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The Event
The Lone Star Le Mans(AKA: the World Endurance Championship and Tudor Touring car races) was on September 18th to the 20th this year. It was great event despite the internment rain. The nice thing about this event is the accessibility of the cars and drivers. The paddock is open to everyone and they even open up pit lane and the grid for a while just before the big race. The races them selves are a bit different from the other races out at COTA. For starters they are longer. The shortest race was 2 hours long and the main even was 6 hours long. This was also the first time they had night racing. I found it interesting that the cars have large 2 digit LED readouts mounted to a side window or actually built into the body of the car. These display the cars position in the race and are super easy to read in the dark. |
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Photo Notes
If the typical race photos of the cars aren't all that interesting to you then scroll to the bottom where the long exposure and more interesting photos are located. Photos 1-8 are in the paddocks. 9-14 are a Porsche 918 Spyder that had a badge that said it was No. 000. 15-18 are during the Continental Touring Car Race. 19-48 are panning shots of cars as they pass by. 49 is the short straight between turns 6 and 7. Photos 50-58 are at turn 11. 53 is a radar gun reading the cars speed as the enter the start of turn 11. Shots 59 to 62 are a few ok night shots. 63 to 77 are some pretty fun long exposures. In 73 to 76 the smoke from a short fireworks show made for some interesting sky's over the track. and the last 3 photos are also some decent night shots. |
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The Photography
This event had some new challenges for me. The minor difficulty was the constantly changing light conditions due to the clouds and rain. The rain on Sunday was also a bit of an issue. I had a rain coat for my camera, but it doesn't keep the water off the actual lens. Once the sun set Saturday night it got really difficult to get any shots without going in to super high ISO settings, thus grainy images. I tried my prime 35mm F1.8, but even it was just not up to the task. Ultimately I had to accept that I didn't have the right lenses, or even the right camera, to photograph very fast moving objects in extremely low light. So I had to change my photographic expectations, adjust my approach, and change my goal. I switched to long exposures to capture the light streaks made by the cars as they blasted past. |
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