The 80th Members Meeting at Goodwood, 15th of April 2023
I was at Goodwood on the Saturday to watch my good friend Joe Tywman in the Gurney Cup, driving the #04, a 1965 Elva Mk8
Sadly a gearbox problem towards the end of the qualifying meant that the car would take no furthur part
Joe’s co-driver was Simon Evans, in the grey helmet, Joe’s is finished in white
Of course, I took a few other snaps
My next event is the CALM All Porschr Trophy at Brands Hatch in July
The CALM All Porsche Trophy at Donington National, 10th of April 2023
My first motorsport event of the season was at Donington for the Calm All Porsche Trophy on the National circuit which uses the chicane at the end of Starkey’s straight and omiting the Melbourne loop hairpin
The day was mixed weather wise, with very heavy downpours in the morning, and very windy in the afternoon, which helped dry the track
Qualifying was in the morning, with the race mid-afternoon
The race ran without incident, impresive as around half the field were new to the CALM series
The overall winner was #68 Steve Hewson in his beautifully presented Cayman
Next round for the CALM All Porsche Trophy will be at Trac Môn, Anglesey on the weekend of May the 13th & 14th
Sadly I wont be able to make that round
Find out more about the CALM Series here:
https://allporschetrophy.co.uk/
The flickr album is her with all the my images from the event:
It was back to Brands Hatch, and the not often used GP loop, a rare treat for the drivers for CALM All Porsche Trophy and Bernie’s V8s on the May weekend of the 21st & 22nd
The weather held, in fact i got burnt again, and with no major incidents, a good time was had by all
The quali session was on the Saturday morning with the races split over the two days
During the Sunday lunch session thare was a public grid walk, followed by a Le Mans style start by Bernie himself and CALMs Sam Callahan on the pole
On the Saturday, my friend James Crow, a huge Porsche nut joined me, and I found time for a cheeky selfie, care of Bernies Chevvy
A few more views of Bernie’s lot
We also spotted this beautiful Ferrari 330 2+2 in the car park (with a rather nice Mercedes AMG GT behind)
The Flickr album of the weekend is up here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/140963830@N07/albums
The next round is July 9th at Thruxton
https://allporschetrophy.co.uk
So after the winter break, it was back to motorsport photography for me, this time it was the GP circuit at Donington Park in Leicestershire
After a few minutes, it all came back, my last race was the Birkett Relay back in October 2021, so i took some time to go through my gear and did all my presets the night before
At this event last year, it was snowing at 9am, and I got sunburnt by luchtime! luckily this year, it was fair and dry
It was an early race, all finished by 4pm, ready for the 200 mile drive South, future planners really need to think about moving race circuits nearer to Whitstable
The overall winers were Toby barlow & Matthew Kyle-Henney in a Cayman S
The next round will be at Brands Hatch next month, as local as it gets for me, roll on May!
Goodwood, Friday the 17th 2021
I was at Goodwood to cover the Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy for my friend Joe Twyman who was co-driving a 1960 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Competizione, one of just 46 ever manufactured, a rare and highly desirable car
The cars owner Mr Vincent Gaye was the other driver, he has the black open face helmet in the images
The qualifying was at 9:15 am, and good weather for photography, where Vincent & Joe would find themselves a very credible 15th after the timing
Also out was an old friend, Calum Lockie, co-driving 2BBC, a 1961 E-Type Jaguar
The Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy was the first race of the weekend, to be held at 18:15, so I had plenty of time to look around, snap cars, and to catch up and chat with people I hadn’t seen for a few years
And of course, more time to look at 07 its prepping for the race
By 17:00, we were in the assembly area
The race started on time at 18:15, for me as a photographer, the light was challenging, the sun was hidden behind the clouds, great for the drivers of course, not to have a low sun directly in your eyes
I had to push the ISO, and no polarizer either
But in the end, it was all rather academic, as 11 laps in, after around eighteen minutes, Vincent had to retire his car with a mechanical issue
Calum Lockie & his co-driver would also have to retire sadly just a few laps later
I did get my armband signed during the assembly though, by Vincent Gaye, Joe Twyman & Brendon Hartley
And so that was my Goodwood, next up is the Birkett Relay at Silverstone in October
The CALM All Porsche Trophy, at the Festival of Porsche, Brands Hatch Indy, Sunday the 5th of September 2021
Quali was just before lunch, the race itself was towards the end of the day in the beautiful evening light
It was a hot a very humid day, and if you know me, you’ll know, I’m not good in the heat, I get burnt at a firewoks display!
Chris Vallentine & Phillip Waters, who were both racing, reckoned the temperature could easily have been 50c in the cars, obviously they were to busy to check it accurately for me, so I guess I got of lucky
As it was the Festival of Porsche, the was plenty of other Porsches to see
The Album with all the CALM images is now up, click on the link below
https://www.flickr.com/photos/140963830@N07/albums/with/72157719792882643
Summer 2021 with the Fujifilm GFX-50r system
Fujifilm Uk have very kindly lent me a GFX-50r for a few months to compare with my Canon eos5Ds
This is a medium format rangefinder in the GFX system, supplied to me with the GF32-64mmF4 R LM WR & the GF110mmF2 R LM WR lens
Its a 51 megapixel sensor with a native 8256×6192 pixel output giving you a 146.3 mg file at 8bit
So on a Durst Lambda, you could make a print 20.6×15.4 inches at 400ppi without any interpolation, and using the enhance feature within Adobe Camera Raw you can easily quadruple the area
Compared to other medium format systems, its remarkably compact, light and affordable, as supplied the UK retail price is around £7995 inc vat
I found this system very portable, and you’re not tied to a laptop or studio, although laptop shooting is available
Outside work is a doddle with this system
The Image below was taken with the 110mm @F9 1/450 at 125asa
The figures on the jetty are around 150 feet away at a guess, the buildings in the far distance are about 14 miles across the Thames estuary, and trust me, they are very sharp, the visual acuity is very impressive on both of these lenses, especially around the f8/16 range
Ive been trying a variety of different subjects, even motorsports!
I have been able to proof a few of these on the Fujiflex and Fuji Matt C-Type medias, they look good and they work well with minimal proccessing if needed
I’m away next week at the University of Suffolk at Ipswich, I’ll take the Camera and do an update soon
Back to track photography at Snetterton in Norfolk on Sunday in the glorious summer sunshine
Just a quick blog post to point you in the direction of the flickr album, the link is below
The flickr is here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/140963830@N07/albums/72157719563710959
This is a follow up to part one after I have had a good chance to look at the new Enhance Function in Adobe’s Camera Raw 13.2
The above image was taken more than 8 years ago with a Canon EOS-1Ds MkII
Its a full frame 16 megapixel sensor paired with a 50 f1.8 standard lens, perhaps a better camera to show how the Enhance Function can work well
The original file would be just under 50mg at 8 bit, using the enhance brings it up to 182mg at 8 bit
The Enhance really does decent job too, just the sort of thing its suited for, its kept a lot of the fine details
The strips above are the image from part one, and have been worked up to be C-Type at 6×4 feet (122x182cm), not an uncommon size we are asked to produce at work, and although hard to see in the camera phone pics, it really is woth going that extra mile to get the better image quality
So overall, while it might seem extreme to some, this function is a very useful and welcome feature, and hopefully in time, will be better intergrated into Camera Raw and Photoshop
S
One of the features tucked away within Adobe’s Camera Raw 13.2 is an Enhance feature
It claims the ability to double your resolution, but does it work?
Lets take a quick look
How does it work?
Once you have imported your raw file into Camera Raw, right click on your image
I would suggest working with one file at a time, as is seems to be memory hungry
Your new file will be saved as a .dng file, with the original name with -Enhanced added
Open the .dng version of you file, and you will have your new Super Enhanced version
What does it do?
At a glance, it does indeed double your resolution
So on my 5Ds a full sized processed file at 8bit would be 144mg at 8688 x 5792 pixels
Using the enhance feature the file at 8 bit is 575mg at 17376 x 11584 pixels
Twice the height and width, and four times the area
But does it work, well sort of
Its seems to deal well with most things, but struggles with some textures as we will see
The Results
All in all, not to bad really, but lets look at this next image
So lets have a closer look
It is a little hard to pick up on the differences online, everything is JPGed, where as the originals are all full sized .PSDs
But i assure you, there is a big and noticeable difference
Perhaps the biggest test will be an actual output, a full sized C-Type or Bromide print
With that in mind, we will look at some real world results in part two of this blog in a week or so
Sean Mulcahy Photographic 