The historic motor racing season is already in full swing in the UK.Peter de Rousset-Hall whose motor racing action shots have appeared on the blog previously was at the recent Goodwood Members Meeting and Donnington Historics with his very serious gear.
To get this level of quality in motor racing action shots nowadays there are no shortcuts.You cannot do it with a budget DSLR and a kit zoom lens -regrettably.You certainly cannot lean over the fence at Brands Hatch's Kidney Bend like I did at the 1968 British Grand Prix wielding a 3A Leica with just a 50mm lens .See Brands Hatch.Those days are sadly long gone as Peter explains.
"All the photos were taken on Canon 1Dx fitted with a Canon 200-400 f4 lens with a built in 1.4x teleconverter.Most were shot at 400 with the converter engaged and some were quite heavily cropped giving an effective focal length of well over 1000mm.As race tracks are adapted to have ever larger runoff areas the need for cropping, even on long lenses, becomes ever greater.
I can remember standing at the end of the pit straight at Silverstone as a kid and being able to virtually reach out and touch the track.Now you would need arms about 100 yards long when standing there.The good news is that, at a price, the quality of sensors and lenses has improved so much that heavy cropping can still give very sharp results."
I am sure that you will agree that Peter's photos are superb and it is not just down to the gear because he certainly knows where to stand to frame his photos.Thanks for sharing them Peter.
just brilliant.
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