Another post for my shutterbug friends

So what did I learn at the Monterey Historic races? Mainly I was able to confirm several theories I’d developed at the USGP. Going through the on track photos I took, I can say I believe the following at this point:

1. Being close makes a BIG difference. I can take terrible pictures from trackside, of course, but when I get one right it looks much sharper than the best I can do from far away. I suppose this sounds like common sense, but my point is that a long lens only gets you so far toward a nice, sharp image. I posited last time that a long lens is no substitute for being close to the action to begin with, and I think this is true now more than ever. The sharpest pictures I got were ones I took when I was right by the track. How I got there is another story. ;)

2. A fast shutter speed for fast objects is a must, even if you have to boost ISO in broad daylight. Even at 1/500 I got noticeable blur of spinning tires but much better sharpness of the cars. It was a very bright day, and to get to 1/500 at F/13 I had to go to ISO 400, but on the 30D the noise is not bad. (At ISO 800, I start seeing some noise even without zooming in at all. It’s not bad, but it’s there.) It’s certainly visible if you zoom in to 100%, but if you get close enough to fill the screen with the car, you don’t need to zoom in that much for the final image, do you? For the first time since getting the 30D, I started using Shutter Priority to experiment with various speeds and the results have suggested guidelines like this:

• If the car is moving fast and you want a clear shot without panning, go at least 1/500 and up to 1/1000, though unless the car is really hauling as you approach 1/1000 you’ll nearly stop tire/wheel blur, too.
  
• Judging the right aperture for desired DOF takes experience or a DOF calculator. Trying to get the whole car in focus, I played around a lot with smaller apertures and often got the car in focus but also too much DOF. How about this for a gadget: a laser distance to subject finder that you point at the car, which then gives you a read out of DOF for a given aperture and focal length combo? I’d buy one after Saturday’s experience!
  
• If you are panning and want a lot of background blur, slow the shutter way down and take A LOT of shots, hoping to get some right. I found that 1/120 was a bit too slow for the amount of background blur I wanted as the cars moved from Turn 6 toward the corkscrew. 1/80 was good but very hard to get the driver sharp as I panned.

3. If you’re able, have two cameras with different lenses. A crash happened right in front of me when I happened to have the 24-70 mounted. The shots I got of the crash and the aftermath would be better if I had had a second body with the 100-400 ready to go. I felt that if I’d changed lenses at the moment, I’d have missed something, but looking at the photos, I should’ve done so anyway. The shots of Mr. Rutherford helping Mr. Elford out of his wrecked car are too far away.


Using different settings on my camera this time gave me a lot more clear shots than I got at the USGP and put my mind to rest about my camera body. I had been wondering, since I see so few pros using the 1D series rather than the 30D, if this camera is capable of taking good sports shots and now I know that it is if I do everything right.

But shooting things as fast as racing cars and bikes at speed is very challenging for the amateur. I hope I’ll be able to refine my technique further in September at the AMA event at Laguna Seca! Now, should I rent Big Bertha again…?

34th Rolex Monterey Historic Races

Some of my photos from the Historic Races at Laguna Seca are up on Flickr. This was a fantastic event for fans of American motor racing, with cars from many, many eras on display in the paddock and in action on the track.


One of the highlights for me was seeing cars from the legendary Can-Am series, which I had seen in person as a child at Sears Point. These 800-bhp monsters have a very distinctive style of bodywork from manufactures such as McLaren, Lola and Porsche. Unfortunately I was not able to attend on Sunday, when the Can-Am cars were on the track, but I did see some amazing older cars being driven by some very brave men and women!


In addition to seeing these old cars, I was able to indulge my interest in older, black and white photos of historic racing scenes. I love older photos of famous cars from past eras of motor racing, and with so many vintage cars on display, I got a few pics that I quite like.



I also spent several hours refining my on-track photography skills. I'll try to find time to write up some of what I learned.

My pics on motoGPmatters.com!

I'm feeling a bit like Nicky Hayden.^^^

After exchanging a few emails with the author of the excellent MotoGP blog, motogpmatters, aka Kropotkin Thinks, I'm pleased to say that some of my USGP pics were featured on Tuesday's post. This was something of a follow up to the previous selection of photos by my friend, Jules Cisek, which whom I spent that Friday shooting the second MotoGP practice. Jules has some great photos up on his gallery.

If you're a MotoGP fan, check out Kropotkin Thinks--there's almost always something interesting to read there. Or to see! ;)

Death to the darlings!

Hemmingway said you have to kill your darlings, and it’s pretty morbid around here lately. I’m on page 110 and the red ink is flowing as I mercilessly delete my most clever sections; for some reason, those seem to have the least to do with the story.

I’m also deleting a lot of non-darling crapola. I’m amazed at writers who can put something that resembles the final version down early in the process. I’ve been writing this book on and off (mostly off) for years and it has changed directions on me more times than I can count. Characters appear briefly, only to be abandoned. The story keeps trying to expand as I try to contain it.

Managing the story is the hardest part for me. I’ve never had trouble sitting down and making a lot of sentences, but telling the story in a direct and efficient way is really a challenge. I’ve been reading Thomas Harris’s Silence of the Lambs and am awestruck by how efficient and disciplined his storytelling is. There doesn’t seem to be a single extraneous word in that book, and that’s what I’m striving for.

I’m trying to fit this editing in as I can: while my daughter is eating her breakfast I sit beside her scratching out paragraphs and adding notes, as I eat my breakfast after taking her to school. Home repair and photography have ground to a halt, and my posts here have been few, as well.

As I’ve mentioned to some of you in person, this is it. Once this book is off to New York, that’s all he wrote. Unless…