Okay, let’s talk about getting some sprint car racing photos. I decided I wanted to try and capture some of that action down at the local dirt track.
Getting Started
First thing, I had to actually get myself out there. Heard the races were on Saturday night, so I cleared my schedule. Didn’t do a whole lot of planning, really. Just figured I’d show up and see what happens. Packed up my camera bag. Threw in the body, made sure the battery was charged up good. Grabbed a couple of lenses – one wider one and one zoom, you know, to try and get closer to the action from the fence.
Also tossed in some extra memory cards. Learned that lesson the hard way before, running out of space right when things get good. Wiped the lenses clean, ’cause dirt tracks mean, well, dirt. Lots of it.
At The Track
Got to the track. Man, it’s something else. The noise hits you right away. Roaring engines, the crowd buzzing. And the smell of race fuel, you know? Found a spot along the fence in turn three. Seemed like a decent place to maybe catch some slides.
The first few laps, I just watched. Tried to get a feel for how the cars moved, where the good action spots might be. They come flying into that corner pretty hot.
Shooting The Action
Then I started shooting. It’s tougher than it looks. These cars are damn fast. Following them smoothly with the camera, trying to keep ’em sharp? Takes some practice.
- Tried just pointing and shooting first. Got a lot of blurry messes.
- Then I started trying to pan with the cars. You know, swing the camera along as they go by. That worked a bit better for showing the speed. Got the car kinda sharp and the background blurred out.
- Had to fiddle with the camera settings. Bumped up the shutter speed quite a bit to try and freeze the cars better.
- Focusing was a pain sometimes. The camera wanted to grab the catch fence instead of the car. Had to keep trying, adjusting where I aimed the focus point.
Dust was flying everywhere. Constantly wiping my lens. You definitely get dirty doing this. Had a few close calls with chunks of mud flying over the fence too! It’s part of the experience, I guess. Keeps you awake.
Sorting Through The Results
Shot a ton of photos. Hundreds, probably. Back home, loaded them all onto the computer. Went through them one by one. A lot of them were just junk, like I expected. Out of focus, car halfway out of the picture, too dark, whatever.
But, hidden in there were some good ones. The shots where you can really see the dirt flying off the tires, maybe catch the driver focused inside. Those are the ones that make it worthwhile. Found a few sharp panning shots I was pretty happy with.
So yeah, that was my day shooting the sprint cars. Got loud, got dusty, worked the camera hard. Came away with a few pictures that captured the feel of it all. It’s always a learning process, but it was a good time. Felt good to get out and actually do it.
