This weekend I got the chance to shoot my first rallycross event. Despite literal inches of rain, it was some of the most fun I’ve had with a camera.
Nikon Z6, Z 24-70 2.8 S
70mm f7.1 1/1000s ISO 1000
Not to be that guy, but I don’t really find the picture that amazing. 5/10. It’s a rally car. Probably har to compose for and get in focus as it’s moving fast so props for that.
Possible improvements:
- The picture is kind of dark and lackluster. Lifting the shadows and increasing the contrast a bit might help.
- There is no real sense of speed. Slowing down the shutter speed a fraction and tracking the car would give some background motion blur.
- The background doesn’t tell us much. A bit tighter crop might make us see more detail in the car instead.
Obviously all of this is my subjective opinion. Take it for what it is. A strangers opinion on the internet. Thank you for sharing!
The day was dark and flat, this is lightened up quite a bit
I have plenty of panning shots (many of this car) but tbh I get bored of panning shots really fast. They all start to look the same and while they’re a nice look, I find they detract from the environment around the car.
I don’t see the need for a tighter crop. Tighter cropping loses out on most of the background, which I find is an important part of the photo. The car is already detailed enough in the full res photo and just the car makes for very boring pictures.
All valid points! As I said, very subjective. Good on you for doing your thing!
While just using an exposure/brightness slider to lighten up the shot probably won’t work, if you’ve access to a “Levels” tool or a set of sliders labelled “Shadows/Midtones/Highlights” or similar, I suspect you might be surprised how much green you can get from the background without blowing out the whites on the car. This is best done if you’ve a RAW format version to play with, but even experimenting on a downloaded version of your photo this approach, to me, improves it.
There again, I know sometimes a little voice in the back of my head says “Leave it dark, I like it like that” and perhaps you are hearing the same with this shot.
Reminds me immediately of Wreckfest
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Maybe its the slight oversaturation and that angle but this looked like a video game on my phone screen.
Probably a little over saturation, but the reflections being really still probably do a lot of it.
I think focus has a bunch to do with it too, but I don’t know exactly what makes a video game look like a video game.
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I got a pretty cheap camera cover bag off Amazon that worked out great, but all my equipment is weather sealed too, so even if it got wet there wasn’t a huge risk of damage.
I saw multiple solutions from trash bags to nothing at all while I was out shooting.
If you’re into interesting things to photograph and like cars, see if you’re near any of the 24 hours of lemons events. I’ve been to a number of… more traditional races and while it’s neat to see ISMA, Indy, formula 1, etc the visual impact of the cars you’ll see at a lemons race can make for some great photos.
It’s on the list of events to shoot. It’ll be around April for the local one.
