rallyphotography.com and the photography eBook 'How to Take Better
Rally Pictures: The Basics' came about through my experiences, trials
and tribulations during my first five years' or so professional rally
motorsport photography.
Going way back, I started taking pictures from about the age of twelve.
I remember visiting camera shops in town just to look in the shop windows
at the latest Canon and Nikon auto-exposure (but still manual focus)
SLR cameras and lenses. The Canon AE1, I think it was called, the first
to have a micro-processor, was one of them. I marvelled at the £100+
price tags and dreamed of the day when I would have one of my own. Then,
on a birthday in my early teens, I received a Zenith-E SLR camera with
a 50mm lens; at the time I thought it was the ultimate camera, the absolute
business!
When I opened up my reconditioned, built-like-a-tank, Russian Zenith-E,
I thought I had arrived! I don't know if you're familiar with the Zenith-E.
It's a manual focus, manual exposure, no frills, do-it-all-yourself camera
- exactly what you need to learn all about setting up a camera for a picture.
Everything has to be done manually. more
(on the Zenith-E)
Rally photography
eBooks,
a great way to learn |
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"First and
foremost let me thank you for sending the e-books, which
incidentally are probably the best pieces of photographic kit I have bought..."
H.Jones UK |
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There is a light sensor above the lens which controls a needle dial which
swings in an arc beneath a dust-filled window. You line up a marker over
the dial needle, set the ASA / DIN number for the film on another dial,
set the shutter speed, set the aperture ring on the lens, focus using
the lens focus ring, then - just before taking the picture - you turn
another lens ring to manually close down the aperture. The viewfinder
goes dark and you press the shutter button. The shutter clunks with purpose
and the picture is taken. You wind the film onto the next frame with two
half swings of the film advance lever and the 'luxury' features are a
mechanical lever that activates a self-timer, and a shoe for a flash gun
with a plug socket on the camera body for the flash synchronisation. Very
high tech!
I used that camera for years and still have it in my fishing tackle shed.
I used it a lot whilst fishing, either taking pictures of carp caught
or, more likely whilst not catching anything, I would take river and lake
landscape shots. And that's how I started my interest in photography.
My first experience of what I would call 'advanced' photography was motivated
by a 3-week trip to Canada, which included the Molson Indy Cart street
racing in Vancouver, killer whale watching off the coast of Vancouver
Island and landscape photography in the Canadian Rockies.
I decided to upgrade the gear and purchased a Canon EOS 50E, a Canon
EF 28-105mm standard zoom lens, a Canon EF 100-400mm IS L zoom lens and
a Canon Speedlite 380EX flash gun. I still use this equipment to this
day alongside, amongst other things, a Canon EOS 1V HS camera body and
Canon Speedlite 550EX flash gun.
A year later, I was invited to my first rally motorsport event, a round
of the one-make Peugeot Super 106 Cup. I happily photographed people in
service and action on the rally stages and tried all sorts of things,
having never attended such an event or tried motorsport photography before.
My enthusiasm on the day resulted in twelve rolls of film and, in my opinion,
what I thought were average pictures. One of the rally teams and Peugeot
saw some of the pictures and everyone who saw them seemed to think they
were some of the best rally pictures they had ever seen! 'Easily pleased'
is what I thought at the time!
To cut a long story short I ended up covering all eight rounds of the
Peugeot 106 championship for the next two years, rallycodriver.co.uk was
born where I exhibited my work, online picture sales took off, special
fine art picture prints for sale were a success and I haven't looked back
since. Rally photography has since taken me to practically all corners
of the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium and the Isle of Man.
Now, several years on, having learnt a great deal from my photographic
'experiments' and mistakes, totally self-taught in the closed-shop 'don't-give-away-your-secrets'
world of professional photography, I thought it was time to share what
I know and, hopefully, help photographers learn and improve their skills
along the way. 'How to Take Better Rally Pictures: The Basics' was born!
Other work I am involved with, most of which involves my photography...
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www.rallycodriver.co.uk
- the famous matching service for drivers and co-drivers across
the world
- rally cars and road cars for sale
- rally car rentals
- rally directory
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www.rallycodrivermagazine.co.uk
- rally news, reports, results, photos
- calendars
- championship information
- loads of Special Features
- rally photography
- and a huge Archives section
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rallycodriver.rallygifts.com
- rally gifts
- rally related books
- rally DVDs, rally videos
- rally car models, rally team gear
- kids' rally toys and much more!
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...and you will also find my commercial photographic work inside www.improvability.co.uk
and here at www.rallyphotography.com.
I also do all the web site technical work, page layouts and whetever else
needs to be done on all our web sites except for Rallycodriver RallyGifts.
Hope you enjoy and benefit from 'How to Take Better Rally Pictures: The
Basics' and don't hesitate to get in touch with any photography questions
or comments you may have.
Regards
Neil Broadbent
Kielder Computers Ltd
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