My first Formula 1 race! Well, it wasn't the day of the race, but one day of practice, the cars are not competing but are being adjusted during the runs.
I've never photographed any car race ever, so no experience, bear that in mind and be kind!
I decided on taking the Olympus OM-1, because I've just received it from Adorama, and it is still the most comfortable grip of all the cameras I have and it recognizes autos/cars.
I brought 3 lenses but only used one, the superb Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-45mm f/4 PRO Lens. I still can't believe such a tiny lens is so sharp!
The race cars go super fast and due to my angle of view I could not see them coming, so I opted for Single-AF,
Drive : Silent + High-speed Sequential SH1 (5frame) - first set of car sequence (where you can see umbrellas)
Drive : Silent + ProCapSH1 (15frame) - second car sequence (cars are seen far and from behind)
Drive : Silent + High-speed Sequential SH1 (110frame) - third car sequence (Shot through a guard rail fence)
Why not C-AF? Well, the cars zoom so fast it wouldn't matter.
The OM-1 is a superb camera, it had no trouble recognizing the cars (the focus box, adjust the size automatically depending on how far the car is and shows the focus in the car) and keeping up with them at breackneck speeds!
A friend of mine saw the photos and asked me how I could take photos so precise when the cars were at high speed. I gave all the credit to the camera, it allowed this poor, not-so-good photographer take great shots!
Now Formula 1 is an expensive event, $1K is the cheapest ticket if you wanted to see it from the stalls. Since I haven't won the lottery yet, I opted for the $300 GA ticket, that is why my field of view was always obstructed when the cars were racing. My apologies.
As always there are many more photos in the You tube link, just click on the link below
https://youtu.be/CvqBY-n8shwThe day was extremely hot and you had to walk a lot, go up and down stairs, I survived, not bad for a 50+!
Enjoy!
Event map, the place is huge!
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One of the many places to eat and drink, they offered free water refills
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The race track was built around the stadium, inside the stadium they built another set of stalls just for the interviews!
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The white tents were housing race cars
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A photo from the first set of photo sequence - I was far from the track
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A photo from the second set of photo sequence - cars are seen from behind
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Do you like Ferrarri's?
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A photo from the third set of photo sequence - shot from the fence, super close to the track
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