26th Jul 2005
A Few Blurs
I did mention in Rev ‘Em Up and Shoot ‘Em that I was getting back to the track this year to do some race photography. Sophia and I made it to the ALMS race at Sears Point, and I was able to shake off a little rust. Some photos have been tossed up on Flickr. They’re just screen grabs of what I see in PhotoShop / Bridge. There’s a lot more to go through, but that will have to get in line behind my Portland, NYC, and Cross-Country trips …
I’m so out of practice! I might just hit the Portland ALMS race to sharpen up some.
Not only was I a little rusty at the race, but I wasn’t set up as well as I would have liked. There’s some things that I have managed to figure out about zoom blurs:
- Filters – I was using an 80-400 zoom, but without a filter. I should use a polarizing filter, in part to cut an f-stop off of the exposure. That’ll give me a little more leeway with shutter speed (I want slower)
- Monopod – get back to using that … a twist zoom isn’t as nice as a push-pull. Without a monopod, the twist gives a sideways motion to the photo (in addition to the zoom blur) that I don’t always want.
- Pan and Zoom – There are steady zoom blurs, and then there are the ones where I am zooming and panning at the same time. It makes a difference as to whether I should zoom in, or out, over the course of the exposure. I gotta think about what result I want
There’s a whole lot more I can say about zoom blurs. I will note that my blurs are all in-camera – I don’t use that aspect of PhotoShop. It’s a fun challenge to balance all of the variables (ISO speed, lens, amount of zoom, shutter speed, panning, timing) with moving cars. Not to mention the high contrast environment of asphalt versus bright sky. I’m sure it plays havoc with the exposure meter (”what the heck is he doing!?”).
