Donington Historic Festival 2013

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013

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Last year I went to the Donington Historic Festival as a spectator with my Polaroid, La Sardina 35mm along with my digital camera. This year I returned with a media pass, my Canon 5D MkIII, and my beloved Mamiya C330F.

New things to try

After the blazing sunshine of Silverstone, I wanted to be prepared for more sunny conditions at Donington, and chose to take with my some Ilford Pan F film for when the sun came out. I’ve not used this film stock before, so wanted to see how it performed compared to my current favorate FP4+. I also wanted to make use of the access the media pass would give me to the circuit and pitlane to take better photos of the racing action.

Trackside with Historic Motorsport Photography

I started the day making my way around the outside of the Donington track. Redgate turned out to be a great place to photograph, as long as I stuck to the 400mm f/5.6 lens. I’m still getting to grips with this lens, but was again amazed with the image quality that it produces.

Mustangs and a Lotus Cortina race into Redgate at Donington.

Cars racing into shot at Redgate with the 400mm F/5.6L again showed how sharp this piece of glass is. Even with 400mm I still needed to crop slightly to frame the shot well.

Panning photographs with the 400mm lens have so far proved to be quite tough, so I was keen to figure out how to get the best out of it. With no IS on this lens, learning how to relax and move smoothly are needed to get a clean, crisp, sharp shot as cars pass.

Panning is possible with the 400mm f/5.6L lens, but a higher shutter speed is needed due to the long focal length. This Mercedes C11 came out very crisp using this technique.

I’m starting to feel a lot more confident with this long lens. I think that due to it’s prime nature, you have to allow a shot to come to the lens, rather than seeking out a shot.

Photographing a legend of historic motorsport

During the lunch break, there were demonstration runs of the Lotus 97T/2 originally raced by Ayrton Senna, along with other cars driven by the Brazilian legend. This was a real treat, and I got a decent spot at the far side of the pit lane when it set off on it’s demonstration run.

It was a real pleasure photographing the legendary machine driven by Ayrton Senna. A slow shutter speed gave a sense of speed as it tore out of the pitlane.

I can only imaging the thrill of photographing the car in the 1980s, during a real F1 race at a track like Monaco or Spa. It certainly sounded spectacular as it raced around Donington an a bright spring day.

Vintage superblur

I wanted to get some decent superblur style shots out of this event, as I’ve not got any on the 5D Mk III yet. The HGPCA offered an opportunity to do so, and I switched to the 70-200mm f/2.8L II for this. These shots are very hit and miss, but I got one I was relatively happy with after a few attempts.

A blurred shot of a vintage ERA at Donington Park

The ERA of Ben Fidler taken at 1/8s as he exits Redgate at Donington gave a great feel reminiscent of vintage car posters of the day.

A static opportunity

Later on in the day a tool shop remade Mercedes Silver Arrow car was placed on display on the grid hatching. This was another opportunity too good to miss, so I photographed the car under the large Donington sign.

I was really pleased with this shot, as it’s clean, sharp and full of colour. The Silver Arrows looks perfect sat on the famous Donington circuit

I’m not usually good at taking photographs of things that arn’t moving, so I was especially pleased with how this turned out.

Trying Pan F+ in the Mamiya C330F

After processing my films from the weekend, I didn’t feel overly impressed with the Pan F+. I found that a lot of shots just didn’t really work, or suffered from camera shake. The Mamiya C330F is a big hunk of metal and glass, and I think that having the extra ISO of FP4+ can be used to reduce the shake with faster shutter speed. I don’t think it was actually bright enough to be used at it’s best. At Silverstone, I was having to use F/8 at 1/500, the cameras fastest speed, to be able to photograph with the correct exposure. I think for conditions like that it would perform much better. Nevertheless, I still managed to get a couple of decent shots from the Pan F+.

Pan F+ offered decent image quality, but I didn’t feel it was far superior to FP4+, which is more versatile and offers similar image quality.

It wasn’t all bad news with the Mamiya

Despite my Pan F+ disappointments, I still managed to get some fantastic shots on the 6×6 TLR. After switching to Delta 400 in the pitlane at lunchtime, I saw some opportunities to photograph the Senna car and driver, and produced a great result.

The Lotus 97T/2 in the pitlane at Donington

Delta 400 is still rpoving to be my favorate medium speed film, especially with results like this. Great tones and detail in the bodywork and the driver.

I really liked the intensity in the drivers eyes, combined with the tones in the bodywork of the Lotus 97T/2. It created a striking, powerful image of a legendary car, and the framing within the square format worked really well too.

A tragic end to the day

After what seemed a perfect spring day came some sad news from the officials at Donington. The Masters Pre-66 touring car had been taking place in the afternoon, but was red flagged after a serious incident. After a long stoppage, the event had to be abandoned after Mini Cooper racer Christian Devereux had been involved in a crash with a Ford Mustang. Despite the best efforts of the marshals, medical crews and doctors, Christian died of injuries sustained in the crash.

Christian Devereux, shown here in his Mini on Sunday morning, lost his life in a crash during the race. My thought are with his family and friends at this sad time.

Motorsport is, as we are always told, inherently dangerous. Despite this, marshals, drivers and safety crews do as much as they can to make sure that races go ahead with the minimum of risk, and the maximum safety. Inevitably, some incidents that are unavoidable do occur, and unfortunately on rare occasions end in tragedy. I’d like to offer my condolences to the Devereux family and his friends at this difficult time.

Mixed feelings

I did find that the Pan F+ film wasn’t quite as good as I had expected, and I think I will stick to FP4+ in the future, unless it’s very sunny. I enjoyed learning to use the 400mm lens to do panning shot, but still need a little more practice to get it right.

Despite having enjoyed event on the Sunday, the tragic circumstances that the event ended under have understandably overshadowed what had been an exciting and entertaining weekend of motorsport at Donington.