Available light at Maple Grove Raceway

OK at Maple Grove on a sunny day is a great place to shoot.  The track faces south so in the morning the sun is coming from the east and in the afternoon I shoot from the other side of the track with my back to the sun which is coming from the west.  First tip, wear a shirt with a collar. If you are out there all day the back of you neck will most certainly get sunburned and if you're wearing shorts the back of you legs need protection too.

Here is a shot taken at 10:30 in the morning.  Camera settings were f5.6 at 1/1250, ISO 400 with a plus 1/3 of a stop setting and the picture characteristics set for vivid.  Light was mixed with clouds so conditions were changing I shot in shutter priority and with a daylight white balance.  This is the jpeg exactly as it came out of the camera, just sampled down for this post.  The key for this shot was the fast shutter speed. My camera was a Nikon D200 with an AFS 18 to 200mm  3.5 to 5.6  G ED zoom lens.  I positioned myself about 50 feet, (really guessing on this) down the track so the car drove into position about one car length from the starting line.

This image is nice with a straight on look. You can see the car twisting under power with the left front tire off the ground.  If I were to tweak this image I might open up the shadows just a bit to create some separation between the tire and the track surface.

I often take a step to the right and try to get a little more of a side view while still seeing the entire front of the car.  This is a good angle because you can usually see the rear tire wrinkle as power is applied.

This image is taken at mid day; light was almost directly overhead, you can see the sun reflecting off of the visor of her helmet. I usually keep it on shutter priority and slow my shutter speed down to about 250 to increase my depth of field. If I had to guess that is what I would have thought this exposure was made at but surprise it was shot with exactly the same settings as the previous one f5.6 at 1/1250. I probably walked right off of the line and back to the burn out box to take this shot.  I did do a little Photoshop work on this one sharpening a bit and lightening the riders face and the front of her leathers to open up the details.

This image was shot at the end of the day.