Flying Cars

Posted by Paul Bracey on Sat, 07/11/15 23:33
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Comments by slacker on Sun, 07/12/15 08:07

Cool. I had a van get a blow out in front of me on the motorcycle. It was a rear tire and it was middle lane three lane highway. That guy was so close rolling it bouncing from side to side, but he managed to keep it upright and get it to the shoulder.


Comments by Nathan Leonard Kern on Sun, 07/12/15 09:10

Nice catch,was that in a race or you just happened to be there?


Comments by noseykate on Sun, 07/12/15 09:44

Nice catch! Burst mode? Or was this a spot where air-borne was likely?


Comments by Jan Bjorklund on Sun, 07/12/15 12:40

I'd rather flying this car on the roadway than on the shoulder but then getting air borne doesn't really give the driver many options except to hold on and hope for the best.


Comments by Anna Permyakova on Sun, 07/12/15 14:08

Very nice shot! Well done!


Comments by Sharan Jay on Sun, 07/12/15 14:14

Decisive moment :)


Comments by Jacky on Sun, 07/12/15 15:37

Pretty neato. Did this end well? I'd guess not...


Comments by Paul Bracey on Mon, 07/13/15 22:49

Thanks everyone. Glad he didn't take you out, Slacker! This was
taken on Saturday at the Giants Despair Hill Climb, the oldest
automotive hill climb race in the country, and a really amazing event.
I've been wanting to go to it for years but was either busy or lost
track of when it was and happened to be reminded of it in time to
actually get there. The hill they race up is the same one we use for
our hill training, but we don't run up this thing nearly as fast as
these guys do! It really is a fun event because since it's a time
trial, everyone is waiting their turn, and you get to walk right up to
all these amazing cars and talk to their drivers and crews. It's not
like you're up in the stands away from all the action. And they run
everything from stock cars, to little sprint cars and Formula One race
cars! Amazing machines! I'm not a big race car fan, but this was
special. Here's another shot of a pretty wild car. This monster had
more power than you would think looking at, but you could tell by the
sound of it. Feel free to check out some of the other pics on my FB
album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?
set=a.10205379309136324.1073741921.1056948839&type=1&l=a5b7c299eb


Comments by Paul Bracey on Mon, 07/13/15 22:57

Not shot in burst mode, but very fortunate to be quick on the shutter
in this case, even if the camera wasn't level. In fact, the car in
the OP is going UPHILL, not downhill, but still delighted with the
timing.

The problem with shooting in burst mode at really high resolutions is
that you end up taking too long to download, sort, pick the best shots
and edit them. It took about 7 or 8 hours to download the images from
the camera, and that's shooting in single frame mode. I usually do
that when I go to bed so they're on the computer in the morning. I
pulled the OP off by itself on Saturday because I thought the news
paper would like it. They didn't want it. Supposedly they had a
photographer there, but I'm pretty sure he didn't get a shot of
anything with all 4 wheels in the air!


Comments by Ernest Cadegan on Tue, 07/14/15 04:19

I'm curious. How many frames would you have shot that it takes 7-8 hours
to download? I'm not a high frame shooter so my A7r files are not causing
me much grief. Burst mode with that Sony! Now there's a joke.


Comments by Paul Bracey on Tue, 07/14/15 04:32

E., I'm guessing here, but it seems like about 6 hours to download 80 to
100 pictures is what I'm getting with the old USB port on this computer.
I shot over 400 pictures at the wedding. That's the most I've shot at
one time. It may be time to look into getting one of those fast new
USB3 ports since it may have to go into the shop to add another storage
drive anyway.


Comments by Ernest Cadegan on Tue, 07/14/15 07:54

Whoa! I'm not experiencing anything close to that. I was thinking
maybe you had 1000s to download. I'm using a card reader hooked to
a USB 3.0. That would maybe take me 10 minutes but I haven't really
paid attention. I see I have one session with 95 pics and I'm sure the
time would have been like that, or even less. I'd say there is something
amiss. I do have a new computer so maybe that's having some impact.
I import using Lightroom. I shoot in burst mode a bit with my Canon
but only for four or five frames and I've never shot it at the high rate
for some reason. Mostly I don't care for the sorting through that's
required. Sheep aren't that fast either. ; )


Comments by Paul Bracey on Tue, 07/14/15 10:44

Yeah, USB 3 is key... My puter is kind of old school. *grin*


Comments by Anna Permyakova on Tue, 07/14/15 15:00

The second image is really cool too. Kudos to you for a very nice result! I love shooting motion blur. It’s hard, but it’s effective.


Comments by Jan Bjorklund on Tue, 07/14/15 15:13

I could not imagine the newspaper not wanting that opening shot with all four wheels off the ground... to my mind that shot is a once in a life time possibility. Your gain... their lose.

I like that second shot also... just trying to imagine something like that just going down the road with those side pipes and the way the car is set up.


Comments by Michael Meek on Tue, 07/14/15 17:54

If you used your camera to download to your computer instead of a card reader, that would explain the lengthy time. I'm still using USB 2 and download huge D800 files and while it takes awhile it's nothing like hours and hours.

The shot of the flying car really grabs your attention! Super catch. I wonder what that is hanging down there by the front left wheel?

I've flown as high on a motorcycle, but a car is not sprung for landing and I'd be a little concerned that the slightest wheel turn would flip me. I saw the most horrible wreck yesterday on the freeway. The car was mashed up on every side. One minute you are going to dinner and the next you are dead or going to the ER. Talk about a bad day. How nuts is it to travel at high speeds along with thousands of others and separated by a few feet and each driver's ability to keep it together?


Comments by Paul Bracey on Wed, 07/15/15 08:57

That's the front spoiler hanging down after being demolished by a
rock and hay bale. The car didn't finish that run, stopping about
100 yards up the road, but much to my surprise, they were back in
the race after a few quick repairs.

I never use the camera cable to download images. Even old USB is
faster than that. USB 3 is apparently the upgrade that will
really speed up the transfer process, but it's nice to hear USB 2
works pretty well too.


Comments by Ruth Rittichier on Thu, 07/23/15 10:53

Well captured, both of them. Good job of panning.