181 replies to this topic

[Pappy]

Can I come, too? I promise not to win anything.

[MantaRay]

Great job posting, Dave... Now you are not only going to be dangerous on the track but also on the 'blog...

Congratulations on your success this past weekend. You deserved it...

[Tex]

As Sunday wore on, the crowd thinned out a bit as real world committments dictated that people had to hit the road. By the time the final shoot-out took place, it was the finalists, the turn marshals, and not much else (Mr. Swiss being a turn marshal in addition to race director).

When it was all said and done, there wasn't a lot of "pomp and circumstance"; I'm not being critical, just acknowledging that the weekend had taken its toll on all our energies. I managed this one shot of the podium doods:



(L to R) Ron Hershman - 2nd, Dave Fiedler - 1st ("Sano Claus" I calls 'im!), Paul Pfeiffer - 3rd

Someone asked for some video; here's a short clip of one of the two qualifying races on the flat track:

http://webpages.char.../Sano Video.MPG

[NJ Racer]

This photo reflects the perfect beginning of a new era of retro racing.

Way to go Dave, Ron, and Paul.

[Ron Hershman]

Thanks, Ray... I don't think we were the only ones in the building seen smiling and laughing throughout the weekend.

[MG Brown]

I'm not a computer guy, as a matter of fact my friends MG, Bob, and Ray might tell you I'm stuck in the '60s.

But Dave - you're stuck in a good way.

[Cheater]

Guys,

Sorry for being two days later than I wanted to be in getting it done, but all of the Sano pictures are now posted to this thread.

So the Sano race report is finished, though I may adjust a couple of pics that were too dark out of the camera.

What I am most pleased about regarding the coverage is, as far as I know, that this is the first race report posted to the net that has pictures of every driver and the top and bottom of every car that raced. Ah, the deadly sin of pride...

The additions start at page five, post #88.

[MantaRay]

Kudos to Mr. Wells...

Cheater, the full report with all of the pictures is terrific. As you have always said..."It's about the people". I think your reporting and posting showed that. The Sano would not have been the success it was without you.

Thanks again...

[Cheater]

'Preciate it, Ray.

I hope you'll forgive me for correcting your quote. The full version of my saying is that in any leisure-time activity, the most interesting part is the people and their stories, not the tools or machines used in pursuit or practice of the activity.

That's not to say the little toy machines we play with are uninteresting, but only to say that the people are much more interesting.

As I posted in JimHT's "What Does Cheater Want" thread, "the hobby wastes way too much energy on the details of the mechanism."

It's the people who command and drive the long-term interest in any activity... IMNSHO!

[Roger U]

Greg,

Great coverage with your text and photos.

Thank you very much for all of the time and effort you put in at "The Sano" and on Slotblog in general.

[Noose]

Here's a couple of pics that I have from the race.

Me and the infamous Cheater. We always knew where he was cuz X marked his location.



And here's the Jersey Boys... me and Ray Carlisi. He was being nice so I lettered his spraybomb body.



Me, Mr. Buddy Holly-glassed Tex hisself, Ron VW, and Ray the ACE hardware man.

[Cheater]

Noose,

Didn't I ask you not to post that pic of me in my Malcom X T-shirt?

Come on, I know some of you other racers have pics to share, too...

[Tex]

You guys should feel lucky I hadn't eaten a lot that day... you would have needed a wider angle on that shot!

[tonyp]

LOL.

These pictures are getting up just in time for Halloween!

[Tex]

Come on, I know some of you other racers have pics to share, too...

I'm no master of the digital camera. While my pictures outside seemed OK, the inside pictures are very "grainy". I think I had the camera set for maximum resolution which produces pictures 4meg in size.

When inside, does the resolution need to be changed? I'm pretty sure I changed it over to fluorescent lighting for the inside shots.

[tonyp]

If you have ISO setting set it for 400 for indoor use. The pictures I shoot for the web are usually done with no flash ISO at 400 and set for fluorescent lighting... 7.2MP Sony Cyber Shot that is a couple of years old.

If it is dark there is no way around using the flash which only gives you about 10 to 12 foot range. Digital cameras need light...

I also shoot at maximum resolution. That way when it scales down it looks better.

[Noose]

...But you can lighten them up using photo-editing software.

Tex... email me a couple and I'll see what I can do.

[Cheater]

Tex, Tony,

I take a different approach in that I pull the camera's resolution down if I am going to put them on the web. The Nikon Coolpix L6 I used at the Sano has a "PC" setting, which is 1024x768. Mike didn't have any photo editing software on his PC, so I had to do my adjusting in the camera (except for resizing the car images using a free utility I downloaded).

Even though our forum software will resize the pics when displaying them on most machines, download times are much faster if you keep the image sizes small using less resolution. One of the pics I tweaked today in the Sano Results topic was the first one, the race plaques. It was originally posted at max resolution and took forever to load even on our SDSL here at work. Once I resized it down to 1024x768, it loads five-six times faster. (So, Tony, don't be uploading no 10mp pics here, okay? )

Tony's right about the reach of a flash. The Nikon has a "party/indoor" light setting but it still flashed on most of the pics I took, which is why most of 'em have a flash glare to a greater or lesser extent.

[Tex]

Thanks for the tips. I'll try the ISO setting you suggest.

Joe, I'll see if I can attach a couple to an email later this evening. I should mention that SOME of my photos inside have turned out OK, when I've shot them relatively close up with a bright light shining down on the car.

But all of my inside shots at DA Sano were "macro" shots where the subject matter was anywhere from 6 ft-30 ft away.

[Cheater]

Tex, I don't think you want to use the Macro setting for those kinds of shots.

Macro setting is when you want to take a pic of something small and have it fill the screen. The pics I took of Pappy's homemade decals in post #34 were taken on Macro setting. That's what it's for...

[MSwiss]

Greg,

It's not super-sophisticated but I do have Kodak EasyShare.

[Tex]

Tex, I don't think you want to use the Macro setting for those kinds of shots.

Macro setting is when you want to take a pic of something small and have it fill the screen. The pics I took of Pappy's homemade decals in post #34 were taken on Macro setting. That's what it's for...

Then I just mis-spoke out of ignorance. I'll have to pull out the book to find out what the little icon of a mountain is called. I was thinking in terms of "macro" vs. "micro". My bad.

[tonyp]

Greg,

I like to shoot all my pictures at highest resolution because the ones I keep I want that resolution. Never know when you have to swap heads on bodies, etc., in Photoshop.

You are right though, if you only plan to throw them up on the web the resolution can be cranked down.

I use the Mac iPhoto software (which is excellent) to crop and edit before uploading to Photobucket in the web page mode which resizes them... Works good.

[Dave S]

Well, I am just starting to get caught up on rest. I drove home Sunday night and arrived at 2 AM Monday morning. The alarm went off at 6 AM. Oh well.

I must say I had a great time. Thanks to everyone one who made this a great event. Special thanks to Mike Swiss and Ray Price.

And a big congrats to my friend, Dave Fieldler. What an outstanding job you did, very impressive.

I found the cars to be a new challenge. I think I will give this another try someday.

[Cheater]

It's not super sophisticated but I do have Kodak EasyShare.

Mike,

I did look around your harddrive for an app I could use to tweak photos and did see EasyShare, but if that app is capable of adjusting images, I couldn't figure out how to use it for that.

Most folks acquire basic photo-editing software when they buy a scanner, as almost all of them come with some sort of photo-editor to use for adjusting the scans.

Mike, it's no biggie and please don't think my comment was meant as a criticism. We both were sort of making up the coverage at the Sano as we went along. I'm just tickled it turned out as well as it did.

Tony, I took over 400 pics and simply didn't have the time nor the software to reduce resolution, so I turned the camera down and I think it worked okay. I take a lot of photos at work and find that for me, the higher resolutions are more of a hindrance than a help, primarily due to processes that are slowed by the large files sizes. So my MO is to use the lowest resolution consistent with the purpose of the image. But, hey, there's no right or wrong way to do it. It's a "your call" kinda thing.

I do think most folks believe that taking digipics at the highest resolution a camera will achieve is always the best path and it tain't so. Especially since most digicams are used for taking pics to email, and for that purpose, large files sizes are a problem.