Digital Camera APPRENTICE

We take a reader trackside at the Historic Masters Festival, under the creative eye of Michal Pospisil

Welcome to The Apprentice, a feature article format that will be familiar to readers of our former sister titles N Photo and Photo Plus. For regular Digital Camera readers who haven’t seen it before, the clue is in the name. The idea is that a pro photographer mentors one enthusiastic reader at a day’s shoot, sharing expert insight for improving their photography – it’s like a one-to-one workshop but with a wider audience. We’re starting this new series at Brands Hatch in Kent, as it hosts the Historic Masters Festival. The iconic motor racing circuit will be familiar to anyone who followed motor racing in the 1970s and 1980s, and although Silverstone supplanted it for Formula 1 grand prix races in 1986, Brands Hatch is still at the heart of British motorsport. Digital Camera is attending the first day of the two-day programme, where the Masters GT Trophy and Masters Sports Cars Legends will be contested and classic F1 cars from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s will also be appearing.

Words: Niall Hampton. Behind the scenes photos: Simon Lees

Walking the circuit is vital – our apprentice and pro assess the path of the cars from Paddock Hill Bend.

But we’re not here just to capture ‘record shots’. Also on the photographic agenda today is panning – a popular creative technique where the motion of a subject is tracked with the camera. If you pan (the word derives from ‘panorama’) at the same speed as the subject is moving, then the background will be blurred but the subject appears sharp.

Today, Digital Camera reader Joel Holland will be under the guidance of a leading light of creative motorsport photography – Michal Pospisil, who appeared in a One to One pro masterclass in issue 257 (July 2022). While capturing pin-sharp pictures of racing cars at speed is the holy grail for many motorsport photography enthusiasts, Michal has developed a parallel approach to the genre to complement his static shots of motor racing – one which blends panning with intentional camera movement (ICM) to create almost fine-art images of racing cars (see page 17).

Pro kit Sony A7 III

Michal’s setup comprises two Sony A7 III bodies, with a Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 DG DN Art attached to one and a Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 DG OS HSM Sport on the other. His third go-to lens is a Sigma 150-600mm DG OS HSM Sport, but this only comes out occasionally, he says. He has been using his A7 IIIs for several years and says they still do a great job. As his starter camera tended to lock onto things Pospisil didn’t want it to focus on, he visited The Photography Show to see what the high-end, action-optimised Sony A9 could do. Suitably impressed, he was delighted to discover that the A7 III offered the same capabilities for less than half the price.