hacker-pschorr

Before you start knocking a pro photographer trying to make a living, please check out their site. They do offer full color prints as well as digital files. Also, why shouldn't they charge for digital prints as well? Since when is a person's time not worth anything just because its digital? The picture isn't "ruined" if you want the high quality original, buy it. If $5.00 is too expensive for a pint of your own car, you souldn't be driving a Porsche.

Sorry for the rant, I've been shooting semi-pro for 15 years. Ever since digital came out, less people see a value in a pro's work.

For the record, I have no affiliation with this photographer.

Rich Sandor

The watermarks are not professional. that is my point. I would like to pass that on to the photographer.

hacker-pschorr

I guarantee you the amount of customers he looses by having the watermark is far less than the number of people that would simply download the photo is it wasn't there. That is my point.

keith

Oh, and here's an interesting tidbit for you guys that use your cars -

Before the autocross, I had the front suspension lowered until I had 13" to 13.15" between the center of the wheel and the top of the wheel arch, as many of us do. (this is with STOCK 1989 M030 Konis/Springs/Torsion Bars)

At this height, even when running with 4 year old A032Rs, the cornering action on the suspension was such that the body touched the ground in the front!

Not only that, but the outside strut went immediately to full compression and BOUNCED in the strut housing around the corner!
After half the day, we raised the front end by .5" according to the springplates, and corrected a lot of this.

The moral of the story is this: don't run these cars low unless you've had a spring upgrade. The 180# equivalency of the M030 springs aren't enough, by a large margin, to allow the suspension to function correctly...
(Hopefully my struts are still ok after the beating...)

Here is a shot of the front end with increased travel, later in the evening:
(much better than the earlier 'scrape' shot!)

Rich Sandor

Keith! Woah! I was thinking of getting Ao32R's for my 17" wheels - but I have the most body roll of all the 951 guys, AND my car is already lowered. I fear I'd be in the same boat as you and scrape with Ao32Rs. Do you have a strut tower brace as well? Apparently with the stiffer springs and slicks, there's a lot more stress on the strut towers..

Quote:
I guarantee you the amount of customers he looses by having the watermark is far less than the number of people that would simply download the photo is it wasn't there. That is my point.

I totally agree, and that's the problem. More people would check out the site if they thought there was a chance of finding more high-res, high quality photos. Even just 4 or 5 high-res samples would be better publicity than dozens of low-res action shots with a cheesy inverted colour, arial font logo smeared dead centre. I'm not slandering ASP - he's a obviously a skilled photographer.

But the watermarks are a turn off. People won't check out the site if they know all the sample are going to be small watermarked images.

check out:

www.goodbrush.com
www.fastdetails.com
www.gogoracing.com

Pros with lots of excellent wallpaper quality images, no nasty watermarks, and they are all making a healthy living!

Hell, look at your own galleries! You've taken some wicked pics!!! I'd be more inclined to ask you to photograph my car!

BTW - I would never make such a big deal out of something so stupid if it wasn't for the fact that I've spent the last 4 hours in front of a computer - at work - with no work to do.

hacker-pschorr

For an example of a "friendlier" watermark, check this out:
www.partypics.com - event code "elkhart"
If the plug-in installs correctly, the pics is free of watermarks. If you don't download the viewer, its watermarked worse than the photo's we've been discussing. Talk about one extreme or the other.

Its been proven that sales are higher with watermarks. I don't like them either, but its a fact of life in the digital world. What we used to do is just up load a lower resolution photo thinking people wouldn't want that low quality anyway. We were wrong. In this day and age (see MP3's) less people care about quality. If you can get a low res pick for free, why pay for a high quality one? It sucks.

About my site, thanks. I don't "protect" those pics since they are my personal pics not ones I'm selling. The above site "partypics" is where I market my photos. I don't think The Racers Group is going to be downloading my photos for their own use. Rennlist did though!! But they did ask first.

I do apologize for getting so heated about this, its a very personal subject I've been fighting for a while now. Kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. Maybe I should cut off my arm like that one climber did this year.

Luke

They looked it up in the book and said all 951's should be in 'A'. S2's run in 'B'. It was a really tight course so I could get outta first. ( I did better because then I always had boost )

Z-man

Per SCCA's rules, the 944 Turbos (all of them, including the 951S), and the 16-valve 944S and 944S2 all run in B-stock.

See here.

-Z.

PS: Nice body lean! I know that feeling all too well!!