American Le Mans Series Photos from Mosport International Raceway

Friday, August 27, 2010

The American Le Mans Series made their annual visit to Mosport International Raceway, August 26-29, 2010. All classes were well represented, with a healthy 30 cars in the paddock. The weather was picture perfect, the rolling hills of Mosport dotted with hundreds of campers eagerly looking forward to a weekend of intense racing action.

The top time turned during the Friday test session was 1:07.489 by the LMP Porsche RS Spyder of Porsche factory hot shoe Romain Dumas. Fastest in the LMP Challenge class was Gunnar Jeannette at 1:12.546. GT class honours went to Jörg Bergmeister, 1:17.691, driving the Flying Lizard Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. The best GT Challenge racer of the day was Jeroen Bleekemolen in a Porsche 911 GT3 Cup at 1:22.440.

Mosport is the fastest track on the ALMS schedule, but with rule changes introduced in 2010 and dwindling factory participation, the all time track record, 1:04.094, established in 2008 by Dindo Capello in an Audi R10 TDI, was in no danger of falling.

Hey race fans! Click the photo below for a really cool slide show! To navigate the photos, click the right side of a photo to go forward, or the left side to go back. You can also use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.

Photo tech, for those who care:

All shots taken with a Fujifilm FinePix HS10. The HS10 can be referred to as a "bridge" camera, that is, it offers a bit more than a typical point and shoot, but falls short of a DSLR.

The HS10 boasts a 30x (that's a whopping 720mm in 35mm speak!) optical zoom lens, making it an ideal choice for the track. However, the camera is woefully slow to focus and write to the memory card, and also has considerable shutter lag. Any sort of unexpected action is difficult to capture at best, downright impossible at worst. Count on missing many shots. The electronic viewfinder can best be described as terrible.

The mighty zoom of the HS10 sure comes in handy at the track, especially for slobs like me without a photo pass, confined to the spectator area. We ought to be careful of what we wish for, though: it's no easy task to keep a hurtling racecar in the viewfinder at full zoom. On the other hand, the 24mm wide angle is most welcome for shots in the crowded paddock.

Panning shots, with a blurred background but sharp subject, are very difficult as a sufficiently slow shutter speed can't be used under bright sunshine.

For those who would rather not carry around a DSLR and all the associated gear, the HS10 is a good compromise, just don't expect DSLR results.

The photos seen here were taken in shutter priority, 100 ISO, and under exposed by ⅓ of a stop. Post editing was limited to cropping, re-sizing, and a little sharpening done in the very handy, and free, FastStone Image Viewer.