LONG LENS AT LE MANS

The wonderful Canon long lens which I have just sold--see post below - was a very useful tool for shooting at Le Mans .The first shot was taken at the 1998 race and shows the second placed Porsche GT1 -- the sister car to the winner -- coming through the Ford Chicane early in the evening.This photo was taken with the 2 x extender on the lens on High Speed Ektachrome film which by today's standards was pretty slow .With a modern DSLR with a high speed sensor this shot would be a walk in the park.Part of the problem I had was that this shot was handheld -- I should have used a monopod- and the long lens plus the extender was a very heavy piece of kit to hold particularly at lowish shutter speeds.

  
The second shot was taken from the public enclosure on the outside of the Dunlop Chicane just to the south of the Dunlop bridge in 1999 .It was a wonderful vantage point which was eliminated a couple of years later on safety grounds . Probably a wise decision as I was standing on the outside of the track opposite this point at last year's race and a 911 came off and travelled through the gravel trap at a very high speed .It stopped just short of the barrier .On the other side of the track the run-off area/gravel trap is much shorter.
The photo shows a Toyota GT-1 leading a Mercedes CLR and the eventual winner -the Williams constructed BMW V12 LMR- on the second lap of the race. This was also taken with the 2X extender on the lens giving an effective 400 mm lens .