Today I went along to Brands Hatch – as a friend of mine was taking his bike along for a track day – I didn’t need much persuading. I haven’t really tried shooting a moving target before and it didn’t take long to realise that that wasn’t really the problem…

approaching Hailwoods Hill

The day started off nice and sunny and I quickly found a spot, struck a ‘photographer on a mission’ pose and started panning away using a nice short exposure, however it soon became apparent that simply freezing the action wasn’t the answer. The pics needed to give a feeling of speed. Once I realised this, the day got more interesting – there is a fine balance, it would seem, between an exposure that is long enough to give a motion-blurred background and yet short enough so that the subject remains sharp. I settled on about 1/200 second as I was using a 200mm lens but I guess that once I get a little better, I will be able to use a longer exposure. We’ll see!

on cooper straight

Brabham Straight

paddock hill bend

oops!

trying to get an impression of speed