Brands Hatch Fun Day / Photography Workshop - 24 May 2015

[Mike Farley]

Glyn Bareham is again running his annual photo meet at Brands Hatch on Sunday 24 May. The meeting is at the Historic Masters Festival for older racing cars* and one of the attractions of Brands Hatch is that you can get quite close to the action and do not need anything beyond a moderate telephoto lens to get great shots. There is an example in the link at the foot of this post. If you have not been either to a motor racing event or Brands Hatch before, Glyn will be on hand to give you advice. Apart from the entry fee, which is paid to Brands Hatch, there is no other cost. I have been trying to get to this event for the past two years and something has come up on both occasions, so maybe it will be third time lucky?

This is the link for advance booking - http://www.brandshatch.co.uk/calendar/2 ... sters.aspx

The following is the text of Glyn's e-mail, with the only amendment being the removal of his mobile phone number as the forum is publicly viewable. If anyone needs Glyn's contact details, let me know and I'll drop you a PM.

"Hi Everyone,

"Please note this years event details.

"You can either book on line beforehand to save a little, or on the gate on the day, Seniors save more by paying at the gate, (no extra cost for anyone, only admission).

"If you don't know Brands, as you go through the main gate keep going straight ahead past the back of the grandstands & a row of shops when you get to the end you will see a building (the Kentagon) in front of you, we will be meeting in front of this at 9am, most years we have 50 or so people turn up so you should have no trouble seeing us all with photography bags etc. no need to let me know your coming, just turn up !

"In the event of any hold ups etc. my mobile on the day will be xxxxxxx. (IF I can hear it !)

"I look forward to seeing you on the day, do come up & make yourself known.

"Glyn."

http://www.brandshatch.co.uk/media/3510 ... e-5397.jpg

* Which will mean that they will be easier to photograph as they will be going more slowly, right?

[Mike Farley]

A reminder for this event tomorrow. When Glyn gave his talk at the club a couple of seasons ago he showed us some of his excellent shots from Brands Hatch and said that it is possible to get quite close to the action. Not quite as close as the photographer who is shooting a NASCAR event and featured in this story, though.

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/20 ... rom-the-ca

[Mike Farley]

A very enjoyable day, one marked by my taking the most shots ever on one occasion, 993 to be precise, which occupied 20 GB's worth of memory cards. Of course, it will also be the highest number of deletions ever, as most are either not sharp or the subject is not fully in the frame, sometimes being absent altogether.* These might be historic vehicles, but they are definitelly not mollycoddled due to their age and are driven as hard as they were in their heyday**, so successfully capturing them as they speed past is not easy. At points on the course the F1 cars are reaching 170 mph and are especially tricky.

Hopefully I'll have a sufficient number of images which are in focus to keep me going in competitions for a few seasons - all I need is a dozen per season, one per competition. You have been warned.

* There seems to be a rule that if the whole of a car is in the frame, then it will be out of focus and only sharp if part is excluded.

* The public are free to wander around the paddock where the cars are prepared before races and I saw a vintage Aston Martin, which is probably worth many £00,000s, with a large dent in its rear wing. These cars are not museum pieces and are being used to their limits.

[Mike Farley]

A very enjoyable day, one marked by my taking the most shots ever on one occasion, 993 to be precise .....

An addendum.

I was a bit disappointed when I realised that I had not quite made the four figure mark during the day, before realising that I had forgotten a couple of things. Firstly, aware that I might be short of memory cards, I had dleted some during the day. Based on the reference number of the first and last exposures, it turns out that the actual figure takem with that camera was 1054. Then I realised I had taken a few shots, 16 to be precise, on another camera. That made a grand total of 1070, which I do not expect to beat any time soon.

One reason that I shot so much was that I was using the camera's motor drive, set to high speed, so often there were several images in one sequence.

One other thing which I should mention was the performance of the battery on my Canon 7D. After more than a thousand shots, three of the bars on the battery status indicator were still lit. Part of the reason is that although I deleted in camera some obviously out of focus or poorly composed shots, often there was not much time for chimping which reduced the demand on the battery. I suspect that with similar usage it could have gone on to take another thousand images before needing to be recharged. This is a capability which is currently beyond any mirrorless system can achieve and I would have needed at least two spare batteries for my day's shooting. Even with three batteries, that would still not be sufficient to emulate the number of shots between charges the Canon can achieve.

[Mike Farley]

I have just completed the first pass of my images. My main criteria were:

• Is it sharp?
• Does it feature all the car?
• Does the car fill the frame adequately?

Around a quarter of what I shot survived the cull. Now for the trickier "is the shot actually any good?" run through.