Some Portland ALMS

[Willi Lohmann]

Hi all. I'm new here, relearning my photography, and wanting to get to the point where I can produce sellable photos. Maybe even pay for all this equipment. Here are a few shots I got at the Portland ALMS. This was mostly an exercise in learning what a big lens can do (rented a 500mm). Any thoughts on what works, what doesn't, what might help, etc. would be much appreciated. ps. I have no post processing skills yet.

Thanks - Willi

[John Thawley]

Will... appears you may have an overall color issue... not sure if the "cloudy" in your EXIF is a White Balance selection in your D70... but these all appear to be yellow-ish.

I looked specifically at the shot of the pack coming down the front straight. First, I wouldn't use the patterned metering. And, I think shooting at f/5.6 or even f/4.5 would have lessened the depth of field and taken the emphasis OFF the camera man above the cars. I would also recommend lifting the lens up... get the cars lower in the frame.

That said, though... it is a decent looking shot.

The others really don't capture any excitement for me. The Ferrari shot is soft, unexciting... odd crop too.

I would suggest that a 500mm isn't always about the "reach"... lenses should be used to compose. I'm guessing even your front stretch shots are cropped too... I don't know where you could shoot from to frame that tight.

You need to work with your camera settings... get the white balance correct. Maybe leave it at automatic and correct slight shifts in Photoshop. I also would suggest thinking about shot selections and the appropriate lense. Composition is a very important part of motorsports shooting (any photography for that matter) and lens selection can really play a big part in changing the point of view.

Extreme cropping is not a good idea. It may work to produce shots for the web... but it's not going to fly in printing... especially commerical printing.

Selling prints? Paying for equipment? Hmmmm... I'd rethink that. Prints are not a huge profit center... even high-end sales are marginal at best. Corporate work, team clients and editorial is where you need to be. Not to be discouraging.... but these have a long way to go.

Feel free to take a look at my stuff from Portland in the Gallery (http://community.automotivephoto.net/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=519)

Or take a look at Jimmy Sykes' SpeedArena gallery (http://www.speedarena.com/gallery/gallery2.php?mode=album&album=Sportscar/ALMS/2006/07%20Portland/#).

[Willi Lohmann]

Thanks John. Yep. I figure I have a long way to go on the learning end (both on the images and the business side). The white balance was set on cloudy and these images are from the jpegs. I have the raw images and need to look at what I can do with them. A photographer once told me once that he uses cloudy for his outdoor shots and post processes. Maybe a bad idea? I was behind the fences in the stands and everything is cropped. Need to get inside which should lower me and let me choose different lenses.

I'm poking around in the galleries. There's some really nice stuff. It would be nice to be able to make some of those.