Manual focus lens practice

I'm anxious to get out and try this 135mm f2.8 manual lens at the races. This thing is supposed to be an f2.8 but I noticed that I have to use a slower f-stop than I do with my other fast lenses under the same conditions. Apparently this lens is rated at f2.8 but in testing it appears to be faster than it's rated. That's a good thing for night racing shots. Depth of field looks good, all but the last photo were taken at iso200, f16, 1/320th auto white balance. The clouds thickened up a little when I was setting up for the last shot so I had to set the f-stop at f8.

This lens is entirely manual, the Nikon digital camera metering does not function when used with this lens. All settings must be set on the camera and if I'm shooting flash that has to be set manually as well. The manual focus is smooth and precise as you can see in these test shots. I took six test shots, these five turned out and the sixth was a little out of focus. That's a good average for a manual focus lens. Of course the action will be quite a bit faster at the track than it was for these still shots but based on my limited test results manual focus is not going to be a liability on this lens. This is a niche lens, it won't be used all night but it will be useful in some lighting and distance situations.

My lens lineup for 2009 is going to look something like this:

500mm fixed f8 manual lens used for long outside the track shots over the top of the fence with available light.

70-300mm f4.5-5.6 auto focus used for outside the track shots and infield long shots in available light as well as fill flash shots till dusk. This lens has produced more magazine and newspaper shots than any other lens I have. It's a budget lens but within certain focal lengths it produces images comparable to professional lenses. If I am careful to stay within those parameters this can be a very productive lens. I especially like how quickly it locks into focus for head on shots. Like they say in racing, "it ain't the chrome that makes it go."

135mm f2.8 manual lens (this was today's test lens) can be used from dusk through B Mains for single car shots with flash. Not a good victory lane lens but it's going to be awesome for closely cropped single car shots.

85mm f1.8 auto focus my workhorse lens used at night for flash action shots, 4 wide salute and victory lane at some tracks. Nikon makes an 85mm f1.4 but that lens is over $1,000, this one was gray market (no US warranty) and cost me less than $400 delivered. F1.8 is plenty fast, open it up and slow the shutter down and this baby does a great job of catching those 4 wide salute to the crowd shots.

28-105mm f2.8 auto focus used for Feature races and victory lane as an alternative to the 85mm at some tracks depending on how roomy victory lane is. This was my most expensive lens at over $800 and probably the biggest disappointment. In retrospect I'd have bought a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 for approximately the same price. Last fall I discovered that when I put this lens on I need to turn the iso one speed faster and it does a much better job. I had the 85mm on then switched to this one for victory lane and thought I'd try some adjustments to see if I could get better performance. I was pleased with the results and now I know that I can use it during the Feature if victory lane has tight quarters.

As you can see, I'm not crazy about zoom lenses anymore. There are some situations where I have to use them but I shoot the majority of my photos now with prime lenses. If this manual focus lens produces the desired results (it appears that it will) I am going to add more of them to my collection. Some of the Cedar Lake banquet slide presentation outside the track shots were taken with the 500mm manual lens from up on the hill. All of my film camera shots up through 2003 were taken with manual focus lenses and all manual camera settings. Last season I finally gave in and started using shutter priority early in the evening when the sun starts going down. The reason for that is because the lighting conditions change so rapidly that it's difficult to keep up with adjustments. Aside from that half hour or so when the light is changing all of my settings are done manually. I prefer that because I feel like I can control things much better.

Here are the samples:

2009 plans and a surprising statistic...

I'm going to take a few minutes to talk about my 2009 racing plans. Of course nobody can make any plans to go racing without transportation to get them to the track. I'll be driving the ol' Ranger for the seventh consecutive racing season so as to put off car payments for another year. I only drive about a mile per day to a park & ride and take a vanpool back and forth to work so that makes it possible for me to hang onto my vehicles longer than most people would. I have been in car pools, rode the MTC bus or rode in vanpools for going on thirty years now, not for environmental reasons but mostly for cost savings and convenience. It's nice to be able to buy a vehicle in 2003, still be driving it in 2009 and only have put about 34,000 miles on it in six years. My truck will probably rust out before the mileage hits 150,000, it's 16 years old and currently at about 139,200 miles. The last brake rebuild was a year ago, the exhaust and battery about two years, the starter a year, and it was tuned up a year ago. The tires are a few years old but they still look like new. The rubber on the sidewalls will probably start cracking before the tread starts to show any wear.

The old girl needs is a new radiator so I'll try to do that before the racing season begins. I could probably get by without replacing the radiator, the Rangers had problems with grommets leaking between the tank and fin tubes in cold weather. It leaked a little bit when the weather was below zero there for a couple weeks but has since stopped. Apparently radiator replacement due to this problem was covered under one of the recalls for this particular model but I'm long past taking advantage of that. It's a 5 speed with no air and a manual transmission so the radiator has four bolts holding it in, two hose clamps and a quarter round plastic shroud held on by a couple of screw/clip fasteners. Even I should be able to handle that job when the weather gets a little warmer. Perhaps the Saturday that the canceled Sandbox race was scheduled for would be a good day to do the repair. It has been leaking like this only in sub zero weather for a couple of years and as soon as the weather warms up it doesn't leak a drop all summer. I could probably let it go and keep dumping anti freeze in but I hate having to go out and do that when it's 20 below. At the rate I put miles on my vehicles this truck could last a couple more years so it's probably a good idea to get it done.

I'm not advocating that everyone drive tired iron but so far that has worked for me.

So now that I've got a way to get there let's take a look at my schedule. I'm planning on getting out to both nights of the Cedar Lake opener. It's going to be exciting to see the Late Models, Modifieds, Midwest Modifieds and Super Stocks take to the track for the first time in 2009. I've got all ten UMSS races at Kopellah on my schedule. The Billy Anderson Memorial at Cedar Lake, CLS School bus night, the Masters, all the CLS Sprint races. The Masters, the Firecracker, the Outlaws, the USA Nationals, Richert Memorial and Legendary 100. Forgive me if I missed anything.

The Elko Dirt Nationals, Deer Creek, Jackson and Brainerd vacation list and budget willing. Two IRA stops at Rice Lake. Possibly some Princeton and a visit to the new track in Ogilvie. It's going to be a stretch this year but I'll even try to take in the Fireman's Nationals at Angell Park and Roger Rager's induction into the NSCHOF at Knoxville.

Traveling beyond the nearby tracks might be more of a challenge this year but I'm pretty confident I'll be able to stick to most of my proposed schedule. I've got enough money in the budget to do about 40 races close to home, CLS, Kopellah, Elko, Ogilvie and possibly Princeton. Rice Lake won't be a problem, Deer Creek, brainerd, Superior and Jackson are a little further and require a motel stay so those will depend on car pool opportunities and photo sales. I tuned up our Olds and the only things left to do are a stabilizer bar and alignment which I'll tend to before the season starts. I'm looking forward to getting past the planning stage and getting outside doing something. These winters start to get kind of oppressive by the time March rolls around.

I was going through my files the other day and happened upon a strange statistic. I have sold 410 and 360 Sprint Car photos, Modified photos, Midwest Modified photos, Super Stock photos, Street Stock photos, Pure Stock Photos, Hornet photos, and even Kart photos. But I have never sold a Late Model photo. That's kind of a strange irony considering that up to 75% of the races I attend each season were Late Model shows.

The UMSS races combined with nearby IRA and World of Outlaws shows along with Jackson and Arlington will make it possible to reverse my trend of spending more time at fendered than open wheel race. I've still got my Late Model friends that I'll be seeing whenever I've got a free Saturday night but I'll be putting a little more emphasis on the Sprints this year. I've still got my favorite Late Model shows etched in stone on the schedule and I'll be watching the NASCAR Late Models every free Saturday night I get. I'm blessed because I enjoy a wide variety of racing have the opportunity to fill that need for variety without having to travel very far. What's nice about the Sprint shows up here is that when I follow them to the various tracks I get to see a lot of drivers in the support classes that I wouldn't get to watch if I always stuck to one routine. I like the variety, all of these racers regardless of what class of cars they drive all love the sport.

Well, that's going to do it for tonight's thoughts. I'm ready to kick back and watch some television for a while before I hit the sack.

Later

Middle of the week already!!!

Where did the past week go? Time sure flies when you're having fun. There was even a three day weekend (President's Day) and it's gone by already.

Some people might not agree but I think that after over a decade it's safe to think of myself as a writer and photographer. My work has appeared in quite a few publications and I write a regular column so I think it's appropriate to think of myself as a member of the racing media. If you type the search words "dirt track racing" in Google my website comes up at the top. I would expect a good ranking when I include "Minnesota" in the search but to see it come up at the top of the listings when I type in "dirt track racing" is awesome. With all the commercial dirt track sites out there I never expected mine to hit the top of the list. Barry Braun of the Dirtcast.com told me that longevity is a factor and gotomn has been online since 1999 so he makes a good point. I listen to a podcast called "Weekly Web Tools" which focuses on the self taught do-it-yourself web designers like me. They said it's important to have the proper keywords in your META TAGS as well as good text links on your pages. I have always made it a point to try to make navigation simple for visitors so evidently it has paid off in other ways.

I've got some pet peeves about some of the racing websites so I might was well list a few while I'm on the subject. I'm not trying to say mine isn't without fault but there are some things out there that I find especially irritating. One is all the pay sites for dirt track racing that have come online the past few years. If their goal is to make money from the sport (something I find distasteful) they should get enough sponsors so that they can offer free content. I don't know about you but it's important to me to pay my credit card down in this economy. $4.95 per month for this website, $29.95 per season for that website, pretty soon a person could rack up $100 or more just on dirt track sites alone. Add that to my monthly satellite bill and it's just too much to justify for entertainment. The way I look at it is if I can visit streaming online movies and TV shows for free why should I pay $29.95 per season to subscribe to a dirt track site? So I think you hear where I'm coming from, I can watch the NFL, MLB, and NASCAR on network TV for free so where does a little ol' niche sport like dirt track racing come off charging me for content? Some would say to me "there's a simple solution, if you don't like it you don't have to watch." I agree 100%, I don't like it and I don't watch.

With the exception of message boards which I understand have to require registration for security purposes I shouldn't have to sign up with a website to view content. For example, there are driver websites out there that require visitors to setup a user name and password to view the driver's schedule and photo gallery. Let's see now, I've been online since 1996, during that time I have collected a full notebook of user names and passwords to numerous sites. Nope, with all due respect to those drivers I don't have that urgent of a need to know where you're going to race. Certain things on websites like schedules, viewing links pages, and looking through photo galleries should not require registration. When I come across a racing page like that I click out and move onto something else as fast as I can. Don't waste my time making me sign up because all you're doing is farming my personal information. Same goes for tracks and sanctioning bodies, trust me, you tracks and sanctions want to make your information easily accessible. Requiring registration is NOT easily accessible.

Cedar Lake canceled their Sandbox Arena race so I had to remove it from my schedule. Evidently they didn't get enough entrants to justify the expense of building the temporary track. I heard that there's still some issues with the ventilation for the bigger events like the Midgets so that's on hold for the time being. Hopefully they'll be able to resolve the issues but I'm not real optimistic when it comes to spending money on the building right now. For my own selfish reasons I really wasn't looking forward to the Karts and Legends so I'm not too upset by the news. I'd have enjoyed it once I got out there but it's not likely I'd have sold many photos and I'm not into those types of racing so it would have been a lot of time and effort doing something I'm not crazy about. The average fan doesn't see this but when one writes and shoots for publications you're bound to work some events that aren't as high on your list as others. No offense to the participants but it would have been a long weekend. I'm looking forward to the outdoor opener, that's what turns me on, the first two nights of Late Models, Mods, Supers and Midwest Mods on the big track.

Well, that's going to do it for tonight. Next time I post well take a fun look ahead at some of the big special shows this season.

An alternative to Miller Lite

Times are tough so I'll give you a tip. If you're looking for an alternative to Miller Lite try a twelve pack of Milwaukee's Best Light. It's made by the Miller Brewing Company and has a taste similar it's higher priced big name cousin but only nicks me for $6.25 per twelve pack tax included at Wine & Roses in Forest Lake. They don't sell it in cases but two twelve packs only comes to $12.50 so you can't go wrong for at price.

I ran my cell phone through the wash machine. It sux when you do that because even with my upgrade option it still ended up costing me $100 bucks after rebates by the time I got a car charger and a holder to carry the phone on my belt. My wife's phone was overdue for an upgrade too so it I had to get two new phones but it was worth it because we were both overdue. Aside from the phone I had to do some work on the car and truck. The Olds needed intake gaskets, a water pump map sensor and is in line for a stabilizer bar, alignment and new battery. The Ranger needs a new radiator before racing gets underway so I'll have to dust off my tools and do that one myself. Routine annual maintenance.

Practice with the new lens has been coming along quite nicely. It has to be controlled 100% manually but I like the results.

New/Old look to gototmn.com website

I made some eye pleasing, ease of navigation type changes to the gotomn.com website. The page is all white and we went back to one of the older logos that I like better than the one I was using. No fancy innovations or anything like that, just the same old photo, history and links page that's been out there for over ten years. Kind of like an old pair of sweats, easy going and comfortable but nothing fancy.

There has been a lot going on with me lately so I haven't made many blog posts. The wife is going in for shoulder surgery later this month so I'm going to be busy. I've been having some car repairs done recently. Things like intake gaskets, water pumps and a MAP sensor on the Olds. An upcoming radiator replacement on the Ranger. It's tired old iron but it's paid for and they've been running pretty good so I'm going to invest a couple more years in the current fleet.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming racing season. I ended up buying another lens to add to my collection. It's a prime lens, a manual focus 135mm f2.8 third party lens that was marketed by a distributorship known as Kalimar that started in St. Louis in 1952 and was in business through the mid 90's. As close as I can trace it's origins the lens was probabaly manufactured by Sigma for marketing by Kalimar. I got this lens off eBay for less than $100 but in it's day it was a $400 lens (mid '90's dollars) when it was being marketed for film cameras.

This thing was a rare find. It's a solid build by what I would consider the best third party lens builder, Sigma, and was marketed by Kalimar to stores such as JC Penny, Sears and others of that genre. It's a manual focus lens but it's pristine and produces excellent images. It's not something I'd use all night long but there's a niche for it during certain lighting conditions.

I tested this lens out by pointing it out the front door and taking a couple of shots across the road. I was impressed by this lens' sharpness and clarity which in my opinion rivals that of much more expensive professional lenses. You just can't go wrong with prime lenses, they're a pain in the ass to carry around in the dust and the weather but they flat out rock when it comes to photo quality.



I am thinking about doing a video version of this blog so that I don't have to type the blog anymore. I've got a webcam that would be up to the task and it would be a quick edit so I might do that when I feel like talking more than I feel like typing. A carpal tunnel saver for sure!!!

I'll type (or talk) to you again real soon...

I'll start making some blog posts soon...

I was taking a break from the blog but now that racing has begun down in Florida I'll get busy and make some posts.

During my break from blogging I have been busy filling photo orders, writing for a couple of the publications and making some changes to the gotomn.com website. They're mostly design changes to clean up the website so it's easier to navigate and more pleasing to the eye. Nothing fancy, just the same basic text and photos that I've been doing for over ten years.

I'll announce it when I'm done.