Karts

[Bookie]

First time shooting these. It was pretty dusty, please excuse the dust marks :blush2:.
Thanks for looking.

1.

Go-Karts by Bookie1605, on Flickr

2.

Go-Karts by Bookie1605, on Flickr

3.

Go-Karts by Bookie1605, on Flickr

4.

Go-Karts by Bookie1605, on Flickr

5.

Go-Karts by Bookie1605, on Flickr

[MotorToad]

I've seen dirt karts but I've never been to a dirt track race for them, as much as I dislike oval racing dirt track gets a pass. It's really awesome!

As for the shots, the only thing I see is a problem that I have and really hope to one day be able to correct: The dark stuff is often too dark and I can't make it not too dark without blowing out the highlights. To me the SwissAero kart looks like it's being driven by Cthulhu or something.

When I've shot dirt bikes the shots I like best are the ones with a trail of dust or mud behind them, I think it gives the right amount of action.

Oh, and I love the shot with the kid on his lap. I'm not sure that's the safest thing that's ever been done, but getting kids involved makes everything better!

[Old Timer]

Nice pan job, love the camera on the helmet.

[Bookie]

Thanks for the replies. That little girl was going a bizillion in her eyes but actually you could have been running next to her.

I noticed the dark areas also. The tracks photog had a flash, but i couldn't tell if he was using it or not. It was super bright out and his back was to me the whole day.

Thanks again for looking.

[f86sabjf]

late in here . I really like the shots and you've given me an idea. I had forgotten about our track down the road.

[SmartWombat]

I'm so used to seeing karts here in the UK on indoor track layouts, or on an outdoor tarmac track, that this looks really different !

Judging by the pipe in shot #1 there are no noise restrictions there ?
For sheer fun I don't think you can beat that #4 shot, it's not meant to be a two seater !


Now to the shadow detail, shoot RAW not JPG and edit your pictures afterwards.
Use the histogram and make sure you expose to the right (bright end) of the histogram.

It's a little easier with my OM-D E-M5 it has a shadow/highlight warning mode which is a great way to turn up the exposure compensating until it just doesn't over expose. The red warning in the over exposed areas is easy to see.

You can let small spots like the sunlight reflections go over exposed as long as the true white areas like the kart and the white bands on the cones aren't blown out by over exposure.

I use Lightroom for the first pass at editing images, and it's amazing what you can do without complicated layering and adjustment techniques in photoshop.

I know PhotoJohn gets fantastic results from his photoshop skills, and I want to learn
more, but I also want to get the most I can quickly - which is why I use Lightroom.
I have not upgraded my PhotoShop CS2 (ancient by today's standards) as I can only use about 10% of what photoshop can do and CS5 would be a waste.

[MotorToad]

Thanks, SW. I really should get with shooting RAW but I'm already useless for going through my pictures and filtering out the bad ones (or at least the totally embarrassing ones, I may not be the best to judge which are "bad"). It's certainly not due to room on my cf card, I haven't seen the camera show less than "999" pictures left but once when I shot motorcycles for two days. 8 G has room for lots of 8 MP. :-D

[SmartWombat]

Lightroom really helped me ditch the trash quickly.
1st pass in grid mode (press G) to delete the ones where I have half a car.
- not a problem with the 1DmkII, but shutter delay on the OM-D is AGES
2nd pass in loupe mode (press E) to flag the best ones
- SOOC keepers 5
- need cropping 4
- need editing 3
- family & friends 2
3rd pass doing the edits
- CA removal
- cropping
- exposure adjustment
- gradient adjustments
- local adjustments
- flag to be exported
4th pass exporting
- only flagged photos

[Bookie]

Thanks Paul and f86sabjf. These were all shot RAW and edited with LR3. I need to get a better computer I'm using a 7y/o laptop. The screen messes me up, I try to be in the same position every time, but sometimes the exposure and shadows are off.

Some guys/girls run mufflers and some don't. These karts a lot of fun, I raced for a few years. Now I'm trying to get son interested them.