There’s a bit of a flow to the way I’m going to word this blog so I’m putting it in two parts. The first of these parts is being posted first, which makes it posted second on the page (for that true feeling of irony I know you like so much). I want it to read like “A1: The Cars, The Cameras” since that flows out of the mouth better than the opposite.
So, without any further rambling other than what will be the entirety of this blog in and of itself…
[b]A1: The Cameras[/b]
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-01.jpg[/img]
One of the things you find very common going to a car racing event is that yes, there are a lot of cars which have cost a lot of money, but there are also a lot of cameras which in their own right have cost a lot of money, too.
Having been to the Formula 1 in Melbourne several times before, I’ve seen this to be the case. While the F1 in Melbourne has some very stupid rules in regards to lens types you can bring in (a 300mm restriction even if many P&S’s can technically get closer: go you!!!), you still find a lot of fans with their cameras trying to get around the rules and the fences to get a nice shot of the fast cars as well as loads of press inside the track lines and throughout the pits aiming to get that better shot they can sell.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-04.jpg[/img]
They walk around carrying their cameras by their lenses with the monopods mounted to the collar on the lens because it’s just that much easier to walk around with the weight of the lens being the driving force for the rest of the camera.
Makes sense, mind you. I do it too.
Plus, it makes you look the part.
And all of this is normal. It’s very normal to see photographers looking the part inside a track at a car race, just as its very normal to see loads of them and to have them using the very best in equipment to get that shot at the right speed in the right quality without any sense of compromise.
This is where the A1 differed greatly photography wise from other car races.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-06.jpg[/img]
You see, the A1 Grand Prix was held at Eastern Creek, which while a nice track, doesn’t have a lot of room for grandstand spectator seats. It really is made for the Aussie. You drive up to the track-side, get your gear out, and go walkabout with your gear strapped to you and no one bats an eye lid. There’s fencing all around the track, but not as much of it as you think and there’s certainly enough room to really shoot from most locations to get that good shot without being those extra few yards closer that having a media pass might warrant.
And that’s a good thing because there were a lot of photographers with Nikons and Canons and P&S’s, oh my!
But the photographers sitting in the track should look the part. It’s part and parcel with being a press photographer. It makes the event feel more whole in that it’s being covered by photographers who ARE photographers and who aren’t just posing to get ahead.
Half of the photographers looked like the pro’s in the photos above, [url=http://chimp.dslrusers.com]chimping[/url] away to get that photo they know they’ve gotten…
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-07.jpg[/img]
…while the other half looked like this guy above.
I’m sorry, but shooting on a silver Pentax digital even if it has a long lens DOES NOT make you a professional. You certainly aren’t shooting with anything that will give you that professional edge and shooting with something silver makes you look like an idiot.
And it sucks that I have to say this too, as I don’t like to be someone who sits up here and says that the camera should make a difference.
But it does.
And when you see ‘togs shooting with a Nikon D2h or D2x or Canon users with 1DsMk2’s or 30D’s and then you see a couple more with either a shiny silver Pentax or a shiny silver Canon, you know that there is something wrong with how this race is being covered.
Black is professional, people. Silver is not. White / beige lenses are just as good as black ones. But silver is not accepted.
Why? It looks so amateurish. You look like such a fool in using it.
And the fact that it’s silver tells the rest of us on the outside of the track that you’re not a pro and that you’re just one of us but with a worse-off camera that somehow found a way in to get those extra few yards closer with a piece of crap that is your camera.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-05.jpg[/img]
[i]This guy looked like he could’ve been good. He even did tricks. Here he is getting ready to run up a ramp with his gear for a nice jumping stunt…[/i]
That said, I’m not much better. With my press credentials now, I forgot to get Sheepie & myself access in time for the A1. I’m currently working on getting one of our correspondents in England and another in Hong Kong access into each of the English and Chinese races, respectively, but based on the sort of “press feel” I got from the A1, there weren’t a whole lot there (there weren’t many people either) and the entire thing just made me wonder if anyone — press or otherwise — really gave a damn about the A1 Grand Prix.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-02.jpg[/img]
I don’t however spend all my time at a Grand Prix watching the cars go round.
Simply put: my attention span isn’t quite good enough and being young, I need something else to bide my time with while other crap is or isn’t going on.
So, I took a few pictures of some random things like a cute girl whose back was turned on me (and whose boyfriend wasn’t around at the time) and then of Sheepie’s son Luke who was with us on his very first race.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-03.jpg[/img]
And then when the final qualifying had started up, I came up with an interesting idea. I figured I was there and I should do it because how many chances do you get to try something that no one else at the race track is likely to try.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-08.jpg[/img]
I started shooting in infrared.
This wasn’t easy as I hadn’t brought either of the 24 or 50mm lenses that the 52mm IR filter fits onto, so I had to do [url=https://www.leighlo.com/spore/index.php?gallery=./Blind-Darkly]my old technique of holding the filter over the lens[/url] and hope that the car was in shot at the time I pressed the trigger.
Straight out of the camera, it doesn’t look fantastic. Red shots of cars going by — hell, red shots of anything really — aren’t going to look like the most fantastic thing to ever take your eyes.
However, once you’ve processed the images with one of your (my very own one!) presets for converting Infrared images to a silver-gelatin form of black & white in digital, you end up with images that make the A1 feel like it’s an old car race.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-A1P1-09.jpg[/img]
I’ll probably come with an IR filter again to a race next time to see what sort of shots I can come up with. Still, I bet I was the only one shooting like this out there in that entire weekend.