Pittsburgh Raceway

I think one of the things that makes me desirable to work with is my honesty. I won't try and sell you something I wouldn't buy, and I won't lie to you.

There are some folks who would misrepresent their products by saying they have done something that they have not done, and they may possibly steal a photograph, or mislead you about how they got them.

If I have never done anything like I'm being asked, I always come right out and say it. If I don't think I could deliver, I wouldn't do it.

So my brother is a gear-head. He likes to tune up cars and drive them on the strip. He called me up and asked if I could gather him a photograph of his car racing. I told him that I had never photographed a car race before but would be glad to give it the ol' college try. Well we get to the track and I decide that I'm going to do a few NEW things.

Firstly, using my 70-200 2.8IS in IS mode 2, which is meant for PANNING...Secondly, I would do just that "PAN" all of my photographs (this is using a slightly slower shutter speed, and following the direction of travel of the intended target), and I would attempt to photograph racing.

Since I have owned the lens (a few years now), I have never had it in mode 2, and I've never panned a photograph before. The line of photography I do just never called for it. There's not really too many reasons to pan the photograph of a senior portrait, and no reason I can think of that I want to do it.

Now I talk tech talk sometimes on these blogs, and typically the nicest racing or cars in motion photographs I've ever seen have come from reasonably bright daylight. We get there and I'm shooting ISO 3200 (which is quite high). See photographers are always speaking about the quantity, and quality of light.

I would have loved for more light, as a hard light on the car isn't really a big deal, and a dark black shadow isn't a big deal either.

So I practiced until Steven's car was ready to go, and then photographed his. We stayed because Steven was going to run a few more times, however it rained, then by the time they got back out, his tire was flat (damn slicks) and when he got it ready, it was already too late. Good thing someone spotted his tire being low, because he could have been hurt driving 130MPH in a 1/4 mile.

I will be at the Iron Will Fighting Championship 3 at the Cambria County War Memorial on Saturday, and at the Pasquerella center for AON wrestling on Sunday. Come say hi!

Rob