Last weekend I was lucky enough to be given the chance to take pictures while my jeep club run a tough truck challenge at a local fair.
This wasn’t much of an adventure so i thought I would just share some of my thoughts on the challenges taking pictures I faced.
A truck doing a RTI test. This tests how flexible the suspension is.
Photographing this event was fairly straight froward. There were a few interesting things going on.
The trucks were in a weird position with there suspension and it also showed off the parts of the suspension in potions that it wouldn’t normally be. The event also moves fairly slowly as it isn’t timed and the people running it need to take measurements.
The one thing to note is that it is possible for the vehicle to roll over and for the springs to shoot out the side if the suspension is over stretchered. I very much do not recommend screwing around with large springs under compression.
I tried taking some pictures straight on from front and rear, but my favorite is the one seen above. I used my lens fairly wide (32mm) to get the wide effect and to fits the hole thing comfortably in the frame. I liked how i was able to see most of the truck in the picture. I could see the front, side and top as well as most of the suspension.
The next event was the rock crawl. This was a timed run across a pile of rocks. This event had a time element too it as was fairly unpredictable to know where they were going..
This event also had a element of danger too it as the trucks could tip or launch forward suddenly.
But this was probably the most interesting event to photograph as I had a to times the photo with the truck in a cool position, from the right spot and with the right settings.
If the truck is sitting on top of rocks with rocks under the body then it isn’t overly interesting to look at. The more lifted the truck the easier I found that.
I found that like most of the things I take pictures of things looks better when taken from low down. (most of the dog pics I like are taken on their level). See the above the picture.
I shot most of these things in manual mode with ISO set to auto. I prefer this mode as I can control the parts that have the most effect on the photo while making sure the noise isn’t too bad by watching the ISO values.
Given that this was a fairly bright day I wasn’t lacking light. I stopped down the aperture to make sure the whole vehicle. Typicality around f/8. I did play with a DOF calculator to get some idea of what would work.
Shutter speed had to be high enough to stop motion of the truck typically 1/200 ish or to stop the tires (if they are spinning) 1/800 ish.
Wheels spinning gave a interesting effect of motion, you will see more in the next section..
This picture was my favorite of this part of the event. The wheel up in the air (i just missed a bigger wheelie), the dust, and the front wheel spinning due tot he slower shutter. but the truck is still stopped and crisp. I didn’t get many photos of this event as it tended to break trucks. The above truck sprung a big leak just before I took the picture.
The last event was the mud bog. This was the most popular part of the event.
So I had thje most pictures of this but it ended up being pretty boring. as it was mostly just mudd up in the air.
I would pick a spot about 2/3rds of the way down the track and shot as the came towards and then by me. I would then try to avoid the mud coming down on me.
Here the only thing was keeping the focus, and the shutter speed,
My camera can focus between shots in continuous mode but my old ones don’t.
The shutter speed game you the choice of stopping the truck or both the truck and the tires.
If you stop the tire, then the mud is stopped too.
Or not as seen above.
This gives the impression of motion. But ultimately not overly interesting to take pics of.
