This is where I pretend I know what I’m doing.

I get asked a lot by people who see me shooting at events what settings I’m shooting with, particularly around shutter speeds. I know photographers who are all across the board in this respect. Some shoot very fast shutters because it allows them to freeze the action with a very high ‘keep’ rate, some shoot with verrrrrry slow shutters which is much much harder but the one shot in a hundred that came out look great. Myself I try to be somewhere in the middle, generally around 1/160 for a panning shot.

Since the differences between 1/120 and 1/160 so hard to explain let me provide some examples…

These shots were taken at a High Performance Driving School this past June at Atlantic Motorsport Park. I was on the stand in Turn 9 which is a perfect spot for panning shots. The track wraps around the stand at roughly the same distance the whole way around, cars are moving at a good speed and the background is busy but not ugly.

Here’s a Mazdaspeed 3 approaching turn 9 at 1/120@f9. The background is nicely blurred and the wheels convey a sense of motion. Personally I find things a little too blurry though.

Here’s the same car in about the same spot at 1/160@f11. Personally I like the motion blur this shot a bit better. The background isn’t as blurred with the panning but the wheels have more definition. To me its a more interesting look.

As a side effect of going a with a faster shutter, my ‘keeper’ rate is miles better at 1/160 vs 1/120 as well using my 70-200 f4L lens at full zoom. Remember, the rule of thumb for handheld shooting is “Shutter = 1/Focal Length” unless you have very steady hands or good panning technique so I’m right in the ballpark.

These shots were taken in ‘Manual’ mode on a Canon EOS 40D with a Canon 70-200 f4L lens.

Another thing to keep in mind is that these slow shutters work best on a side-on pan where the car is always roughly the same distance away as it moves. If the car is moving towards or away from you it has the chance to get closer/further during the time your shutter is open making for a blurry shot. If you’re dealing with a subject head on you should generally increase shutter accordingly. 1/250 or 1/320 are generally ’safe’. Just to be more maddening this also very much depends on the speed of the car as well. A car doing 30km/h around a rallycross course is going to have different rules of thumb from an F1 car doing 300km/h in a straight. It makes the head hurt sometimes.

I often have a hard time planning for a scene, which is something I’m very much working on getting better at. I’ve improved at looking at what the cars are doing and associating the desired results in my head with a rule of thumb for settings. It takes a lot of hit or miss shooting and paying attention to what works. You have to keep in mind lighting, perspective, backgrounds, depth of field, speeds, framing and more all at once. And to make it more fun these factors can change from minute to minute, particularly at an event like Targa Newfoundland where every car and driver is completely different.

Also bear in mind with all of this that I’m basically raving my own uneducated opinions out there. These are just things I’ve taught myself over the last few years of shooting with more manual cameras. I learn by trial and error and I’m a very seat-of-the-pants shooter. I’m sure there’s better ways to do and think about these shots, but this is how I do it.

That… probably wasn’t helpful at all, was it?

… what have I been up to with all this no-updating?

Well, bringing spoon.org back up to speed, for one. I think that things are pretty good in that regard. I’ve got the new gallery back up and running and populated with all of 2008’s photos. Have a look there for entries like the Halifax Pride Festival and Slalom at Slemon 2008.

Other things keeping me busy… I’ve been asked again to be the official photographer for Targa Newfoundland 2008 and this time I’m taking them up on the offer. As such I’ve been busily preparing things for that role. I had some business cards made up and arranged things like backup camera bodies and some upgraded lenses for the event. I’m sure no matter what I bring I’ll wish I had more but it will definitely be an interesting chanllenge. You can find more information as its available on my Targa Photos Page, complete with an online order form for photo packages.

This past weekend was the annual stop at AMP of the Parts Canada Superbike Championship and we figured it was time we took in the show. A couple of long days on various corners and it was a good show indeed. No serious incidents and some great national-calibre racing! Did I mention it was long days?

Slalom at Slemon was enjoyable, more or less. Terrible weather Saturday meant many, many off courses for competitors and a lot of folks’ enjoyment suffered as a result. Thankfully Sunday was dryer and folks were a bit more content. I’m pretty happy with how the Miata handled though I’ve been playing too much with the rear sway bar. I still can’t decide if I like it better soft, stiff or not hooked up at all. Currently the car is setup with the latter which is the preferred configuratin for wet handling. The chances are pretty low that I’ll make it out to another slalom this season though so I should probably just hook it up again.

… is it a phoenix or is it just crap thats on fire?

Spoon died, spoon came back as shiny new hardware that was better in every way… except longevity. It died again. Now its back! I wish I were more optimsitic.

Anyway, the sites are all up but they’re restored from the backups that took place in mid June. We’ll just pretend the weeks between then and now didn’t happen, okay?

I’ve got a lot of stuff to put back together but in the meantime here we go again…

ASCC Slalom #1 today at Scotia Speed World. Good turnout with 40 entrants! The Miata finally came out of storage this week after almost 18 full months of storage. The process got fast-tracked because I found an exceptional deal on a hard top that I couldn’t pass up so I had to free the car from bondage and drive to Moncton to pick it up. Since the car was out we might as well get some practice in before the Nationals! I got the chance to install my Flyin’ Miata sway bars too which made a huge difference, the car is nicely tail happy now in a nice controllable manner, once I figure out how to control it that is! Overall at the end of the day I feel I should have been faster but my excuse is I’m still figuring out the car. Sounds reasonable to me anyway.

Race mode.

Last month, Daph and I took our Spring Vacation which we’ve been looking forward to for quite a while since we didn’t get to take one last year due to circumstances. We’d been planning in 2007 to do a bit of a New England road trip, visit various cities along the way, see the sights, work without a really solid plan, just going. That was the idea anyway. Reality is, if you’re trying to squeeze a road trip into 9-10 days, you really have to do some planning. We booked a hotel in DC and planned to drive there and spend a few days seeing the sights before heading north through New York state and then turning right at Montreal.

Of course we had to bring Steg Blomquist, our Rally team mascot.

The first day we went to the National Zoo. On the scale of Zoos we’ve visited I’d rate it a 6 or 7 surprisingly. The animals were well kept but there was very little presented information available. A few lines on each critter at best. This appears to be a surprising theme with all of the Smithsonian Museums. They’re geared much more to a ‘Look at this thing!’ concept than actual information. Kind of dissapointing.

One of the 5 Pandas resident at the Zoo.

The next couple of days we used DC’s excellent Bus and Subway system to get around and see the larger than life monuments around the city.

The Lincoln Memorial at dusk.

The Man himself.

The World War II monument with the Washington Monument in the background.

Of course DC is currently wrapped up in election fever. Come October/November the place must be a zoo.

A picture sampling can be found here.

After leaving DC we headed into the Adirondacks where we spent an evening at The Fern Lodge which was an absolutely amazing bed and breakfast that I’d found online. We had an absolutely amazing room with a beautiful view of a lake. Huge comfortable bed with a fireplace, two person soaker tub and a granite steam shower. We didn’t get much of a chance to use the rest of the facilities but there’s a 15 person theatre room, exercise equipment, beautiful great-room and a pair of very friendly Golden Labs named Hudson and Shadow.

After that we spent a few days in Montreal staying with Daph’s grandfather and of course visiting Ikea for some home stuff. We also got a chance to visit Carl at TRAC Racing which is something I’ve been hoping to do for quite a while. After that it was off to home with a grand total of 4501.6 KMs driven.

I’m glad we went and I enjoyed the trip, I’m fortunate to be able to spend that kind of time in a car with Daph and not have it be a problem. I know lots of people who would dread that sort of thing with their significant other. Overall though, I think we tried to pack a bit too much into the trip. Between the driving, moving on and the trying to do everything in a couple of days at each spot I found we didn’t get the time for just relaxing that I would have liked, or at least more slower paced casual ‘vacationing’. It was definitely fun and with gas prices going the way they are it was the time to do it before it became cost-prohibitive, but next time I’m thinking we’ll just find one place and do that properly rather than flit around so much. This is why we’ll never be cruise people, I suspect.

Now what to do next spring…?

A few wallpapers I made for Targa Newfoundland from my pictures.

The last BAC RallyCross Event of the 2007/2008 season takes place this Sunday at Scotia Speed World. Its hard to believe the season is almost over, unfortunately not quite the way we had planned but we were prepared for that. We’re still hoping to get a Rally Sprint event off the ground, maybe sometime in June. Almsot time to get the Miata out and start up the pavement fun!

I just updated to WordPress 2.5 which shouldn’t make a lot of difference to anyone. I also added a new ‘Upcoming Events‘ tab to the right. Keep an eye on it for events of note! (Assuming anybody reads this who cares or can attend)

My second run of the Bluenose Autosport Club’s 7th Rallycross event of the season. I finished third overall which isn’t bad considering how off line and off throttle I was. Love the sudden jig at the end of the third lap.

Of course we have the car working GREAT now that we only have one more event to go. April 13th at Scotia Speed World and thats it until October!

Several consecutive 60+ hour weeks, too much of that spent up all night has left me pretty drained.

I was in Detroit for business late last month, my first time there outside the airport. I have to say it was pretty much what I expected. I’m sure there’s probably some positive things to say about the city but we certainly didn’t find them. Okay, it was February, very cold, very gray, but really its an astoundingly depressing city. When you’re driving the freeways towards the downtown core the neighborhoods on either side are amazing. Derelict houses, many gutted by fire but left standing. Vacant factories. EVERY office building/industrial complex had space for sale/lease. It truly is a city that had its legs cut out from underneath it. I definitely wasn’t upset to leave for home when all was said and done.

We’re headed on a road trip soon, our first real vacation after last years unpleasantness. I’ve been itching to just go for a while and I think this should be fun. We’re going to drive south as far as Washington, DC where we have a hotel booked for a couple of nights. The rest of the trip is going to be pretty free-form. Current plan is to go to Washington with a stopover in Connetticut or Massachusetts, spend a couple of days seeing the sights and the heading North through the Adirondacks for a couple of days eventually ending up in Montreal where we’ll bear east and head for home.

The Audi is back to its old tricks. We had a successful run at AMP on March 2nd where it ran flawlessly. Of 10 drivers the Audi took the top 4 positions! We weren’t so fortunate at the event this past Sunday, however, as the fuelling issues crept up again. I don’t know, we’re really at a loss here. Only 2 events left to go this season though, we’ll see I guess.

Well, I watched the Civic drive away with its new owner yesterday with a bit of a sad twinge. Like putting a pet up for adoption though, its the right thing to do and it’ll be in a better place.

Cars are such funny things to alot of people. People more eloquent than I have written essays and treatises on the concept of the ’soul’ of a car and its iconic cultural nature to many societies and it’s always been a concept that interested me. Many people anthropomorphize cars like no other machine or object. They get names. Treats. They have good days and bad. They get treated like a family pet or friend. You don’t see that with fridges and toasters. To me one of the most depressing sights on the road is a hauler carrying the remnants of crushed cars. How many happy memories are in that pile? How many of their former owners were over the moon the day they got their new wheels? Its like seeing the end of the line cages at the SPCA.

Of course I know I’m being massively sentimental, At the end of the day a car is a factory produced machine designed to last only long enough to convince you to buy that brand again, but I don’t care. I bought my WRX last spring from a reposessed property auction, from what I’ve peiced together someone used the car as collateral on a loan and things didn’t work out. Oddly I feel like that gives me a certain responsibility to treat the car properly. The person obviously loved the car but circumstances didn’t allow them to keep it. On the inside of the drivers side sun visor is a sticker-note of love from the owners significant other and I never removed it. Its a part of the car’s personality to me. Like removing it would be removing part of that soul. (Yes, I fully acknowledge its also a bit creepy!)

So goodbye, little Civic. I have a strong feeling that as I go on with more vehicles I’m going to remember it as the best car I’ve ever had. In the 9.5 years I owned the car it never left me stranded. Not once, even though I was never nice to the car. I asked it to spin off the rev limiter far too often at the track. Expected it to deal with my ham-fisted slalom driving and even to put up with being treated like a rally car from time to time and it took it all in stride. I wish I had the time, money and even ability (In the bodywork realm) to keep it going like it deserves. I hope its new owner enjoys it half as much as I did and gives it the attention it deserves. I admit I felt a lot better about the process when the buyers significant other was bouncing with joy at getting a new car. Its at least going to someone who sees it as more than just a factory produced machine.

Taken days after bringing it home in 1998.

My first AutoSlalom in 2002.

Reaching her peak and striking a pose.

Doing what she loved.