Wonky Horizons: Brands Hatch part 1

Anthony and I spent a day with our friend Ian at Brands Hatch yesterday for British Superbikes testing and practice. We were hoping that it would be on the full GP circuit but were a little disappointed to find out that it was restricted to the Indy; nonetheless, the weather was kind and great day was had by all.

Being the first day of the school holidays meant that there was little traffic on the roads and we got there early and once we had got our bearings headed for a coffee. The smell of breakfast greeted us in the cafe and three bacon rolls were swiftly ordered and consumed.

Having spend much time recently photographic orchids and in the studio it was great to get out and do some action shots for a change. We 'limbered up' with some gentle panning at Druids in very good light, working with different angles and shutter speeds. I found that I could get a reasonable number of sharp 'keepers' at 1/100th second but below that was a disaster.

If you get some time to see some of Ian's motorsport images you'll see that he is seriously good! I could not resist a quick grab-shot of the master in action - camera and photographer working as one.

Ian 'Panning for Gold' - excuse the pun

As well as the BSB there was a myriad of other attractions on the track, including sidecars, T3 racing, juniors etc.

I filled 3x8GB CF cards on the day in single-shot mode, culling 600 of the resulting 900 images based on sharpness and composition. A further round of 'weeding' will follow - thank heavens for Adobe Lightroom and not using burst mode.

Most of my panning was done with a 70-200mm lens but after a chat with Ian I tried with my 50mm prime. I got this wide-angle vista which gives a different perspective to the closely-cropped style that we see so much.