Scott, in my opinion, I would crop your original photo so that the car is more to the left third of the photo. We read from left to right and, perceptually, that is what our mind wants to see. Plus, it would give the feeling that the car would be racing off from somewhere rather than into the scene. Remember your rule of thirds as best that you can for good composition. As far as post-editing techniques... I'm not much help. Just my 2 cents. Wait, gas if supposed to be going up within the next week. I'm only giving you my 1 cent!
Nice capture. I assume that you panned it and caught at a higher ISO? I wonder what it would have looked like if you would mask the car and gaussian blur the surroundings a bit and then go for your oil painting effect?
Thanks Mr. Mayor... I understand your thought on the composition. The reason I cropped it to the right was that I always tried to make it look more of where it was heading instead of where it has been... if that makes sense? Great thing about digital... I can try it the other way you suggested too!
This picture was taken at my very first shooting event in 2006. I got my camera in April/May 2006 (I had never owned anything other than my Sony Cybershot 2.5mp P&S and didn't know my ISO from my f/Stop
) and this was taken in June 2006 at Watkins Glen. I made so many mistakes. LOL Then, I went to another race in September 2006, which turned out better. Then in spring of 2007 I tried some different locations of shoots - but really didn't have the focal length to pull of alot of them - so alot of cropping (So I bought the EC-14 teleconverter and definitely want the 50-200mm Zuiko lens). Then in September of 2007 I noticed my shots were better. I didn't start "panning" until spring 2007. So this shot is more a 'freeze' with some shots from that event with just enough blur in wheels and areas to convey movement.
I'm fairly certain this was shot at ISO 100 (believe it or not) because I shot everything at ISO 100 at the first event because it was so sunny and my inexperience I thought it would work. Well, some did fine but I had to do quite a bit of brightening - and I was shooting JPG and not RAW back then.
I now like to shoot at ISO 200 and around 1/200 to 1/250th shutter and panning because I really like the blur it produces. Obviously the conditions affect that some, but that's the area I like to get into in terms of getting the vehicle and background blur balanced. Not a great shot, but a sample I have handy:
The above was taken in June of 2007.
I like your suggestion about the gaussian blur.. I sort of started playing with that concept before but never got the full hang of it. There is a tutorial example in one of the photoshop books I have.
Thanks again for the input - it's definitely appreciated. Being I've only been shooting for less than 2 years - I'm still trying to 'find myself' in regards to technique and the type of photographs and styles I like personally.
