Coys International Trophy at Donington Park

The Coys International Trophy meeting took place at Donington Park for the first time this year, and featured many classic and historic touring and GT cars. The HDRC hosted the event, and I went along with my usual collection of cameras to photograph around the circuit and paddock. These included the Rolleicord 1A, Polaroid 103, Lomography La Sardina, and Canon 5D Mk1 with a 28-135mm and 70-200mm f/2.8 IS II which I used with the 1.4 extender. Film for my Rolleicord was Kodak Ektar, and Ilford Delta 100, where as the La Sardina used Agfa Vista Plus 200.

Action in digital

During the morning, there were qualifying sessions for all of the classes that would be racing in the afternoon. This meant many drivers were pushing hard, racing eachother to try and get a clean section of track in which to set a time. With cars passing each other, and large fields, the action came thick and fast.

Action came thick and fast during the day, with cars battling for track position in qualifying.

Too much light, for once

With the digital camera, I wanted to create some heavily blurred, slow shutter speed shots of these iconic cars. As many of the vehicles have recognisable shapes and forms, I wanted to try and capture these in fast moving, blurry shots. However, the bright conditions meant that at 1/5s and an aperture of f/45 and an ISO of 50, photographs were still coming out overexposed. With cloud passing over the circuit intermittently, I had to choose my moment to photograph the action.

An Alfa Romeo heading through the Craner Curves, just about keeping enough of it’s distinctive shape at 1/6s.

The Alfa Romeo was one such iconic car, and I managed to capture it at high speed heading down towards the Old Hairpin corner. I felt that this image captured the speed, excitement and spirit that Alfa Romeo touring cars from this era encapsulate.

Paddock hunting with the Polaroid

With it’s reflective automatic metering system, the Polaroid would be of limited use around the track. I instead photographed iconic cars in the paddock, using the Fuji FP-100c film pack. With such beautiful skies, the Polaroid would capture the contrast of white fluffy clouds and large swathes of blue sky.

The AC Cobra against a blue sky in the paddock at Donington Park. The Fuji FP-100c film producing excellent sky tones as usual.

Ilford Delta 100 in the Rolleicord

After the success of the Delta 100 on my Paris trip in the Rolleicord, I wanted to try it out at a motorsport event. As usual, I developed it at home in Ilford DD-X, which is the developer specially formulated for Delta films.

Two classic touring cars, including an Alfa Romeo, parked next to each other in the paddock against the cloudy sky.

Using the Rolleicord in such bright conditions was tough, as metering correctly in the sunlight meant that I often had to use the reflective reading, as opposed to the incident. Luckily this appeared to work well, after making some compensation adjustments to the aperture setting on the camera. The Delta performed well, but the bright conditions did produce slightly flat images. I would like to try using FP-4 in DD-X in the Rolleicord, as this has worked well in 35mm format.

Great film, not so great workflow

Kodak Ektar 100 made a return to the back of my Rolleicord. I’ve used this film with great success before, but this time there was some disappointment, completely due to my own stupidity. Loading such a camera in bright conditions is not a good idea, and many shots taken had large amounts of light leaks on the film. This may be because of the bright conditions, or because of leaks in the top hinge on the back of the camera body. Either way, I need to start unloading my Rolleicord in a film changing bag, and finding somewhere light tight to store it.

The eye popping colours of the Kodak Ektar from a Fiat Abarth bootlid. This was one of the few to survive the bright conditions

I did however manage to salvage a few shots, and as usual with Kodak Ektar the colours were excellent. The Fiat Abarth bootlid had a great mix of bright red tones, deep blues and subtle yellow colours for the lettering on the numberplate. I want to photograph more care detail parts in the 6×6 format, but as the Rolleicord has no parallax indicator this could be difficult to achieve.

The ever present Lomography La Sardina

With me, as usual at these kinds of event, was the Lomography La Sardina. I took fewer shots with this camera compared to other events, but still managed to get some interesting shots. The distortion of the wide lens always adds extra texture and interest to a photo, and colours usually pop out well through the plastic lens too.

A Porsche 356A in bright red sat in the paddock. The La Sardina captured the colour well, and the distortion of the lens emphasised the curvy shape of this design icon.

Looking back at the Coys International Trophy

I had a great day out photographing the cars at Donington, as there was such a mix of iconic machinery on display. The bright conditions were challenging from a photographic point of view, with ever changing conditions resulting in frequent setting changes on all formats.

In future events, I want to photograph more close ups of car parts using the 6×6 format, and if possible mechanics working on cars and the drives who race these amazing machines. I also want to try Ilfrod FP4+ 120 format in the Rolleicord, and process in DD-X as opposed to the Ilfosol 3 I have used it with in the past.

If you want to see the rest of the photos from this event, they are in my Coys Trophy Meeting set on Flickr. If you have any questions, please either use the form below, contact me directly, or send me a tweet on Twitter.

Posted in: 35mm, 6x6, Classic Racing, Digital, Film Photography, Motorsport, Polaroid