Motorsports Photography

Having tried my hand at this only once before, back in early 2006 when I was still getting used to a D-SLR, when I heard that Formula 1 was coming to Singapore this September, I thought, ‘hmmm, should be quite interesting’. The event being a night race (first of its kind) brought one main questions to my mind. ‘Will there be enough light to photograph something moving at 100-200kmph?’. But the organizers had promised everyone enough flood-lights to make the track as bright as day, and having seen the lights a couple of weeks before the races gave me confidence that I probably get a few decent captures.

 

And then came race day. The many other support races being held before the highlight F1 race, it gave me enough time to practice my panning skills etc.  Another slightly annoying problem with the Marina Bay Circuit was that it had 3-4 meter high metal fencing going all around the track, hence obstructed cars. Auto Focus was indeed a terror. At one time it would the high speeds at which the cars were moving, posed a problem for the camera, as it wasn’t able to auto-focus fast enough for the continuous-shooting mode I was on. Adding to the complications was the fence itself! Often the fence ended up being the undesirable subject of focus. My remedy for this was to switch off auto-focus and manually focus on one point on the track (probably right before or right after a corner) and shoot. Though it produced a number of captures that were ‘not so much’ in focus, those that were in focus, were simply stunning.

 

Looking back now, I guess I could say that I had 4 main formats/styles of photographs. Let me elaborate.

 

One (probably one of the best) is to get as close to the fence as possible. This would mean the fence could be lost in the shallow Depth of Field  (DOF). But this would also mean using a high focal length, hence a narrower region which severely restricts the capture of the fast moving object. A perfect example was my BMW Formula capture at the Esplanade Corner. I had moved to about 4 feet from the fence with the focus point being the cars at about 30 feet away from me (and lens at its maximum 200mm). And as they drove by I tried a slight pan, though it didn’t show much due to the 1/500s speed.

 

Else one could just step back a fair distance and zoom in as much as possible.  But now a fairly significant amount of fencing would be showing in the photo.  If you’re new at this, you can shoot with a wider angle and crop the photo later. One of the plus points is that your panning doesn’t  necessarily have to be top-notch. They won’t be the best, but your photos wont suffer from motion blur ‘too much’. Hey, if you feel confident enough you can zoom right in on the car and try some panning. I tell you the results will be simply stunning! One of my favorite such shots was the RedBull Racing car from the Bay Grand Stand. The panning was so precise that the car simply looks like it was sitting still despite traveling at around 160kmph. The panning has also helped cut out the fence by 50%. What do I mean by 50%? Well, all the vertical fencing-wires have simply been ‘blurred out’, while the horizontal ones look like simple streaks of white light.

 

If you don’t want to deal with any sort of fencing the only place you can photograph the cars is from above. Having found myself a f few nice corners at different points of the day, I was able to capture some very good unobstructed cars. But this would mean except for the car, the background would be just be dull tarmac. It helps to include maybe a bit of the road markings, or fencing to give a sense of movement. This is a trick/style I have always used (To include a known static object to give a sense of proportion/movement).

 

Another photo that I liked was the one I got through a 10mm wide angle lens. In this the camera is pretty much stationary at about 50cm away from the fence at a corner where the cars drive by leaving a gap of no more than 1m between themselves and the fence. The converging lines of the fence gave a sense of distance to the photograph, which I liked very much, even though the car would suffer from motion blur.

 

In addition to the technicalities, one important attribute I have noticed is, when photographing motor sports is ‘Don’t always take the same photograph’. If you take 14 pictures of th 14 cars taking the same corner while using the same framing style on all the photographs, the chances are that the viewer is going to get tired of the photos by the time he reaches No.5 and probably might not even go on to look at the rest. The best is to walk around and try different angles. Yes, its very VERY tiring, considering the fact that if you don’t walk/run pretty fast, race would be over before you reposition yourself. If that’s too hard, try framing the shot differently, position the car in different places in the frame, or crop the frame in to shapes other than the conventional portrait and landscape. Believe me it helps.

 

Like me, if you are deeply passionate about cars just as you are about photography, in some cases, at time you can imagine the type of photograph you would like to see, and then all you have to do is capture it. Besides that, there are many many more little tricks you realize and learn through hand on practice. Like I have heard from a number of photographers that I personally admire, the best way is to simply keep on clicking. You can only get better!

How Many mega pixles is YOUR camera? Oh my camera phone is 5.0mp!

“Wow your pictures are so clear, how many mega-pixels is your camera?”

OK, this is probably the most hated question I have been asked about my photography. Not because I am ashamed of my camera’s highest possible resolution but because it is a very very ignorant question. Most times I cant be bothered to start an explanation so I would say “Its 10.0mp”. But the truth is by default I take all photographs at only 2.0mp with ‘basic quality’ (yes not even ‘normal’)… But at times I would get into a discussion about the topic and start explaining why my 2.0pm photos are clearer than their 5.0mp camera phone photographs. Yes, I’ll explain with time. That’s a blog for another day!

 

But lesson of the day: please don’t appear to be ignorant and ask people how many megapixles their camera is!