Porsche tribute Austrian Bergrennen

[studioRS]

My Porsche collection I've started in an Austrian themed Bergrennen (hill climb) somewhere in the Alps. I offer my photography as initiation to the fraternal order here. "There are never any used slot cars, only new owners", my collection started where another enthusiast left off... I want to thank Voodoo and Rebecca for making this all happen. These photos are for you guys, enjoy.















Photos shot with an old school lens - Olympus Zuiko 50mm 1.4Æ’ (around 5.6Æ’ for most of these) mounted on my Olympus E-500 digital camera.

Cheers, Thompson

[studioRS]

Awe, thanks :-) At least someone is watching. This is all to get me geared up to build my RS Bergrennen tribute track. Collecting Carrera parts now. I have the Evolution Celebracers set and one extension set now, need the following…
12 - 4/15 curves
10 - 1/30 curves
6 - 2/30 curves
2 - 1/4 straights
1 - Standard stright

Willing to trade graphic design services (including decal designing and printing) for Carrera track, PM for all you interested parties.

Cheers, Thompson

[Ember]

Great photos! Got a hill climb in development here. It's a bit extreme at the moment (I did tell HL that when he started it) but when the current weather calms down a bit, hopefully it can be fixed up and move forward.

[dge467]

Great pic's! Very nice shots! I will someday figure out how to do good close ups!

[studioRS]

[studioRS]

[studioRS]

Here is the following equipment I use...

- Olympus E-500 digital DSLR 4/3rds camera
- Olympus lens adapter
- Olympus Zuiko 50mm Æ’1.4 lens (not mine, but the combo of these looks like this)

- Printed poster hung on foam board
- Kitchen Island
- Carrera track pieces
- Porsche race cars
- Regular halogen kitchen island lighing

When using a vintage Zuiko lens on a newer digital DLSR, you need to set the camera to "M" manual exposure and adjust the shutter speed manually based on lighting and ƒ stop. With the lens wide open at ƒ1.4 your depth of field is super, super short—which means your area to what is in focus is small. Most of these shots I used ƒ5.6 which is halfway open and focal depth was ok, just enough to fuzz (bokah) out the background image and Carrera track as it fades into it.

With the 50mm lens
I purchased a used beautiful unit I hand picked from the used lot at B&H Photo in NYC, mounted on a 4/3rds camera it doubles the lens size, so in essense the 50mm becomes 100mm. There is no zoom, only manual focus and Æ’ stop adjustments.

For color temperature I can manually adjust the white balance on the Oly E-500 and with my yellow halogen lights, set this to 4000K. I did some slight post camera adjusting of color in photoshot, but not much. They still have a warm feel to them.

Film speed on a DSLR is measured with ISO rating, this was set to 400. If I had more time and set up my tripod I would have set this to 100 as the originals get a little grainy on higher ISO. I shot these hand held with the camera resting on island. Hold your breath, click.

So, to try and make these look like "real" racing shots (at least without the wheels turning) I tried to place them in the camera composing to simulate shooting in real life. This means get the lens down at a scale position to the height of a scale photographer would be.

[studioRS]

The Olympus 4/3rds are avaiable through B&H Photo, I bought my E-500 used with two kit lens for under $330.

On this Olympus used listing there is an E-510 which is one model newer than mine and has Image Stabilization (IS), mine does not. This is offered at $219.95 condition 8+ and includes a kit 14-42mm lens (normal equivelent 28-84mm).
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ns ... rtclk=sort




The Olympus lens adapter is here. This enables you to buy used (eBay or local photo stores) with an older manual Olympus Zuiko lens. You loose the automatic focus feature and have to go old school ;)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4 ... apter.html



You don't have to use Olympus, you can go with Canon or a Nikon used full frame DSLR and do the same with mounting old lenses on digital backs. There are plenty of lens adapters available.

[studioRS]

Yeah, no problem. I prefer Olympus because of the superb lens quality and color range on the older Zuiko Lens. There are adaptors to mount Leica to Olympus, Nikon lens to Olympus, Olympus lens to Nikon body, etc...

[Fast Co.]

The old Olympus Zuiko lenses are superb optics. I shot Olympus OM-1 and OM-2 cameras for over 30 years and I still have those cameras today along with about a dozen different Zuiko lenses. The cameras shoot as well today as they when they were new. Years ago I bought an Olympus E-1 but did not care much for it and sold it but I kept the lens adapter knowing that one day I would purchase another Olympus digital camera. I have a Nikon D700 now but it's a heavy and expensive camera and I think I'd like to get something less bulky and less expensive without all the bells and whistles. The four-thirds system cameras are just the ticket.

Very nice pics!

[studioRS]

My next purchase is the new Olympus OM-D E1 body to replace my aging E-500. I will still be able to play with my Zuiko vintage glass and reap the benefits of wicked upgraded digital quality. The reviews on this new OM-D E1 are exceptional.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1 ... micro.html

Review
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympus-om-d-e-m1/20