6/08/12

We’re fortunate to be able to combine 2 of our photographic passions at the end of this month when we journey to the Northern Regions of Italy.

First stop is Milan, where we will be based for the Italian Grand Prix to be held at the historic Monza Circuit. The F1 race series is delicately poised at present with Fernando Alonso leading the driver’s championship and Australian Mark Webber in second. With Monza being Ferrari’s home Grand Prix, all the local support will be for Fernando, although we will do our best to make our voices heard as the No. 2 Red Bull roars past each lap.

We have studied the circuit map carefully and have chosen our seats and stand for what we feel offers the best opportunities photographically. Fortunately on Friday for practice and Saturday during qualifying, we have access to the entire circuit so will vary where we position ourselves. However, for race day, we have chosen seats on the southern end of the first corner, where the inevitable action always occurs. The Outer Variant Stand A (8A) provides a great view of the main straight as well as the first corner and chicane, where the cars will be rapidly decelerating while braking, before applying 100% throttle.




We have already previously documented some of our techniques shooting at F1 Grand Prix meets, and will be applying similar principles for Monza. Thursday prior to the GP will be spent scouting for locations, while taking some test images of some of the support races.

Motion in Motorsport Part 1




Fernando Alonso






Mark Webber


We will be using our usual motorsport setup but with the new Canon 1d-X body capable of 12 frames/sec in RAW format and 14 frames/sec in JPEG format. In addition, there are a variety of new autofocus options in AI servo mode which allows for fine-tuning of AF tracking sensitivity, Acceleration and Deceleration sensitivity and AF point auto switching. This is ideal for panning and tracking fast moving cars and should be a generational improvement on the 1d4.










We will be doing a comprehensive review of the 1d-X following its Monza outing.












From Milan, we will be indulging in our other passion, that of Landscape Photography. We will be visiting the region of Tuscany, renowned for its gentle hills, sweeping vistas, breathtaking cloud formations, cypress trees and sun kissed glow. We were particularly inspired by images from Tuscany by fellow landscape photographers Martin and Alik Sojka, whom we met last year in New Zealand.

Here is a photo we absolutely love by Martin:




You can check out Martin and Alik’s images here:

Visualescap.es



We will be posting some of our latest landscape images in the “Newest Images” section of this website, as well as on our Facebook and G+ pages.