On a very (very) cold Sunday I went up to Snetterton to watch my step-son and his friend take the track bike out for a spin, this being a Track Day where anyone who wants to (and is prepared to pay the required fee) can bring their own bikes for a whizz round the Snetterton 300 circuit. Riders are organised into groups according to experience, with my step-son in the novice group, and his friend who’s a more experienced rider (and who’s bike they’re using) in a different group, which means they’re able to take it in turns on the same bike!
The object of the exercise for me though was to try the new Sigma 150-600mm for it’s intended purpose, motorsports photography. Here are a few of the images I captured on Flickr:-
On the one hand I’m very pleased with them, the Sigma gets me significantly closer to the action, it captures much sharper images than my other lenses, which I’m really happy about because that was the biggest problem I had with the Sigma 70-300, the softness of the images it captured. However it was so cold and windy I didn’t trust myself to get decent images at slower shutter speeds so almost all the pictures I took were at higher shutter speeds (up to 1/2000th some of them), so that might also explain the sharpness.
This was also the first time I used the big lens on the monopod I bought especially for it. I’m very pleased with this as well, it works perfectly, makes using the lens considerably easier, and is a handy tool for carrying the lens around (over my shoulder like a bricklayer’s hod!) It also solves the problem of the lens being difficult to zoom when hand-held, on the monopod the lens is effectively braced against the ground making it easy to adjust zoom without taking my hand, or eye, off the camera.