# WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps



## virginie24jb (May 3, 2015)

I'm back from the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps that took place yesterday. What a fun day I had.  I did some panning but as I'm going through the photos, I think those are more interesting. Hope you like them!
I'll add some more on my Flickr in the next couple of days.

1.



Getting Ready by virginieb20, on Flickr

2.



WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps by virginieb20, on Flickr

3.



Wrong Way by virginieb20, on Flickr

4.



Battling by virginieb20, on Flickr

5.



WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps by virginieb20, on Flickr

6.



Porsche Always Come In Three by virginieb20, on Flickr

7.



WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps by virginieb20, on Flickr

8.



WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps by virginieb20, on Flickr

9.



WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps by virginieb20, on Flickr


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## tirediron (May 3, 2015)

Looks like a good day indeed; nice series.  You might want to consider the use of slower shutter speeds and/or panning to help impart a sense of movement.  With a high shutter speed everything takes on a rather static appearance.


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## limr (May 3, 2015)

tirediron said:


> Looks like a good day indeed; nice series.  You might want to consider the use of slower shutter speeds and/or panning to help impart a sense of movement.  With a high shutter speed everything takes on a rather static appearance.



+1. And I really like that last one.


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## virginie24jb (May 3, 2015)

tirediron said:


> You might want to consider the use of slower shutter speeds and/or panning to help impart a sense of movement.  With a high shutter speed everything takes on a rather static appearance.


I did some panning too with lower shutter speed like for those shots :




WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps by virginieb20, on Flickr




WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps by virginieb20, on Flickr

I didn't managed to get those shots in the corners. Would it have ben possible to do the same kind of shots I shared but with some sense of movement/speed?
As I said, those I shared in my first post seemed more interesting to me and a little different from the regular panning shots.


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## vintagesnaps (May 3, 2015)

I think they're nicely done, well framed with nice balance to the compositions. To me the panning has been getting overdone (but I've mostly done hockey and am not particularly familiar with motorsports). I think certain effects are more effective when done less often, they seem to lose their charm when used a lot.


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## Kawaracer (May 4, 2015)

Nice, How did you get these clean shots. In Spa I allways have som fence disdurbing the picture


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## beagle100 (May 4, 2015)

nice set!


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## virginie24jb (May 4, 2015)

Thank you! I've added more pictures to the Flickr album if some of you are interested.



vintagesnaps said:


> I think they're nicely done, well framed with nice balance to the compositions. To me the panning has been getting overdone (but I've mostly done hockey and am not particularly familiar with motorsports). I think certain effects are more effective when done less often, they seem to lose their charm when used a lot.


Thank you very much for your feedback. I did a lot of panning during the race but as I'm going throught the photos I realize the most interesting photos are the one where we see some action like two cars battling for a position. Panning is a nice effect but sometimes it's nice to try something else.



Kawaracer said:


> Nice, How did you get these clean shots. In Spa I allways have som fence disdurbing the picture


Most of the pics posted here were taken from places where there's no fences, except #8 and 9. One thing I try is getting my camera very close to the fence and zooming in so that I don't have it in the picture. Other times I just keep the fence in the picture :




WEC 2015 - Spa-Francorchamps by virginieb20, on Flickr


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## lambertpix (May 4, 2015)

virginie24jb said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> > You might want to consider the use of slower shutter speeds and/or panning to help impart a sense of movement.  With a high shutter speed everything takes on a rather static appearance.
> ...



Very nice set.  I'm jealous -- Spa is absolutely on my bucket list.

Regarding panning vs. corners -- it's been my experience that the "easiest" panning is when cars are moving across your FOV at near-right angles.  Intuitively, this makes sense because no matter how good the focus tracking is on your camera, it stops as soon as the shutter opens (possible exception for Sony's translucent-mirror system).  In any event, when the distance to your subject isn't changing rapidly, you've got a ghost of a chance of following the subject and keeping a sharp image, but if the subject is moving toward you or away from you quickly during the exposure, that's one more thing working against your getting a tack-sharp image.  For that reason, I usually don't set my SS anywhere near as slowly when I'm shooting at approaching cars.

By way of illustration, I took a quick look back at shots from bygone races, and I was hard-pressed to find any shots at all of approaching cars at slow SS -- this is a bit of a unicorn for me:




IMG_7752.jpg by lambertpix, on Flickr

I think this also shows one of the difficulties in these shots, because even though the front of the car is sharp, the back is really soft.  I've never been able to get the math to show this, but it seems like the rotation and motion of the car has to affect focus and DOF differently from front-to-rear.

Anywho... panning is one of those things you can work on for ages -- lots of throwaway shots.  I really liked some of the static shots in the pits in your set, though -- it's a side of motorsport that's easy to overlook.


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## virginie24jb (May 22, 2015)

The World Endurance Championship has launched the WEC Fans Photo Competition to find the best picture that represents the theme of 'Spirit of Le Mans'. I am undecided. Which picture would you submit from my Flickr album? I've got two or three in mind but I can't choose *ONE*.


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