Round 1 - through the lens
Group:
Time Attack Series
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Round 1 - through the lens
Time Attack Round 1 at Donington was my 1st time as an 'official' photographer, having used 2006 as a learning year. It was also my 1st time with my new lens, a 70-200 F2.8 which weighed a ton compared to my previous 70-300 F4-5.6!! The drivers breifing was 1st and it was good to see how professional everything was organised and run, apart from the usual banter! The practice was immediatley after the briefing and I decided to shoot from Redgate (the 1st corner on the circuit) and just before I took a few lineup shots, including the now iconic shot of Rob Barnes doing his best 'stig' impression, of course being the Stig - he didnt talk. Was happy enough with the shots I got of the cars braking into Redgate, the only downer was the low sun (this being 09.20) burning out a lot of the shots,so some white balance adjustment was necessary. Collaring a few drivers for their profile shots finished the morning session for me. Later I needed to get a 'side on' shot of each car so while they were all queued up in the pits waiting to go out I got most of them and then rushed off to the chicane leading onto the straight. Since there are corner markers here which get in the way of the shots,I deliberatley lowered the shutter speed as low as possible,as not only would it blur the wheels of the cars,but also make these markers almost disappear so they only appeared as streaks rather than solid posts, later I moved out to the 'crows nest', in reality a marshals post near the entrance to the chicane, a good spot to get pics of the cars slowing at the end of the long Dunlop straight, a different shooting technique was needed here as the cars are coming towards the camera and not passing/going away from it. After a lengthy review of photos that evening I was happy with the results
The second day was done from the balcony overlooking the chicane from the previous day,which offered new angles to use, which was used to maximum effect also, as the timed laps for qualifying into the actual Time Attack were done at this time. Then the part I was most looking foward to, over to Craner Curves to shoot the finals. 1 of the faster parts of the track, over a crest and down into a slight bend at well over 100mph which was a big difference to the speeds the cars were doing when I was shootig the previous day. A lot of experimentation was done here which resulted in verp sharp,framed shots,which really caught the essence of Time Attack, 1 lap and 1 attempt to be the fastest.
Finally it was to the podium for the trophies to be presented and my only disappointment, in that despite my shouting and waving, not everyone on the podium looked in the direction of the camera, maybe next time
Equipment used:
Nikon D70S camera
Nikon 18-70 F3.5-5.6 DX ED Lens
Sigma 70-200 F2.8 DG HSM Macro Lens
Sigma 1.4 Teleconvertor
Hoya UV/Polarising Filters
Manfrotto 222 grip with monopod
Lexar/Transcend 2GB Compact Flash Cards
Adobe Photoshop CS2 V9.0
My photos from the weekend can be seen at
So til the next time at Round 2, keep watching the above sites for more info and of course here at Motor Addicts
Ed Fahey
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