Tag Archives: montreal

Motorsport, Panorama, Pentax K200D, Tamron 17-50mm f2.8

Grand Prix du Canada

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Grand Prix du Canada Stand 21, originally uploaded by jezza323.

The Grandstand

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently spent the weekend in Montreal to attend the Grand Prix du Canada (Formula 1 Grand Prix). You must view this panorama in large size!

The View

I had seats in Grandstand #21, which luckily happened to be right next to the entrance to the track, as well as having a great view of the hairpin. This is the view from the edge of the stand, my seats were a bit off to the left of the photo, but the view was almost as good!

Shooting the Panorama

This panorama was shot using my Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm. I took about 10 shots in portrait orientation at 17mm, with lots of overlap to give me the best chance of a successful panorama. It worked out very well considering the challenges of the image, and only the railing of the grandstand and some minor problems from moving people were encountered.

Harsh Lighting

It was a very bright sunny day which meant the shadows were quite harsh, so, once Autopano had stitched the image together for me, I loaded the single TIFF file into Photomatix and generated a low key HDR. This is the result, good view isn’t it?

Carn Webber!

To make the panorama extra special, that is my favourite driver Mark Webber in his Red Bull Racing car approaching on the right side of the image. Webber finished the race weekend 3rd, after being hit and spun in the 1st corner of the race, a good comeback! It was also a very spectacular race, Jenson Button won the race after a come from behind victory. During the race he had a drive through penalty, a flat tyre and was run into by his own team mate! What a performance.

HDR, Pentax K200D, Street Shots, Tamron 17-50mm f2.8

An Evening in Old Montreal

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An Evening in Old Montreal, originally uploaded by jezza323.

Grand Prix Time

I was lucky enough to be able to spend last weekend in Montreal for the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see much of Montreal itself, but I saw lots of the Grand Prix!

Old Montreal

This shot was taken on our first evening, we caught the Metro into Old Montreal to have a look around, as everyone had recommended we go there. Old Montreal had a very European feel about it; it has cobblestone streets lined with old buildings full of restaurants, pubs and gift shops. Well worth a visit if have the chance.

Photo & Processing

This is a single exposure taken with my Pentax K200D and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens. I made sure to set the zoom to around about 35mm so there was minimal distortion in this shot.

Due to it being late evening the shadows were quite dark, and to help bring up the detail a little I decided to have a go at doing a single exposure HDR. I did a quick Tone Map in Photomatix, imported back to Lightroom (the Photomatix Lightroom plugin is really handy for this btw) and finished off with a slight crop and conversion to black and white.

Result

I quite like this photo, its a shame the shutter speed was a little slow, as it means some of the people’s features are a little blurred. How do you think it turned out? It is always good to have something to work on for next time.