
I spent a day with the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM and wanted to share my experience with this beast. I went to VIR in Alton, VA with some friends and family and wanted see what I could do with it. I’ve never done any high speed photography so I had no idea what to expect. I set off with one thing on my mind…..SPEED! I wanted to capture motion in a way many people have done before. I did a little research and found out this lens would be the best weapon. I mounted this huge piece of glass to my Rebel XTi and climbed the bleachers. The race was in the middle of the day with good sunlight so I was able to stay around the sharpest f-stop for this lens which I read is around 7 to 10. I parked it at 8 and compensated for the rest. I wanted to keep the background as blurred as possible while keeping my race car in sharp focus. I found that alot of things had to work together in order to find that perfect shutter speed. My distance from the car, the speed of the car, and background came together to show the best motion blur at around 1/200th of a second. Since I had plenty of light I stayed with a low ISO of 200 to keep out unwanted noise. Over all I’m pretty impressed with how they came out. I took 220 photos and had about 30 keepers. I did get quite a few laughs when I pulled out my miniture XTi with that monster mounted on the end but at least it looked cool.
My favorite shot probably has to be the close up of the Mini Cooper. First row, last photo. I think the most important thing to remember when capturing a race car is to fill the frame with the car. Everything else is distracting. The shot of the Mini fills up the whole frame but leaves enough space for the blurred background to give you a sense of speed. I my only regret is not being wide enough to catch the whole car. Heres the album…

Audi has revealed some details on their upcoming A1, pictured in the spy shot above.
It will cost about 22,000 USD. There won’t be any downmarket models, such as the Mini First model, a budget version of the normal Cooper. It will be a premium car.
A fully equipped A1 could end up costing well over 33,000 USD.
A lot of the underpinnings will be taken from the Volkswagen Polo, which can be considered a good thing, as it was voted European Car of the Year recently. There won’t be a badge designating the engine, as Audi says that engine sizes will be getting smaller in the future, and that the buyers won’t want to show the world that they are downsizing.
The car will go on sale near the end of 2010.
Source: Evo Magazine