In Motion

Hello everyone, this is Stephen, Mike's mate that unwittingly created a bit of a firestorm within this thread. After being told last night about the overwhelmingly negative feedback from the pics he'd added yesterday, I felt that I should let you all know what the circumstances were for this shoot. As Mike had explained originally within his initial post, these shots were taken during the first test of a rig that I had created for my camera vehicle. The purpose of the run yesterday was to isolate what modifications may be required but to also ascertain the appropriate shutter speeds etc required for this style of shoot. As to be expected I had encountered a series of teething problems and issues that I am in the process of amending. As can be seen, the handful of shots that Mike had submitted look significantly softer than what they actually are, and seem to have suffered some degradation due to the automatic resizing of these images. Just look at how soft the watermark is as an example. All of these shots were done by myself, not requiring a driver and somebody else to hang on to my belt as I hang out of the rear of a van or hatchback. They were shot at normal driving speed limits with average shutter speeds of 1/60th sec. As for safety concerns, the highway patrol officer that I'd passed didn't bat an eye lid. I also plan on offering perspectives that can not be achieved by simply hanging a camera out of a car's window, with my camera capable of being mounted as low as 450mm from the road surface as shot during the seemingly controversial photo shoot. What really disappointed me the most was the brash attitude of a couple of members that seemed to have not understood the nature and true spirit of Mike's posting of his pride and joy. It seems that siddr20 had been the only person astute enough to realise this, and had the initiative to check them out on my Myspace page to confirm that they are indeed clearer there. Xmetal, your need to denigrate my first attempt at rolling shots has surprised me the most. Yes, I have some way to go in offering rolling shots to the general public, which is why I did the tests in the first place! Your obvious need to prove to your peers that you're the big dog on campus when it comes photography upon this forum is plain to see, hence your attempts to scent mark this thread. After checking out your Myspace and photobucket images I must agree that you have some good shots there. However you are no Easton Chang, Todd Johnson, Jeff Creech, Robert Kerian or Ansell Adams for that matter, and until your work is of their caliber I believe you should show more humility to fellow photographers and hobbyists. Well, what can I say, not quite the first post I'd like join a forum with, however there's only so much ill informed banter one can handle.