CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Earlier this month I was pleased to announce that I would be a regular contributor to the Fujilove.com website.  I will be writing two articles per month about using and traveling with the Fujifilm X-Series and Fujinon lenses. Here are the two articles for September. One Lens Challenge in Mexico - XF50mm f2 (Published 9th September 2017) When I travel with the FIA World Endurance Championship I always pack my four Fujinon zooms for their flexibility allowing me the best opportunity to get the shot quickly and easily at the race track. Sometimes I like to challenge myself by using just one prime lens and seeing what shots I can get with the limitation of one focal length.  I did this with the XF50mm f2 on a recent trip to Mexico City where I was working on the latest round of the FIA WEC. CLICK HERE to read this article Sense of Speed: Panning with the X Series (Published 26 September 2017) Sports photography is all about freezing the ac...

Fujifilm X-T2 + XF100-400mm  0.5s @ f22 ISO100 As regular readers of this blog will know I love pushing the boundaries with the performance of my equipment and also the exposure.  A good motorsport image will portray the sense of speed and the slower the shutter speed used the more the sense of speed is enhanced. While working trackside on Saturday evening at the Circuit of The Americas in Texas while the sun was setting to the west of the track, I decided to push the shutter speed from the usual 1/30th second to 0.5 seconds for a few laps.  The sun had just set and the sky was a vibrant orange.  The light reflecting off the red, white and blue stripes at the edge of the circuit and the metal barriers provided the framing for the cars speeding away from me across the frame. With the cars traveling at over 150mph at this point of the circuit, the intention was to get a lot of movement in the car, to almost get an impressionists view of a race car tr...

Panning is a great technique for giving the impression of speed, which is very useful when photographing race cars.  The usual technique is to set the camera shutter speed to around 1/125 or 1/60 and move the camera with the car to keep the subject sharp and blur the background.  At this sort of shutter speed the hit rate is about one picture in every two. Sometimes though it is good to drop the shutter speed down to 1/30 or 1/15, but it is harder to get a 'keeper', the hit rate dropping to 1-in-5 to 1-in-10. However when it does work the effect is more dramatic. Using a shutter speed below 1/15 is pretty extreme but using a wide angle lens helps to keep the subject smaller in the frame and sharpness isn't so critical.  It is also good to have parts of the subject blurred as well.  Now on a sunny day it can be difficult to get the shutter speed slow enough, especially if the lowest ISO setting is 200 like it is on the Fujifilm X-T1 (for RAW images). ...