Night Racing

[SmartWombat]

I didn't know you were a race fan, drop my on hy other two threads, GT and F3.
I hope you enjoy the ALMS, I know nothing about the circuit and positioning for the good shots, but as a fan I hope you have some knowledge of the track.
That will help you find the right spot for the overtaking moves.
I was toying wiht the idea of walking a lap of Silverstone but the weather put me off

What can I say about the light trails other than I'm just different?
My view is that the trailing headlight detracts from the body of the car, which is what I'm trying to photograph.

The problem with that first photo is that as the cars turn in for Copse (first corner) their headlights point away from the camera, so the cars on the straight appear brighter.
Also the GT cars have yellow headlamps, and the prototypes white, so there is a mix towards the rear of the field.

The three cars together was in retrospect too tight, I agree. It's tricky timing the cars in the corner and I wanted to get Allan McNish (one of my wife's favourites) while he was storming through the field after the first storm passed through.
I was shooting with the 100-400 at 400mm and F5.6 wide open.
If I could afford ?5000 ($7500) for the big glass, then I'd be able to shoot stopped down and possibly get better DoF.
But in thie case I like the separation of the front two cars.

I thought hard about htat light trails shot, I have several more but that was the best of the bunch, I thought.


You want more? Coming up !!

#1) TVR on the far side of the circuit.
Massively cropped about 1/8 frame on the 20D, 400mm lens, ISO1600 1/125 wide open

#2) It's a Porsche, honest!
I thought this was a reject but a friend of mine wanted it on his wall as a poster.
Totally off the wall, I tried panning at 1/3 second and with mirror lock up I'm surprised it was this close to on target !

#3) three wheels on his Saleen
A friend phoned me from his couch, watching the race on TV, to tell me that car was coming round on 3 wheels ! Thanks to MIke I got the shot.
Thanks to the 580EX from about 100 metres on full power I got to see the broken brake rotor as well under the rear arch.

#4) one of the light trail rejects
I decided the novelty of the safety car strobes didn't compensate for the overexposed grandstand in the background - was I right?

[SmartWombat]

I thought about it a bit more, and that's the starter's gantry used for the F1 races.
Here (belatedly) is the cropped version, with that gantry removed.