Hope everyone had a great Labor Day holiday yesterday! It was a nice three day weekend, and it was nice to have a break from working on the computer. However, I did not take a break from the camera. I covered the last of the Tysons Corner Center concert series on Friday, helped a colleague cover a wedding ceremony and reception on Saturday, and Sunday was a track day!
I went out to Summit Point Raceway in Summit Point, WV to photograph cars racing in the Labor Day Double. There were lots of races throughout the warm day, and we had some rain storms come through during one of the runs.
Trying to photograph race cars as they speed by on the track is a fun photography challenge! As with all photos, I try to get as clean a background as I can. Around the track, there are areas where there are not too many tire barriers, but these are hard to avoid. What helps to clean up the background is to blur it out of focus by panning, or following the cars with the camera as it goes by.
If you have a slow enough shutter speed, only the car body will be in focus, and everything else in motion will be nicely blurred. This includes the wheels and tires on the car making a much more dynamic image. If your shutter speed is too fast, your car may be in sharp focus, but the wheels will be sharp. It may look as if the car is just sitting motionless on the track!
Set your camera’s auto focus to track subjects, then pan along with the cars as they go by and fire off the shutter as many times as the motor drive will allow. You will have a much better chance of getting at least one photo in sharp focus, with motion shown in the wheels. It takes me a few races before I really start to feel confident in getting good images. It is a fun subject to spend the day shooting!
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