Indy 500

Shane422

I would never call myself a sports shooter, but I had tickets to the Indy 500 for the first time and was definitely bringing my camera. I sat in Turn 1, about 30 rows up, which turned out to be the site of most of the wrecks. Shooting behind a fence at car moving 200+mph is tough. I envy all who do it well.

I'm sure there was a better way, but here was how I attempted it based on what I've seen about others doing. I set focus to infinity and flipped it to manual hoping to keep the autofocus from grabbing the fence. Then I set the camera to Shutter Priority and tried anything from 1/250 to 1/500. I also tried some at the slower end while panning. I got a few that aren't horrible. But I have a whole lot of garbage where my shutter should have been faster.

Danica Patrick


Dan Wheldon coming out of the pits


Rookie who didn't make it to the rain delay.

Blinkings

Well IMHO I think you have done a good job.......unlike the poor person in shot 3!!!!!!

crgphotographer

G'day Shane,

I can't tell you how jealous I am that you got to see the Indy 500 live. Certainly a long held dream of mine... :cry

I have often wondered how the photographers take pictures of Indy Oval events... I shoot through the fence at a dirt speedway and find that by panning the shoot I can blur out the fence, not sure if that would work at Indy.

My favourite is the 3rd shot, it gives an interesting perspective and really makes me think about the shot. Works for me!

Thanks for sharing...
/craig.

Shane422

crgphotographer wrote:

G'day Shane,

My favourite is the 3rd shot, it gives an interesting perspective and really makes me think about the shot. Works for me!

I think this was the female driver from South America. They barely let her stay in the race because her times were so slow. She got loose going into turn one and hit nose first. After impact, she gave us a nice slow spin out in the middle of the track. Most of the wrecks were hard to see because when they hit the new walls, the car just rides against the wall were you can't see it from the stands. I'm thinking that seats on the interior of the track might be better for taking pictures.

larrie

Very good photos. I never go to the race..not since the early '60's. Here are some shots I took during qualifying. I can't take very good action shots so I go on the slower days.

Larrie Ervin

http://larre.smugmug.com/gallery/2825121

http://larre.smugmug.com/gallery/2825124

Shane422

larrie wrote:

Very good photos. I never go to the race..not since the early '60's. Here are some shots I took during qualifying. I can't take very good action shots so I go on the slower days.

You've got a lot of great shots and apparently great access. And from looking at your site, you are much more of a racing fan than I am at this point. I'm just now getting interested. I grew up in Bloomington, Indiana so I was familiar with Sprint cars, and the Kinsers. But I now live in Iowa and we just got a track. But I'm looking into tickets for the Iowa Corn 250 in June. Danica will be there.

I added a few more pics to my INDY gallery tonight, and a sequence of shots from that rookie crash. It happened slow enough, that I got off several shots as she came to a stop.

I also tried a Panorama from Turn 1. But the perspective doesn't quite look right.

F45

These look pretty good Shane!

In particular, I like the pano of the crowd...we need crowds like that at the AMA Superbike events to add a little bit more drama to the racing atmosphere of the photographs.

nipprdog

Shane422 wrote:

I'm thinking that seats on the interior of the track might be better for taking pictures.

the besr way I've found to avoid the fence is to shoot from the entrance to pit road. shoot from the top row, and you can usually catch the cars above the fence.