"Mark C." <krucam.CYA (AT) earthlink (DOT) REMOVETHIS.net> wrote

80-200 AF-S 2.8
Most of the shots i took after the sun was down and the tracks lights became
effective were taken
at 250 2.8 1000 ISO OH..............and with the 800 SB flash attached.

Night races may be great for the fans but they are a real challenge for the
photog

I prefer pretty daylight. ;-)

"Mark C." <krucam.CYA (AT) earthlink (DOT) REMOVETHIS.net> wrote

Forgive my intrusion, but are you talking a 2.8 constant aperture? I can't
imagine why you'd struggle with a fast lens like that honestly, as those
constant aperture lenses are typically pretty good in low light situations,
and give you a wide open usable range when in normal to high EV situations..

What are your struggles and are you shooting film or DSLR?

I have and use the Nikon version of that 70-200/2.8 (Version II) and also
their 80-400 VR variable aperture lens at races (day and night), and have
been quite pleased with the results from both, on film (N80) and digital
(D100). Matter of fact, the only lens in my bag that is somewhat of a
disappointment has been my 24-120 variable aperture (non VR). Kinda soft
when you want tack sharp car images, again, IMO. But it does do great
candids and portrait type shots where a little softness is actually welcome
at times.

"SimRacer" <nospam@simracer68 (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote



I'm shooting film, using 800 speed film and the lens is a constant 2.8. I
have a Canon EOS-3 and have played with the metering averagin but can't
recall which shots give me the better/worse results.

Both of the last two years at RIR have been using the same
setup...lens/camera/film. The only difference being a turn 1 low vice a
center-stretch high this year:
http://krucam.tripod.com/rirmay03.htm
http://krucam.tripod.com/rirmay04.htm

Trust me, there were a lot of lousy shots that didn't get posted. Sometimes
the autofocus catches another spectator which is my fault for not
reacquiring but sometimes isn't an option when somethin is happening!

If you look at the night shots for both years, there appears to be either
too much graininess (800 spd film?), not enough depth of field (obvious
given the aperture req's) or just a general lack of detail.

Don't know...might consider getting a 135mm/2.0 off Ebay this year but I'm
not sure if $750 is worth a half-stop(?) advantage.

Mark C.

"Mark C." <krucam.CYA (AT) earthlink (DOT) REMOVETHIS.net> wrote


I think you tagged your own problem. While you aren't happy with your
efforts, they are not that bad. Your lack of detail, grain issues, and areas
of washout, IMO, are almost all attributable to using ISO 800 film. When I
did shoot ISO 800 film (back in the day LOL!) My choice was the Fuji brand.
It holds its grain down and detail up as high as ANY 800 speed film I ever
used and is certainly tighter grained than the 800 ISO setting on my D100,
bet on it. Honestly, their (Fuji) 1600 ISO film, to me, IMHO, appeared as
good a film as the competitor's 800 ISO...

The only way to rule out the film speed as the prime culprit is to do some
test shooting with a prime lens and your tele, on the same role of film, in
identical conditions. As you have likely surmised, a prime lens will almost
always yeild the better results, but such a test will begin to show you the
quality differences between your tele/zoom and primes of similar
price/quality.

You are also spot on about anytime you have to open a lens all the way up to
get decent exposure times, say, for hand holding shots in less than perfect
light, affecting your DOF (usually creates a lack thereof). But also, most
teles also have what I like to call sweet spots, in both the zoom range and
aperture range, and "typically" the sweet spot is in the middle of all
ranges. Take your 70-200/2.8 I'd go so far as to guess that the sharpest,
most well exposed frames it captures are in the f9-f11-f16 aperture range,
and somewhere in the 100-105mm zoom range. Anything outside those ranges
will likely be less than "perfect" and is the compromise we have to live
with to get multiple focal lengths in one lens, even with constant aperture
lenses such as your nice 2.8 (Yes, a Nikonian called a Canon piece NICE!)
LOL!

Anyway, the above are simply my opinions, I am not a professional photog,
YMMV.

http://www.rappy.net/Richmond5.jpg





"r a p p y" <rapp (AT) not (DOT) com> wrote

"r a p p y" <rapp (AT) not (DOT) com> wrote

Just a reminder to everyone not running their monitor and video card in a
really high resolution, resizing these large images to full size and
scrolling around them is the only way to see the best detail, especially if
you get "jaggies" when viewing at a corrected window size in IE.

Another good image Rappy.