Reno Air Race Photos VoS 9-17-21

[Desertdawg]

Finally used my D500 with Nikor 200-500 lens yesterday in the Valley of speed.

I just find it challenging to capture prop blur. Out 0f 909 photos 18% survived my deletes.

Have a lot more learning to do.

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Reno Air Race Photos VoS 9-17-21

Finally used my D500 with Nikor 200-500 lens yesterday in the Valley of speed.

I just find it challenging to capture prop blur. Out 0f 909 photos 18% survived my deletes.

Have a lot more learning to do.

Would not agree with the "lot" part of that my friend... you have the touch! Wish we could have made what we talked about privately (let's keep it that way for now) happen!!!!!!

PS by edit: I've never watched from the VOS... maybe next year I can talk you into taking me out there with you?

PPS... who else besides me feels that Doggie needs to shoot from the pylons?

[Desertdawg]

Re: Reno Air Race Photos VoS 9-17-21

I was in the middle of a 10 shot burst when the sun hit Goldfinger, the camera reaction made for a interesting shot.

[ignomini]

Re: Reno Air Race Photos VoS 9-17-21

Dawg,

Unless you're Victor Archer, nobody gets lots of great prop blur pics. If I come away with ten decent shots per hundred, I feel as though I've accomplished something. Pixels are cheap. Keep spraying and results will follow. Practice really does improve your work when it comes to shooting at low shutter speeds hand held.

Also, the higher the pixel density of your camera, the harder it is to get rock solid results. Smaller pixels capture smaller movements. Facts of life.

VoS is a great place to practice swiveling your upper body really fast. Thanks for sharing.

RG

[RAD2LTR]

Re: Reno Air Race Photos VoS 9-17-21

Hans,
Great seeing you up on the hill on Saturday. Your pics are great. Keep it up. Those Goldfinger shots are gold. (Pun intended). Keep working at it. You'll keep improving. An old dog CAN learn new tricks. There are several guys out on the pylons who thought they could never shoot good prop blur, and with a little coaching, they got it. Your shots are a million miles from showing propcycles, I'd say the prop blur is about average to better than average for what everyone else is shooting out there. Are a few pics a little soft? Yep, but that comes with practice. I'm pretty sure I have TONS of soft shots this year, but I'd bet everyone else on the pylons has a pile of soft shots as well.

On Thursday (or was it Friday, I can't remember.) I was having a field day feeding airplanes to pylons. In one of the blown shots I even managed to feed 2 sport planes to the pylon at the same time (Pylon 8 was very hungry that morning.)

You don't have to get every single shot perfect. No one does. If you stand out at the pylons when we are shooting it sounds like mini machine guns going off. Most of those guys are doing a spray and pray technique. I heard a few people say they had taken over 10K images (I shot less than 4K) How many of those 10K+ are good? It doesn't really matter if you shoot some crap, but end up with some real winners in doing so. You don't need 10K images, you need perhaps a few hundred that are good, great, or epic. (A combination of all is what you are shooting for ) I cannot tell you how many established photographers have come to the pylons and said that was the hardest thing to shoot they have ever done. The air races are not an easy subject to shoot.

On that single shot of Goldfinger with the big reflection off the tail, how did you edit that? If you are using lightroom, go back and try moving the highlight slider all the way to the left. The image will darken substantially. Now, find the shadows and white sliders and adjust those to bring your exposure back. Perhaps move the black slider just a touch to the left as well. I think the reflection blowout will diminish, and the sun star will appear. It might intensify the other colors as well.

Will

[RAD2LTR]

Re: Reno Air Race Photos VoS 9-17-21

Dawg,

Unless you're Victor Archer, nobody gets lots of great prop blur pics. If I come away with ten decent shots per hundred, I feel as though I've accomplished something. Pixels are cheap. Keep spraying and results will follow. Practice really does improve your work when it comes to shooting at low shutter speeds hand held.

Also, the higher the pixel density of your camera, the harder it is to get rock solid results. Smaller pixels capture smaller movements. Facts of life.

VoS is a great place to practice swiveling your upper body really fast. Thanks for sharing.

RG

I've got all the prop disks you can handle. I was a little off this year since I haven't shot anything since 2019, but I've got tons of prop disks, prop lightning, and all that comes with shutter speeds of 1/100 and slower.

Will

[Desertdawg]

Re: Reno Air Race Photos VoS 9-17-21

Hans,
Great seeing you up on the hill on Saturday. Your pics are great. Keep it up. Those Goldfinger shots are gold. (Pun intended). Keep working at it. You'll keep improving. An old dog CAN learn new tricks. There are several guys out on the pylons who thought they could never shoot good prop blur, and with a little coaching, they got it. Your shots are a million miles from showing propcycles, I'd say the prop blur is about average to better than average for what everyone else is shooting out there. Are a few pics a little soft? Yep, but that comes with practice. I'm pretty sure I have TONS of soft shots this year, but I'd bet everyone else on the pylons has a pile of soft shots as well.

On Thursday (or was it Friday, I can't remember.) I was having a field day feeding airplanes to pylons. In one of the blown shots I even managed to feed 2 sport planes to the pylon at the same time (Pylon 8 was very hungry that morning.)

You don't have to get every single shot perfect. No one does. If you stand out at the pylons when we are shooting it sounds like mini machine guns going off. Most of those guys are doing a spray and pray technique. I heard a few people say they had taken over 10K images (I shot less than 4K) How many of those 10K+ are good? It doesn't really matter if you shoot some crap, but end up with some real winners in doing so. You don't need 10K images, you need perhaps a few hundred that are good, great, or epic. (A combination of all is what you are shooting for ) I cannot tell you how many established photographers have come to the pylons and said that was the hardest thing to shoot they have ever done. The air races are not an easy subject to shoot.

On that single shot of Goldfinger with the big reflection off the tail, how did you edit that? If you are using lightroom, go back and try moving the highlight slider all the way to the left. The image will darken substantially. Now, find the shadows and white sliders and adjust those to bring your exposure back. Perhaps move the black slider just a touch to the left as well. I think the reflection blowout will diminish, and the sun star will appear. It might intensify the other colors as well.

Will

Will,

It was a pleasure seeing you there, saw the mountain bike and bike camera and son said, that looks like will is here :-)
Who needs power assist to get up there.

The Goldfinger shot I haven't touched, that is the way the camera saw it.

Till we meet again young man.

Hans