cameras that have already been proven. In fact I would consider another Mark II as well if the condition was tops!

Another sports photog I know bought the Mark III, played with the settings and had Canon walk him through some other settings which he claims made a big difference and now he loves it!

To me this means that if some peple love it and some don't, the camera is not reliable enough for me and I'll go with what I have for now.

The speed of 10 frames/second at 10 MP is really perfect for sports but I if I can't count on it... then I can't afford it!

One more thing: Fred Miranda and Digital Grin both have a great used equipment section and if I were in your position I would start there and negotiate the shipping costs as opposed to eating the inflated costs of new gear in Ireland.

Best,
Chris.


Canon ID Mark III example:

BeamCatcher

Hi Chris!
Apologises for late reply mate!

Thank you for, what to me was a very ok explenation and thoughts! MUCH appricated! The tip with the 1DS MarkII might be a decent one, and if possible to get a brand new for reduced price... VERY cool idea! Do you have any experience with regards to dust on 1DS MarkII. As far as I understand the newer models have this fancy way getting rid of dust directly from sensor.... while MarkII still would be PS etc...

Cheers!
Ivar :-)

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BeamCatcher wrote:

Apologises for late reply mate!
Thank you for, what to me was a very ok explenation and thoughts! MUCH appricated! The tip with the 1DS MarkII might be a decent one, and if possible to get a brand new for reduced price... VERY cool idea! Do you have any experience with regards to dust on 1DS MarkII. As far as I understand the newer models have this fancy way getting rid of dust directly from sensor.... while MarkII still would be PS etc...
Cheers!
Ivar :-)

Hi Ivar,
Dust is dust and I found no difference on any of the Canons I've tried. Keep lens changing to a minimum (especially outside), clean and take care of your sensor and remove any spots left over using Photoshop or your editing software of choice!
The newer cameras that have ultra-sonic vibration may be a pretty good idea but I've not tried them or heard any comments about them. I'm sure something to that effect will probably be an industry standard in the future.
Thanks for replying!
If you have any other questions, just send me an email as I don't want to keep pushing my own post to the top

Cheers,
Chris.