Critique First time at WRC...

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A very cold, wet and windy night at Oulton Park for the first stage of this year's WRC. Surprised at the low light focussing of the 7Dii and pleased with the weather sealing.

No real circuit lighting so very little ambient light for the latter ones of these..

Comments, critique etc. welcome.

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As an ex-rally competitor and photographer back in the 70s, these aren’t bad. Good capture of colours and close-up action, but I would have preferred that you had zoomed out a bit to put the cars in context with their environment.
 
I'd agree with Stephen, I think some of these (particularly the first few) are too tightly framed. Zooming out a little would have given more context and atmosphere in quite a few of the above, (whilst remembering the occasional 'tight' shot gives a bit of variety). However, I know this sometimes isn't possible due to clutter (barriers, etc.), people and the availability of a good vantage point, particularly on busy 'spectator day' type stages.

A great learning opportunity though, you've got some good looking shots and you know roughly what your camera and lens set-up can produce now, so best of luck if you go to any of the other stages and remember to keep safe!
 
Thanks, both for the comments. I usually try to get a little background context, and had it been a forest stage and a little less dark, I agree and would have added some of the scenic backgrounds. Here, Oulton Park was rather featureless in that regard and certainly after dark there was little context to add! I decided to go close crop to try something a little different. Good points though - next time, I'll see if there's something a bit more interesting I can use for background...
 
Just out of interest, what lens were you using?

As for the rally, I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of TV coverage... nothing I could find on TV today until well after midnight (too late for me), then from noon to 1.30pm on Channel 5 tomorrow afternoon (which I'm planning to watch). A far cry from the old 4 or 5 day RAC/Lombard Rally days, where there were regular hourly reports on BBC Radio and 'Rally Report' on BBC2 each evening. :(
 
I was on a 70-200 f/4L

to be honest it was just a little bit too long on the crop sensor where I was - whilst the AF was great, I was at 70mm most of the time and really wanted a tad wider... 50mm would have been perhaps better but it wasn’t in the bag and the weather made me a bit nervous about lens swapping!
 
Ah, the days of the RAC Lombard - many a Sunday evening watching the Group B cars.... that’s how I got interested in motorsport. Having never got to a rally, I decided it was time to go and watch the WRC. Maybe next year I’ll go to a forest stage or two...
 
Perhaps have a think about a good used Canon EF 24-105 f/4 L Mk1 (they seem to be quite reasonably priced at the moment)? If my maths is right, that should give you the equivalent of 38mm to 168mm on a 1.6 x crop sensor, so fill in the gap nicely below your 70-200.
 
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Mr Badger said:
Just out of interest, what lens were you using?

As for the rally, I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of TV coverage... nothing I could find on TV today until well after midnight (too late for me), then from noon to 1.30pm on Channel 5 tomorrow afternoon (which I'm planning to watch). A far cry from the old 4 or 5 day RAC/Lombard Rally days, where there were regular hourly reports on BBC Radio and 'Rally Report' on BBC2 each evening. :(
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It’s ironic that the more “commercial “ rallying has got, the less the media exposure. Back in the day, when I wasn’t competing on lower-status rallies (although I had my international rally licence) I was photographing or marshalling rallies. Somewhere I still have the RAC badge complete with the bars you got for every year you marshalled. But marriage put paid to all that ...
 
Mr Badger said:
Perhaps have a think about a good used Canon EF 24-105 f/4 L Mk1 (they seem to be quite reasonably priced at the moment)? If my maths is right, that should give you the equivalent of 38mm to 168mm on a 1.6 x crop sensor, so fill in the gap nicely below your 70-200.
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indeed, I do have a Sigma 17-70 which is pretty fine, but the AF is a bit slow and struggles with motorsports. Be interesting to see how the sharpness compares to. The 70-200 which is excellent, and how fast the AF is. However, having just had our boiler expire, spare cash for new lenses is not happening anytime soon!
 
Mr Badger said:
Just out of interest, what lens were you using?

As for the rally, I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of TV coverage... nothing I could find on TV today until well after midnight (too late for me), then from noon to 1.30pm on Channel 5 tomorrow afternoon (which I'm planning to watch). A far cry from the old 4 or 5 day RAC/Lombard Rally days, where there were regular hourly reports on BBC Radio and 'Rally Report' on BBC2 each evening. :(
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it was on bt sport if you have sky or Virgin Media ( I appreciate this info is too late now ). There was quite a bit of coverage on Welsh Tv Friday evening I noticed
 
damianmkv said:
it was on bt sport if you have sky or Virgin Media ( I appreciate this info is too late now ). There was quite a bit of coverage on Welsh Tv Friday evening I noticed
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Think there are highlights on C5 tonight round about midnight. Not exactly prime time.
 
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