[ratpack] Re: Enduro
- From: "Larry Knight" <Larry.Knight@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 15:41:19 -0700
I know you have all had this thought about the slow Ferrari, but I guess I will
just say it. I know why it was slower than a Honda Civic. Honda Civic engine
rebuild $2500. Ferrari Testarosa engine rebuild $30,000 (guess).
That might help explain it???
Lar
From: ratpack-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ratpack-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of humminboid@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2009 2:41 PM
To: ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ratpack] Re: Enduro
Looking at some of my pixes, it apears something is hanging underneath the
Ferrarri...looks to be about the size and location of a brake line. He may have
been forced out of the race because of a mechanical of some sort.
----- Original Message -----
From: humminboid@xxxxxxxxxxx
To: "ratpack" <ratpack@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, November 1, 2009 9:12:13 AM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain
Subject: [ratpack] Enduro
Fellow 'packers:
What a day it was! Beautiful weather! An overcast to lower the contrast
would have been nice, though. I did mangage to catch wheel lift on a most
unlikely (at least, I thought) car. The little black one, with a star on its
side.
Some miscellaneous ramblings re: exposure, shutter speed, camera support and
sharpness.
My hand-held stuff at 1/200 and 1/250 was sharper than my monopod stuff at like
shutter speeds. Hmmmmm..... Learning curve? Probably. My little $7 Chicom bal
head has been summarily demoted to holding my flash units on the light stand.
I may take another look at the $maller Manfrotto 'head.
We can talk about glass, focus, and other factors all we want, but, even with
the sharpest glass, suficient shutter speed , exact focus, proper stance and
follow through... BUT, and this is a biggie, we cannot control what the car is
doing! Not in a million years, ever, as much as we might wish it were
otherwise. I did manage to slightly blur a car at 1/1000 sec yesterday. I know:
ol' fuzzy-focus is at it again!
I dislike the cars looking as if they were butterflies pinned to a board...
tack sharp from stem to stern, static. Unless they are sitting still, which
they seldom do during a race. The one exception was the Ferrarri that got
frightened off the track by all those rowdy, noisy, cute little Miatas
yesterday.
Tack sharp, with the decals on the rocker panels "as sharp as I would like",
to quote a 'packer who shall remain nameless, is largely a matter of luck!
Sports mode gave mostly very sharp pixes, and the autofocus worked marvelously,
as it should, but the cars were experiencing engine vibration, suspension
jiggle, driver input, road bumpiness (YES, even at Miller!)...dancing around,
Hence, my slightly fuzzy, but not unacceptable, sharpness at 1/1000. (That's my
story, and I'm sticking to it!)
Depending upon the speed of the cars, even when they were really racing, 1/500,
and 1/600 gave just a smidge of wheel movement. 1/400 was close, and 1/320 -
1/250 were good, providing some unsharpness in the background, too.
I had a really hard time getting wheel movement on the Ferrarri, even at
1/160 sec. He shoulda been driving a UTA bus!
Anyhoo, the short version is, I seem to have found out that any shutter speed
from 1/80 sec.can provide the desired wheel motion and background separation,
given proper attention to detail, but the pixes get sharper the higher I go,
and 1/200 is mostly good. For air shows, 1/250 will provide some motion in
propellers. You remember, the fan thingies on the pointy ends of ze planes?
But! when the wibbles cancel the wobbles, or we don't sneeze or jab the
shutter release, or caffeine hasn't taken its toll, or the moon is in the
seventh house, or something, sometimes our pixes will be very sharp, but if
they ain't , sometimes we are not totally to blame, ( NOT my fault, man!) but
most our photos will be acceptably sharp, and others excellent.
Now get out there and take some pixes!
C.
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