I went to five races in nine days during my vacation week with Cedar Lake's NASCAR night the following Wednesday. All the photos to process in such a short period of time as well as traveling to and from races made the following couple of weeks a scramble to keep up with it. Now that things have finally settled down I'll be able to get back on my normal schedule of one race per weekend and occasionally two. This weekend will be the IRA at Arlington and the following weekend is the USA Nationals.
That means I'll be driving a little further than usual and visiting a somewhat unfamiliar track this Saturday. Not that I haven't been to Arlington plenty of times over the years but I have never quite gotten the hang of my camera settings there. The white balance has been tricky there but I have taken steps that have enabled me to dial it in more precisely in a shorter period of time. In racing photography everything happens so fast, snap, snap, snap, oh sh*t...delete... Once the green flag drops you won't have much time to react so you'd better have your settings dialed in before the race starts. Not unlike racing now that I think about it.
Anyways I'm confident that I'll do fine there this time. Not every track is the same and Arlington has it's share of unique characteristics that you won't find anywhere else. You just have to go in there organized and an idea of what you want taking into consideration the time of day and what the light is going to do, the likelihood of intermittent cloud cover and what type of lighting the track has. The various kinds of lighting you fight as the evening progresses are, setting sunlight that changes color temperature, shadows, track lighting and flash. At various times during the night you're going to be working with different mixes of lighting and each one requires specific color balance settings. Some guys (and gals) I know just put the camera on automatic and that's fine in some situations but it's not always accurate. Color balance is one of the things I'm working on improving this season along with working on getting sharper images. I have learned a lot so far this year but again like racing I'm seeing limitations as to what the equipment I have is capable of.
For instance, I'm seeing that the Nikon lenses produce a much better image than any of the third party lenses I have used. That includes a couple of Sigmas and a Tamron that cost me over $800 new. My Nikon lens outperforms all three hands down in both color and sharpness. I shot with only third party lenses for four years so I'm comparing years and this year's photos are the best by a long shot. Consequently, I've got some wheeling and dealing to do during the coming off season. I'll review the complete line of Nikon lenses and see what I can find in both fixed focal and zoom styles. I know what focal lengths I need and I'm not looking for a fast lens to use at night because I've got that covered so there might be a deal or two out there.
Well, there's not much else to say right now. I'm looking at my racing schedule trying to find a weekend or two I can take the night off as we get into August. I've got a few traditional dates that I'm locked into so we'll see what we can do. I'm catching some h*ll about not getting much work done on the house this summer. It's been difficult because we lost over a month of weekends to rain at the start and when it isn't raining I'm trying to keep up with my racing commitments. You know, you make all the plans and everything but half way through the season you're thinking, "jeez, that race is going to cost me $80 of gas and if I go to this one over here I'm gonna' have to get a motel." So far so good but when I look at my schedule through October and what it's going to cost I have to put it out of my mind. Picture sales were going good a few weeks ago but I can't count on that going into August. You've got the USA Nationals and those touring drivers don't even know my website exists let alone that they can get a photo from me. And I don't sell many to the IRA drivers or any touring group for that matter. Mostly I get calls and emails wanting pics when I stick around close to home and take photos of all the classes. And August is typically slow with pics anyways but getting into this "specials" part of the schedule I'm sure I'll be dipping into the funds a little deeper.
But you know that going in, that you'll be spending a lot of money chasing this stuff just like you would if you were fishing or snowmobiling or something like that. So you just keep plugging away and if your travel plans get into a corner you just scratch that one and revert to plan B or C. I've always got some alternates on my schedule in case I get in a bind where I can't chase the Sprints. There are always options available.
I'm ramling so I'm going to sign off for the night...
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