Echo63

maybe checking for leaking brake fluid ? does brake fluid fluoresce under UV light ? either that or looking at the brakes using a cheap multi 5mm LED light (which will show up as hell blue under tungsten light, or even flash, the shadows and hotspots on the image look like the flash was above and right of the lens, like a P+S flash but it was shot with a Sony A200) anyway, heres one of mine of Steve, 200m into the first stage and Peter Major, last corner of the last stage

Not my R34 - but it is my pic Targa west trackday, last thursday

stupidest incident i have seen. was cruising back to the office one night (when i worked night shift - Friday night) parked about 3 cars back from the lights at the front of the lights, new commodore on the left, nice torana on the right torana revs engine, does a bit of a burnout (while lights are red) rolls forward a bit, reverses back over white line, lights go green, commodore boots it a little, torana boots it while in reverse, crashes into car behind, commodore turns round at the other side of the intersection, drives back thru the intersection with the blue light on the roof. spoke to the cops a week or so later, he was drunk, and had drugs in the car, they were going to book him as soon as he left the lights, but werent expecting him to leave it in reverse.

using a diffuser outdoors is a good way to flatten your flash batteries, and overheat your flash (they are great indoors though) outside, just point the flash straight at them dialed down 1/3 - 1 stop just to fill the shadows

Lenses i have experience with all used in canon mount on 350d, 40d and 1dmk2n bodys Canon 18-55mm f4-5.6 Cheap "kit lens" it works but it isnt great only fits 1.6crop cameras (20d,30d,40d,50d 300d,350d,400d,450d,1000d) Hard to manually focus canon 75-300mm f4-5.6 (non USM version) a good light lens, with a fairly long zoom range Pros - Cheap Long zoom, pretty good quality for the price Cons - S L O W Autofocus, slow aperture Canon 50mm f1.8 Small light cheap prime Practically disposable for the price Pros - great for low light stuff or those on a budget, very sharp (especially for the price) great as a portrait lens Cons - Very flimsy construction - easy to break, Autofocus accuracy isnt too good in low light, choppy Bokeh, Noisy AF Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6 good sharp wide angle Pros - will fit all canon bodys (including film cameras) focuses fast and accurately Cons - vignettes at the wide end on full frame and 1.3 crop bodys (all 1d and 5d models, and film camera bodys) has a very distinctive look that some may not like Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 good cheap f2.8 "walkaround lens" Pros - well built, fast aperture, 1/3rd the price of the Canon L equivalent Cons - expensive 86mm filter size, heavy, irritating method of switching between manual and auto focus, Sounds like a swarm of bees when autofocusing Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 practically lives on my 1dmk2n Pros - 1/2 the price of the canon L series equivalent, built solidly, focuses fast Cons - isnt the cool white colour of the canon equvalent Canon 300mm f2.8 L IS The lens to own for motorsport Pros - Lightning quick autofocus, very sharp, Image stabilization works very well, can preset a focus distance and return to it quickly by turning a ring, takes a teleconverter very well, hand holdable for short periods of time, Very nice Creamy Bokeh Cons - Very expensive (7-10k), heavy (4kg), can damage lens mounts/mirror boxes if you pick it up by the camera body instead of the lens. Canon 400mm f2.8L IS As above - just longer and heavier dont even think about trying to hand hold this one - 7ish kilos, and 10-15grand need a monopod or tripod, and some experience in using long lenses/heavy lenses, but if you have the technique the image quality is brilliant

Heres a few of mine

well done to steve and rauri here is two of my pics from halfway through the last stage (racecourse 2)

did you want the short or long answer ? Lighting colour is measured in Degrees Kelvin daylight is around 5500-6500 degrees kelvin a normal incandescent globe is around 2800-3300 kelvin and a candle is around 1700k the colour temperature (degrees kelvin) doesnt really tell you how bright the lamp assembly is from memory the bluer lamps (higher K number) are slightly more efficient, but the difference will not be noticable on the road. the bluer lamps also dont seem to throw a beam as far in the wet, and the bluer lamps also change your colour perception i would reccomend something in the 4200-6000k range - it will be bluer than the normal incandescent light, but no so blue that everything looks weird

-1 to Ricoh - they are great cameras with a brilliant lens BUT they are very fragile, sensitive to light knocks and sand. repairing the lens also costs a fortune, and you may have trouble with Ricoh's service My top pick for a Point and shoot at the moment would be either the Olympus Mju 850 or Mju 1030 they are both "shockproof" to 1.5m and water proof to 3m (850) and 10m (1030) the only real problems we see with them at work is when the door sealing surfaces arent cleaned properly and they leak, and when they are subjected to massive impact forces. (dont run them over in the car, and follow the cleaning instructions that come with them) Olympus's warranty is also pretty good, they do look after their customers

spotted a silver rs4 parked near the commonwealth bank in morley today - looked nice Im not a Stagea owner yet - looking at importing a M35 later in the year though

sorry mate - it was on the commentary at rd 3 - if you want to ill edit my original post - you will have to change the quote though

i heard this thing at full noise the other weekend and it sounds awesome, thought i might throw up a pic of it out in the sunshine at Barbagallo - sorry i havent got any of it with smoke i was hearing figures like 780HP and 900Nm from when it was dynoed too

having never used an S3IS it may be normal for that model Canon did issue a recall a while ago for a camera with a CCD problem- i cant remember which model it was though i am currently trying to find out though my Cameras are a Canon 350d and 1dmk2n - both of which are 8mp DSLRs with a fairly large sensor. i work for a camera repair facility here in perth and am constantly surprised at what some point and shoot cameras produce. stuff my colleagues call "normal" from some cameras, wouldnt stay on the memory card for more than a minute or so if i took it with my camera. Pixel size and density affects image noise. a large sensor of the same Megapixels as a smaller sensor will nearly always produce cleaner images because of the lower pixel density and lower buildup of heat (the actual cause of the noise) CCD sensors are normally also noisier than CMOS sensors (your camera will have a CCD type sensor) i am currently downloading the DNG file to have a closer look EDIT - those pics actually look pretty clean. i have seen much worse photos come out of some of the cameras at work, and some of the photos that a friend of mine did at my wedding are really noisy, even at 100ISO a little bit of noise ninja or lightroom's noise reduction and they will look a little better. and the noise reduction bit in the camera still works with RAW files, it does a dark frame subtraction to long exposures - so even with it on it wouldnt have helped this photo

CAMS have changed the rules for mounting Cameras in cars here is the PDF http://driftwa.com.au/forum/index.php?act=...post&id=206

you have taken a photo then tried to crop out a tiny little part of it - maybe 5% of the actual image, and then tried to blow it up big it is just all pixely if you printed the original photo at 8x10inch or even 16x20in you wouldnt see that noise if you just wanted a shot of the grill of the GTR, you should have walked over and taken one, Photoshop cant put detail in that wasnt captured in the original image