Motorcross

Some of todays 20 minute practice. These were shot with the Canon 28-300mm USM IS lens.

JS

And a couple others

No lie. My jaw just hit the keyboard. Great job JS!

I guess they are OK for a first time shooting them. I only had 20 minutes and it was a test for the lens as much as anything. I was curious how it would work and overall it did OK, Even some where the flash failed to fire I was able to save the photos :)

JS

fantastic shots js. colours are striking and the images are crisp. i like it a lot

OK, but I think you need the panning and motion blur like Andy's shots.
http://forums.photographyreview.com/...ad.php?t=18076

Your top two and the last one have what look like jpeg artefacts.
How much are these cropped - given the 300mm I guess not much?

The light looks awful, will there be extra light for the event or is this it?
Andy had a far better lit arena than you've got there !

SW,
Remember
1: I had just 20 minutes (or less) to get these
2: the 28-300 is at f5.6 at best for these shots
3: only a few of the lights are on. In fact in some shots you can see them
4: I was just playing with the lens - it did better than I thought it would.
Tomorrow night I'll be using the 70-200 f2.8, but there won't be any more light. I was just playing with the 28-300 to see what I could get with it, and I wasn't wanting pan or motion blur, if I was I'd have used the 70-200. Not all of Andy's shots have motion either, partly due to the flash. I did get what I wanted though, which actually was surprising considering the light in there.


Tomorrow will be long, and interesting to say the least. I start out at 8am for a 60 mile plus drive to shoot girls gymnastics till around 1 or 2, then go home, dump my photos and head off to downtown to the RCA Dome for the motocross.... this will give my shoulder a workout too! It's pretty soar after one night of basketball.

JS

It looked like the light was bad, how is the audience going to see if they don't brighten it up !
What flash are you using, the 580EX?

SW,
Yes, the light was bad, the 580EX is not functioning right, turns out it's a problem with he body, not the flash as it works on the old 1D but not the MKII N. Now to send it in :( along with the flash. The sensors will not light up, even in pitch black, but it works on the old 1D and DRebel so it's definately a problem with the body.

I am posting some photos later from the races last night. They did have all the lights on last night, Unlike the media day were they had 1/4 of the lights on. I didn't even use the flash last night since it won't work right.

JS

"Not all of Andy's shots have motion either, partly due to the flash. I did get what I wanted though, which actually was surprising considering the light in there."

I'm not sure what you're saying here, but I didn't use a flash on my FMX shots - didn't even put one in the bag.

The first 4 have so many artifacts that they look like video captures. It looks like you might have to have really tweaked these to try and rescue them.

#5 is a nice shot.

As I said in the other thread - this just isn't your normal good stuff, John - I was a little disappointed when I opened the threads.

Hmmm, I think I just realized what you guys are thinking is artifacts. In fact AC these weren't cleaned up at all, straight from the camera except a couple that I cropped and one I did a quick auto levels on since the flash didn't fire. But I think what you are seeing is an oddity of shrinking the file from 8.2mp into a file 640x whatever it is causing the effect of artifacts. There is something with the program I used that makes them not look right, but in full screen they are fine, nothing but what you'd expect to find at 1600 or 800 iso that the shots were taken at.

JS