It was a late night of dancing at the Salsa-Bachata Throwdown last night. And it’s an early call this morning at the races! At this time, I am out getting some video and photos at the racetrack. I’m getting some good video for a personal project. The red car below was built and raced by my father in law. It is a beautiful convertible that resembles a Shelby Cobra. I particularly like the peal red paint. It is easy to find as his group zips around the track.
TimeLine Media logo on my father-in-law’s car that he races at Summit Point RacewayEntrance wristband for a day at the racetrack
Since this is a large racing facility, you cannot see all the track from any vantage point. With this in mind, you need to pick certain areas and stay in that area for the entire race. Although you cannot see everything, there is nice access to exciting curves around the infield. I plan to have a short video to share with you soon. It’s a beautiful day to be outside! Hope you too are enjoying the weather.
Camera on a tripod for a video shoot at Summit Point in West Virginia
Flower bed photographed with the Nikon 70-200mm F/2.8 lens
This Nikon 70-200mm lens is the first professional lens I had the opportunity to purchase. The above photo is the first I took with it right out of the box. Just a simple shot of the front bed of mums. Truth be told, my mom helped me out with the payment – but I have made good use of the investment.
Professional Gear
The 70-200mm is the most versatile lens in my bag. I have used it on almost every assignment from ballroom dance, to weddings, sports, and portraits. When I first started using the lens, it seemed like it instantly transported my photography to the next level. This was different from other “new” lenses because of two factors. The first is the focal length – starting at 70 and going to 200 means that you cannot take a shot that is too wide.
Anything you are trying to photograph with this lens has to be a good distance from the camera, and many distractions will be eliminated from the frame. Both of these factors already change how you think about composition, making it simpler than if you had a wider angle lens on your camera. With an isolated subject, now you only need to think about placement of your main subject, and maybe something at the edges that would give some context.
Portraits
All camera manufacturers make a variant of this lens, so this information is not exclusive to Nikon. The other technical specification of this lens that helps your photography is it’s constant f/2.8 maximum aperture across all focal lengths. There are kit lenses that are sold with cameras that have longer focal lengths, but their max apertures vary getting smaller as the lenses is zoomed out to it longest focal length. Having f/2.8 allows me to photo at lower ISO settings in low light situations like conference rooms, and dance studios.
For shooting any field sports, the 70-200mm lens would be a minimum for catching action on the field. It was often too short to catch game action for me without extreme cropping. On the practice field or warm ups before the game, however, it was still able to work its magic.
Auto racing is another challenge to capture in photographs for different reasons that ballroom dance. In ballroom dance, there is a limit to how far you can change the background in the photo. Better photos have cleaner backgrounds. If you have an entire racetrack to choose from, you should find a spot without too many distractions. For these photos, I did not have any special credentials to shoot the track. So I had to find accessible areas in the spectator sections that would be clean enough for photos.
Summit Point, West Virginia
The distractions around the track include spectator stands, safety tires piled by fences for safety, and unpaved track. This is difficult to do completely. So I look for spots where these are minimized. Then I pan the camera as the cars go by to blur the backgrounds, keeping the cars sharp. It always takes a few tries to get into the rhythm of following the cars this way. In the top photo, you can see two of the wheels of the Corvette off the ground as it goes through the apex of its turn. I tried to get this shot 4 times before one finally came out where everything was sharp, and the wheels were in the air.
In this next photo, the fuel mixture was a little “rich” with excess fuel being expelled as the car downshifted through the turn. The flame would show in the braking at this turn for approximately 2 seconds. I used the motor drive on the Nikon D4 to catch the flame at the tailpipe. This was the best of the attempts. In the other photos, the flame was either too small, or I just caught the smoke left after the flame dissipated.
If you pan the camera along with slowing the shutter speed down, you can keep the car body sharp, but blur the wheels keeping the sense of speed on display. Having too high of a shutter speed will freeze the wheels making it look like the car is just parked on the track. This is similar to ballroom dancing for me. I love to see motion in the faces, and the costumes of the dancers. Capturing motion in a still image is more challenging, but holds my attention much longer.
