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.
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