Woot! Didn't really expect another ribbon, but I am so happy with it. :)
Thanks for all your comments and votes.
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Nicky Hayden (USA) on his '06 Repsol Honda RC211V during the 2nd practice session on thursday at the Dutch TT MotoGP race. On saturday (raceday) he won the MotoGP race and is now 47 points clear of the next challenger in the championship (Hayden leads it). It is his first race win in 4 years outside of the USA and puts him well on his way to win the 2006 title. For those unfamiliar with MotoGP: It is the F1 of motorcycle racing, Repsol Honda is the official Honda factory team, a bike like this makes about 260bhp out of a 990cc displacement with a top speed of about 220mph.
It was very hard to select a photo for this challenge. I've got numerous photos that show more motion blur than this. But I liked this one for several reasons:
* He won the race
* The diagonal flows of the track, bike and body position
* You can see his face and determination
Many riders ride with smoke screens and I am personally not a fan of that.
So, for this challenge I chose something with less motion blur than I could (I have about 100 pinsharp panned shots with more blur than this), but I chose something that I liked. Methinks that it will be butchered for lack of motion blur and lack of knowledge about the sport, but so be it.
I will add a lot of other photos to my portfolio later.
On Anastasia's advice (she adviced me to shoot in M always) I have shot everything in Manual. Worked out quite well, so I'll do it more often. Thanks Nasti.
Editing:
Nikon Capture (open NEF 3694)
- Color Mode III
- Saturation Enhanced
- Sent to Photoshop as 16 bit tiff
Photoshop CS2
- cropped pretty tight because the Distance was quite far
- Curves
- color balance +yellow +green
- Contrast USM
- Contrast +
- Resample to 640 wide
- USM 100% 0.3px
Date: 22.06.2006 at 13:09:04
Aperture: f 7,1
Shutter speed: 1/250 s
Program: M - Manual
Zoom: 300 mm KB (200,0 mm Real)
Image Quality: RAW
Focus Mode: AF-C
Record Mode: Single shot
Statistics
Place: 3 out of 177 Avg (all users): 6.7919 Avg (commenters): 8.2609 Avg (participants): 6.6081 Avg (non-participants): 6.9024 Views since voting: 8635 Views during voting: 384 Votes: 197 Comments: 59 Favorites: 9 (view)
Challenge or not, that is a great motorsports shot. Anytime you can get them at speed and can see the pilots face and particularly eyes, you have captured a great racing shot.
Congrats dude, I can say the same about this shot as Alex Saberis, think it was better than mine and deserved the ribbon over it, was close though, my friday afternoon score would have beaten you both :)
Great shot! How hard was it to get track side access?
At Assen they have a new kind of stand. It hangs over the kitty litter and doesn't have a fence. As a result you get very close to the action with unobstructed view, but when a rider crashes he slides into the gravel underneath the stand. Real trackside access is near impossible in MotoGP.
The best motorcycle photo in the challenge. The tight crop works well for this shot. The white edge of the track in the top right of the frame is a bot overexposed. This tends to draw the viewers eye away from the subject. Overall a good shot. 8
I like the angle and composition of this one, and you managed to catch the intensity in the eyes. I imagine that's a tought thing to do in this type of photo! Great photo!
Nicky Hayden, winner of the Dutch TT MotoGP
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