| Hallett Raceway |
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Sunday October 20, 2005 saw me at the track taping a promotional video for Hallett Raceway. After taping I decided to take some pictures for stock.
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Commerical Stock Photo's
Most photo's on this site are available for commercial stock photography. Many have model releases, while most can be used for editorial purposes.
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Fine Art Prints
Most photo's on this site are available as fine art prints. These are done in-house on a large format HP printer. Sizes up to 42" wide by 100' length are available, and larger sizes are available on request. All prints are shipped unframed unless requested. Framing services are available.
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2005-1030-0163
Nikon D2X, Nikkor AF-S 600/F4, ISO-800, 1/800 at F4
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The photograph above is of my son Adam riding his CBR1000RR at Hallett Raceway. Because of the high speeds involved (over 130 mph in some sections), I needed a fairly high shutter speed to capture the action. The overcast day required me to bump the ISO to 800 so that I could maintain a shutter speed of 1/800th of a second. As with all images taken this day, I manually set my exposure to that I could control the image rather than the camera having control of my settings. In this image, I wanted the tires to blur, imparting a sense of speed, yet keep the rest of the image sharp. In addition, I was using a 600 mm lens on a tripod with a swivel head, which required a high shutter speed to minimize blurring from camera movement.
The Nikon D2x captures a 12 megapixel image, resulting in a 70 megabyte TIFF file when saved. Such large file sizes allows me to print the image wall-sized or larger, while still maintaining incredible detail. Since you can't easily display these large files on the web, I cropped the yellow track tag on the taped headlight, and zoomed in to display the quality and detail captured in these huge files. You can clearly make out the date on this tag. I was photographing from 300 feet away! |
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| 2005-1030-0319
Nikon D2X, Nikkor AF-S 600/F4, ISO-800, 1/800 at F4, manual focus
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| Moving to a turned called "The Bitch", I decided to swith to manual focus since the riders were coming directly towards the camera at high speeds, and with the dim lighting the camera was having difficulty maintaining focus lock in this turn. I prefocused at a spot on the pavement and pressed the shutter as the riders passed my mark. Once again a shutter speed of 1/800 allowed me to blur the tires yet keep the motorcycle and rider in sharp focus. As before, you can read the brand of leathers on this rider from 100 yards away. |
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2005-1030-0272
Nikon D2X, Nikkor AF-S 70-200 VR, ISO-250, 1/200 sec at F3.5, autofocus, I-TTL flash SB-800
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The final turn before the front straight allows you to get much closer to the riders. This allowed me to switch lenses to my 70-200 vibration reduction zoom. I still wanted to blur the background and tires, yet keep the rider in sharp focus. In addition, I wanted to use my SB-800 flash to add some "pop" to the image on this overcast day. Since I was much closer and the speeds were lower, a slower shutter speed was necessary. I also wanted a bit more depth of field to provide more latitude in my autofocus, so the aperature was set to F3.5. Because of this slower shutter speed, I was able to lower my ISO to 250 for a higher quality image. Once again, the camera was set to manual exposure so that I could control the exposure to match my creative intent, rather than have the camera control the exposure for me.
As the riders went past at about 40 mph, I panned with them from about 35 feet away. This panning, and the 1/200 shutter speed, was slow enough to blur the background, pavement and tires, but fast enough to capture the riders in sharp focus, thereby imparting a sense of speed. The SB-800 flash added just a bit of light, opening up the shadows so you could see the concentration in the riders eyes as they passed by. It took several tries to get this right, requiring proper foot placement, panning at the waist, holding the camera steady, framing the rider and bike properly while they were moving, and snapping the shutter at just the right moment. Since I was using flash, I could not use the 5 frames per second shutter speed and only had one shot available as the riders passed.
Once again, you can see the detail in this rider's eyes as he concentrated on the track ahead. |
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