thanks very much for all the advice peeps
Prints - yep, and the test prints (to me at least) were crap (i.e. the sky part)
- shocking in terms of speckles in the blue sky - totally surprising
- never eva seen anything like it actually - even a bunch of 6 x 4's
- except where the sky was lighter there was some noticeable improvement (but still not great for bigger prints), so yep agree leaving off the polariser sounds a goer
but there seems no problem with the main subjects in the photos (e.g. riders and bikes)
- they turned out really good, and pretty sharp and clear
(even though they tooo were blue or partly blue)
- so much so really want to fix it, and try prevent it happening again, & would maybe give serious consideration to total sky replacement in the best pix of these pix if knew how, or something ? gotta be something ?
400 ISO is a little better, and yes far preferable, tho not heaps in terms of this blue sky problem here
- had not really used the ISO 800 much on the 40D (in daylight)
- so pretty disappointing
- & also pretty reluctant to bother much with ISO 400 for skys/daytime landscapes on 40D now.
Why prefer ISO above 200 for fast action sport / motorsport / unpredictable sports (where possible) ??
yep, for usual very good reasons
- because it is an action packed motorsport
- because they are moving across the lens, & not towards it
- lots of continual panning is involved
- because there is 1, or more different things/peeps contantly moving high through the sky in unpredictable paths doing unpredictable movements like turns, twists & somersaults (& literally all of those at once)
- subject will often also be a fair distance away - eg. 50ft high or even much more, plus some ground distance away
(sometimes shots will also be at night or sunset, but which perhaps has a somewhat different set of factors to consider)
This is fun to shoot and watch and the shots are fine - except for the crappy digital artifects in the sky.
Possible Heat Factor - from reading, it seems possible heat may have also been a factor to heighten the speckles on this particular day/usage - maybe this may help to explain the extremity of the effect???
Fuji pro 800 or 400 film on an EOS3 or VS
- seems Fuji film would have done an exceptional job with the sky by comparision to the 40D, and even to the new 5DII by the sounds of it???
How do u reckon a EOS DMk III or Ds Mk III might go with the sky? Similar problems? or much better? How are they with the higher ISOs?