Happy 4th of July!!! (warning, lots of pics!)

MEnthusiast · 8th July 2002, 02:36

whats the best thing to do after the little one has been fed and is asleep on the Fourth before anyone is awake? Yep- detail the car and take pics later!

more pics at:
http://homepage.mac.com/z8mania/PhotoAlbum10.html

then, after a hard day of working on the auto (black is a beautiful thing when its clean, but its dirty 1 minute after its clean!)

more pics at:
http://homepage.mac.com/z8mania/PhotoAlbum11.html

Malibu · 8th July 2002, 02:39

wow, your car looks amazing... where do you live? that road looks like fun!

EBMCS03 · 8th July 2002, 02:48

Hey NICE, those firework pics are nice!! how'd u take them? I tried and did not have pics nearly as good as yours... whats your technique? what shutter speed, what F-stop, what ISO speed? Oh ya more importantly what camera?

KRM · 8th July 2002, 04:03

Quote:

Originally posted by UCSDxB0i
Oh ya more importantly what camera?

I believe he has a Nikon D1x which is an amazing camera. Great pics, ME!

MEnthusiast · 8th July 2002, 04:27

hey guys, well the location must remain unknown...... I could tell you but then....... lol. thats not my house anyhow, we were just visiting some friends in on the CT shore.

that road that looks like so much fun is patroled! not by the police but by the neighbors that would definately remember (and say something) about someone rumbling by in a hot car. more importantly is that its a very residential neighborhood so the mode has to be very laid back for safety.

yes the camera is a d1x. the lens is a 17-35. what I wanted to do was to use my remote (I forget the proper name for this) but I have a remote that I can program to take pictures at x intervals. I left that at home. so I put the camera on the tripod and I set the focus to infinity, kind of guessed on where the action would be happening, put the zoom down to 17 (the D1x has a multiplier of 1.5 so its really not 17, its more like 26) set the f to 9 (I didnt think it needed to be all the way out to 22) the film speed to 400 (800 seems too noisy) the white balance to sunlight, although I use mac bibble to do all the adjustments later I could change this if I wanted to, and then I watched the fireworks and I just guessed with shutter speed. I used the "bulb" setting, which lets one hold the shutter open as long as one wants. Some shots I held it for what seemed like 3-4 seconds, others 1 second, etc. I have 2 1mb microdrives and my philosophy is to take lots of pictures and sort them out later. the camera can only hold a few pics in its buffer, so rather than rapid fire, I have figured how to space them out to allow the buffer to empty to the microdrive. truth of the matter is Im just re-engaging an old hobby that I never totally mastered so I have a lot to learn but on this series of pics I got lucky.

finally I forgot to say this about the car:

swirl marks: BE GONE! its so nice to have them out. I have to once again thank everyone here about the vast knowledge on how to do this right.

CM5GO · 8th July 2002, 04:56

Is that Greenwich or close to it?

Looks familiar but I cant put my finger on it.

TCM · 8th July 2002, 05:35

Your car looks great ME

! Black is a great color for the Z8, really gives off an elegant style. What products did you use on it?

atomic80 · 8th July 2002, 17:45

I too have a Nikon D1...not the D1X and it's truly a spectacular camera well worth the hefty price tag (IMHO). I've taken some spectacular shots with that thing...too bad it's weight and bulk is also hefty too. That's why I find myself carrying the CP5k around instead. Takes great pictures and offers a fair bit of control for even the most demanding photographers.

ME: That's the remote release that you're talking about. I have the same thing for mine too. Great little tool if you're into serious photography. I took some shots on July 4th too but they didn't turn out as well as yours did. I confess that I was a little bit lazy that night so I left my camera in the automatic setting. And BTW, did you mean that you had 1 GB Microdrives? Not 1 MB. I don't think you'd be able to take very many pictures with a 1 MB chip/microdrive. Have you tried using a compactflash chip instead of a microdrive? I've found that if I use a CF chip instead of a MD in my D1 the recycle times are even faster! Worth checking out if you're into taking multiple images rapidly.

Great pictures, ME! You're giving me a run for my money.

young-nyc · 8th July 2002, 18:06

great pics ME...
very nice car..

MEnthusiast · 8th July 2002, 19:14

thanks !

Jason,
yes, I meant 1 gb. 1mb would hold 1/7th of a RAW image. I have a CP990 that I use for less demanding pics. and this might sound funny, but I like the size and heft of the D1. It says to me "this is a REAL camera". Ive given thought to the CF, but at the time of my purchase the biggest CF was 512mb and I decided Id like the bigger capacity of the 1gb. Now that 1gb CF cards are out, I would get one or two, but Im waiting for the price to drop. Also, although mechanical failures are rare, it is a risk with the MD. Still, you want to blow someone away, just show them the size of the MD- its 1GB, that size storage was unimagineable in this size a few years ago.

the worst thing about the D1s is their ccd is really unprotected and it accumulates dust. I will have to bring mine to Nikon for cleaning soon. How do you clean yours? Im lucky because Nikons HQ is a 1 hour drive and any excuse to motor along for an hour or two.............

btw- I remember at one time you had less posts than I did- now, yieeks! I feel like a guy in a yugo that was passed by a maxed out 911 tt!