grumman-cats photo album

grumman-cats · 01-06-2008, 03:33 PM

here's one of a club member doin his thing.

grumman-cats · 02-08-2008, 11:32 PM

I took the boy to see the monster truck nationals last weekend and they turned out all the lights when they brought out megasaurus to eat the car and my canon still took some excellent shots of it without the flash and without a trypod. I'm likin more and more.

grumman-cats · 02-08-2008, 11:37 PM

sorry about the size of that first one. I need to remember to use the same settings when I reduce. Anyway that was tailgator, the winning truck. Just so happens that I'm a big suzuki fan.

Wildcat · 02-09-2008, 06:03 AM

Awesome!!

Wayne Little · 02-09-2008, 07:08 AM

Very nice!

grumman-cats · 02-21-2008, 11:45 PM

just playing with photoshop tryin to get better at this. This is just a couple of pics of some helo's

grumman-cats · 02-21-2008, 11:53 PM

here's a couple more of the big trucks

evangilder · 02-22-2008, 08:20 AM

Photoshop rocks.

The helos are nice. I do notice a little chromatic aberration in the second shot though. That's where the highlight is kind of purple instead of white. I have had that before with the D-50 and my Nikkor 70-300. I haven't determined if it was the camera body or the lens. I may experiment with that over the weekend.

ccheese · 02-22-2008, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by evangilder

I do notice a little chromatic aberration in the second shot though.

"chromatic aberration"...... Now there's a phrase, dear hearts, that will
warm you on a cold winter's eve !

Charles

grumman-cats · 02-24-2008, 08:50 AM

Problems.

As you can see from the photo below, the dog is moving at a high rate of speed and I cannot get a clear photo. The wife does what they call flyball and I was trying to photograph her team and the lighting in the building was so poor that I could only get to 100 on the shutter speed. I couldn't use a flash since that would distract the dogs. So is there a different lense out there that would allow for poor lighting conditions or is this just a problem that I will have to deal with.

evangilder · 02-24-2008, 11:10 AM

Looks like your autofocus also focused on the pylon that the dog was jumpong over. Are you using a tripod? What is the F-stop rating for your lens? If you are using a lens with an F-stop range like 4-5.6, that's part of the problem. That range of F-stop is great for outdoor and airshow shoots, but it doesn't allow enough light into the camera body for indoor shots. You may look into a lens that goes lower, like f2.8. Just bear in mind that f2.8 lenses are bigger, heavier and more expensive. But you can always look into renting one.

grumman-cats · 02-24-2008, 12:21 PM

Eric, thanks for the info.
My smallest lense get down to a 3.5 but that still didn't get enough light into the photo. as far as me focusing on the jump, I did that on purpose becouse my lense focusing isn't fast enough. I'm not sure of the servo rating or speed of it. I'm sure they make faster ones out there but when I bought it I didnt' think I would need it to be so quick. you know that old saying, Hind sight is 20 20. I still would like a wide angle lense so maybe I'll have to put a little thought into the purchase of that one.

evangilder · 02-24-2008, 02:25 PM

One thing you want to make sure of is the autofocus. Most SLRs have the option of AF-S or AF-C, where AF-S is auto-focus, static. Once you press the shutter it maintains the focus until you shoot. Great for things that don't move, like flowers or buildings, landscapes, etc. But that doesn't work for airplanes, dogs, children, etc. AF-C is auto-focus, continuous. That is the setting you definitely want to use. It keeps the servo tracking the subject as long as the shutter is depressed half-way.

My D80 has a setting called AF-A, which is auto-focus, automatic, that switches modes on the fly. If I could completely disable that function and banish it forever from my camera and from future cameras, I would. AF-A only causes the camera to hesitate or go out of focus as you have the sweet shot lined up. After a day of frustration fighting that stupid AF-A, I came home and figured out how to put it to AF-C. If it hadn't been settable, it would have gone back to the store. (Can you get the feeling that I hate AF-A?!)

You might try playing around with camera and shutter/f-stop/ISO settings and see if you can clear it up without spending any money too.

HoHun · 02-24-2008, 03:00 PM

Hi Grumman-cats,

>So is there a different lense out there that would allow for poor lighting conditions or is this just a problem that I will have to deal with.

Hm, I'd say without panning, the dog is going to end up blurred with any lens.

I think pre-focusing on the pylons is fine as you're trying to capture the dog "in flight". However, you should try to follow the dog with the lens smoothly before and during shooting.

Even with 1/100 s, the head and body of the dog are probably going to be sharp if you pan correctly (be prepared to shoot five pictures for every sharp one

, the legs are going to be blurred dynamically, and the background and the pylons are going to be blurred evenly.

If everything turns out just right, this can yield very dramatic shots

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

grumman-cats · 02-25-2008, 11:43 PM

Just thought I'd post a couple more pics. I really liked the thounderbolt shot with the blue sky and I thought I got a really good angle on the bt-13.