Carlos Sainz - WRC Rally Finland Photography
Photography experiences of a lifetime

Rally Photography advice

About the photographer | Getting started Canadian photography | WRC Finland photography Carlos Sainz WRC photography | In-car rally photography | Rally photography at night Rally car crash photography | Full manual camera operation

(continued from Finland page)

In the montage above I used 4 pictures to form a series illustrating two jumps and two landings on a typical, long, high speed straight on the WRC Finland stages. I used a Canon EF100-400mm lens which allowed me to gently zoom out as the rally car approached. I chose this approach because the car speeds were much too high for me to attempt side-on jump pictures. My reflexes just aren't fast enough. When you put extra space between you and the car, it slows everything down for you and gives you extra time to compose each frame. If I was trying to photograph at close quarters or side-on, there may be only one opportunity to take a picture, and that opportunity might last only a fraction of a second.

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The rally stages in Finland are like no others I have come across. The speeds involved are just incredible. Mind blowing. I have no idea how these rally drivers keep their car on the road as they drive at maximum attack over every jump. It's insane!

I use slightly higher ISO settings when the rally cars are flying so quickly. 400 or even 800 ISO may be a safe bet but I used 400 ISO here because I didn't want the contrast in the pictures to get too high. There was enough light and shade, bright and dark patches in the pictures as it was, and because I was shooting from long distances away from the cars, the car movement is slowed down anyway which is a big help when you want to keep the ISO number low.

Why keep your ISO settings low? As you increase the ISO number (film or digital) you introduce more and more noise or grain into the image or picture. You may also find extra contrast introduced, something that you may not want. For image clarity and sharpness you need to keep the ISO number as low as possible.

If I was back in Finland would my approach to the photography have changed?

Possibly. The one thing I would have done differently when out on the above stage would have been to use a longer lens for the first two frames in the sequence. At a focal length of 400mm the car was still too far away. I would probably have had time to swap cameras after frame two, to a shorter focal length. A 300mm or 400mm f2.8 lens with a x2 extender would probably have been ideal on camera one, and a 100-400mm or 70-200mm lens on camera two. Alternatively I could have simply moved further down the stage, closer to the first jump, but then it wouldn't have been possible to create four or five-frame sequences like the one above.

It's easy to pull apart your approach or criticise pictures after the event but when you are actually there, on the stage, and you've never experienced the place before, you have some key decisions to make and not a great deal of time to make them in. You look down the stage and try to visualise what the rally cars will do. You look at where the spectators and photographers gravitate to and ask yourself why. Where possible, there are two of us with cameras; then, at least we can move about a bit and collect lots of different shots. If you try this I recommend you use two-way radios so that you can communicate with each other easily over great distances. It's a real pain when you need something, or you're moving on, and you've no way of communicating your change of plan to your partner.

Rally Photography advice

About the photographer | Getting started Canadian photography | WRC Finland photography Carlos Sainz WRC photography | In-car rally photography | Rally photography at night Rally car crash photography | Full manual camera operation