As I’ve said before, I love old vehicles, the more hand crafted the better. With vintage stuff a good chunk of the machine is out there in front of God and everybody to see. If modern machines have gotten wrong, it’s hiding everything under a cover of blacked aluminum. It reduces an engine to a black box instead of the metal balloon that contains the power of exploding gasoline and hard moving metal. A Turbo Porche going a hundred miles and hour is cool to watch but you watch a car built in 1934 do the same? That is inspiring.
Mosport (yeah I know what it’s called now but everybody still just calls it Mosport) is actually a bit of a bitch of a track to shoot at. There’s a lot of elevation changes. Sight lines are not always the best and the track is really big. The above shit is on corner five, which is a hairpin at the top of a hill that drops down to the straightaway on it’s back side. The shot above looks like I’m at track level but the truth is I’m forty feet up a bank shooting down into the corner with the lens maxed out at 500mm (800mm equivalent).
This race was the real test for me as far as this new long zoom goes. I knew I’d be faced with many of the same focusing conditions (among other challenges) and light issues on objects moving very fast by me. My older Canon zooms had been letting me down big time in this department. Their auto focus was time and time again letting me down on subjects moving towards me and past me. A focus that can keep up with the action is a must. When you drop $1200 on a lens, you really worry that you’ve gotten your money’s worth. Of course part of it is you also figuring how to use this new tool you’ve acquired properly.
A similar shot at 150mm (240mm equivalent) to show the real bank of the shot.
There were more than a few rare cars out there. This Ferrari was one of them.
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Lotus 2
This thing was fast.
My personal favorite.
My personal favorite.
Sometimes bits drop off.
And sometimes you’re in the weeds.
The open wheel Monopostale class was lots of fun.
This believe it or not, was the fastest car in its class. This guy lapped everybody except four cars.
Yes, I can read your dash.
There’ were two Hondas in this class and they sounded like they were running a 8000rpm.
And there you have it. Some of the best shots out of the 2700 exposures I shot that day. Which is why it took me so long to post these up. That’s a fair bit of work.
The Rough Draft 