Sunday, September 14, 2008

this man wants to die

13

Just look at him. I spent a lot of time at turn 10 on the Main circuit at Summit Point shooting the riders, and it was instantly a different game from shooting cars at an autocross. Since the corner was so wide, there weren't many of the framing challenges of cars taking wildly different lines at wildly different speeds and angles. However, the actual speeds were _much_ higher. The combination of the riders traveling across my field of vision and the distance to the track requiring max zoom made it rather difficult to track the bikes properly as I panned. It made selecting the right shutter speed a little tricky. I had trouble finding that sweet spot between motion blurred backgrounds and sharp subjects, and I was dancing around 1/400 and 1/1000+ all day. At autocrosses, I'm down at 1/150-1/250, and it's a lot easier to keep cars in frame (and often the best shooting locations are for a long 180R corner that gives me maybe 10 shots per car versus the 4-5 I was getting here).


11-914

That said, it's a _lot_ easier to make interesting, dynamic-looking shots. Well-sorted cars driven skillfully usually appear rather tame in stills without a lot of background motion blur. Bikes just naturally _feel_ more dynamic, with exposed riders and huge lean angles. Also helps that there's more than one in a shot...

DSC_0636

I like the wide angle of this shot with one bike coming into pit while the three behind it fly by at race speed. It really gives you a sense how wide that corner is. I bet I could take it wide open in 3rd....


alanbernard

Obligatory shot of Alan and Bernard test riding the R6. There's quite something to be said about a company letting you test drive a vehicle on the track at full track speeds for the free. ...but I shall refrain from getting into why "sports" cars these days ought to drop the "sport" moniker.

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