SargentRay Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
Hello jcnemy,
Since you asked for C&C i'll chime in, please take this with a grain of salt it is just an opinion and i am in no way an expert in motor sports, but i do have a grasp on sports shooting in general;
1st i really like #1 shot, it is a great close up, technically challenging no doubt with this bright background and dark foreground. Great work here.
As for the rest of the set i can see what you tried to capture and for the most part it is well done as well. But i have to say there is quite a bit of noise pretty much all around and some blur more obvious of course on the panning shots. Have to say it is a difficult technique to master and i know of no one who can get tack sharp pictures on every attempt. Each time for any sports it is trial and error process, sometimes 1/80th sec will work sometimes it won't. Depending on focal length, usually with longer lens you don't have to slow shutter speed so much and on the contrary you do have to slow the shutter quite a bit with a wider angle lens. But with any lens following the subject's motion is key. You have to match the speed perfectly in order to have the subject as close to speed zero in the viewfinder as possible. Usually the photographer will pretty much get it right after a few passages of the subject but humans are not tripods so we often move up or down although we got the motion pretty near perfect. Also sometimes it is the subject itself that will move up or down due to road imperfection and this is almost impossible to match. (this is apparent in your #7 shot where up and down camera movement is visible). So it always boils down to matching the speed perfectly and smoothly thus many tries are needed for only a few "perfect" shots, this is true for any sports shooter no matter the skill level. So i have to say your shots are very valid in that respect considering the level of difficulty with this technique.
I have to admit i was surprised to read the Nikkor 70-300 was sharper than the Sigma 300 f2.8, i'll take your word for it since i never worked with either of them.
But it makes no difference for the last part of my criticism: What was most striking to me is just how little post processing your set seems to have had. I mean not only would have they benefited from some PP work i sincerely think they deserve it. Most of the little "defects" i see are rather easily fixable in post processing some others are lens quality and camera steadiness related perhaps but this will improve with practice and maybe getting better glass (or renting better lens) along the way. We do with what we have right ?
For example on your panning shots since you stopped down aperture to compensate for slower shutter speeds your sensor dust spots become more obvious and as a photographer it's the 1st thing we take care of when processing our work. Then comes noise, saturation and when possible we try to improve light with more or less advanced techniques.
But before thinking about post processing we have to decide before hand if we are going to shoot in RAW or JPG format. Both have their advantages and since i don't know which format you opted for nor what is your interest in doing post processing work at all i'll have to say generally speaking folks who don't wish to spend hours in front of the computer to improve their images are better off shooting JPG. It is more demanding when you're actually taking the pictures (you're in fact doing the same thing you would do in PP but using the onboard camera menus) with their limitations. On the down side once shot there's not much you can fix afterward in post processing, but with decent settings it is possible to do great work, some pros use JPG because they simply have no time for PP at all. Once shot their pictures are sent to their paper or magazine or published on the web quickly in order to have the scoop on an important event.
This being said if you decide to shoot in RAW format and thus get the many benefits of this format you do have to commit to some level of learning how to get the maximum of those files. One great benefit is namely the super versatility of this format where you can easily save an 1 or 2 f stop underexposed picture.
So no matter what is your choice unless you tell me you'll never spend more than 2 minutes on your pictures and will always send them to someone right after your shootings, there are always things to improve in a shot.
Most sports shooters working in RAW (like myself for the most part) will rely on a few (or many) PP techniques they will use over and over again simply because when you work outside there is no such thing as perfect light or at least not often. There's nothing wrong with using a little technique to enhance details or sharpness, to improve color saturation or to better existing light and contrast. i personally use 6 or 7 different techniques, but rarely all at once. But i know i can use them when it is appropriate to do so. You just have to be careful not to fall in the trap of over processing your images, it's easy to go overboard and make things worse.
Now all this being said it is up to you from this point on to choose just how far you want to go, you know, decide how much time you're willing to spend to learn how to improve your pictures by watching tutorials, asking questions and that sort of thing. I can tell you since i went digital almost 5 years ago i haven't watched much tv since, my TV now is my computer screen and not a day goes by where i don't learn something new.
I took the liberty of isolating one of you shots and applied a few simple techniques. I worked with your low res file but you will do much better with the original file with a little time and practice. The shot i chose had the most potential in my view as for the pure sports shooting aspect of things. If you do not wish people to modify your pictures please just let me know i'll remove them right away.
Here although some movement blur remains on the car it is pretty good. As for composing the shot, well with the original camera format there will always be useless space in this case the sky which brings no useful information to the shot. So i cropped it and created a little more space in front of the car in order to have it less centered and better convey the feeling of movement. (Photoshop clone tool once the canevas has been enlarged by 60 pixels to the left). Then i got rid of some noise with Image noise (available photoshop plug in). Then i re sharpened the car with a high pass filter set at a radius of 1px. I went on by adding a motion blur filter in order to enhance the feeling of speed. Easily done when there is already good motion blur on the picture (not as good to fake movement on a still shot altogether). Lastly i used a curves adjustment layer to put the car more in evidence (make it pop from the background) then i added a bit of a lighting effect (again a photoshop built in filter easily applied. And lastly i warmed the whole scene with a color balance layer. These last 2 steps helped render the light more complex and less flat. Total time 20 minutes, took me longer because i had to think about what i was going to do, but all this is possible in about 10 minutes once familiar with the process.
1-) Modified
2-) Before and after
Add another 15 minutes and you can take the photo one step further and create Hot Wheels on the car simulating white hot over heating rotors. This might be too much for some but it is just to show you the possibilities.
3-) Hot Wheels
When i started digital 5 years ago i remember at first i was really annoyed at shots i knew where just impossible to make without the aid of photoshop or similar programs. They were over retouched i thought at the time, and some actually were, but over time i realized good processing is what ultimately set good photographers apart from the rest. There's a fine line between honest un modified journalistic coverage pictures and equally honest retouched images to enhance the inherent message. If done with moderation i think there's comfortable room to improve a shot without being called a cheater or something.
In this case it is your shot, your picture and your vision of the scene. All photoshop did was to enhance everything just a little to make the message that much more obvious. In this case it was speed, and the modified version is screaming it instead of whispering it in my honest opinion.
Edited on Aug 15, 2014 at 11:46 AM · View previous versions
|