My Gear

All the stuff i use when Photographing Trackside

My main weapon of choice for photographing one the fastest motorcycle racing in the World is my trusty Sony A9II.

This beast fires off 20 frames per second and is able to accuratly drive the autofocus 60 times each second. This means that every frame the camera captures the autofocus is recalculated 3x before capturing the next frame.
With a 24MP sensor there is enough detail captured to make some very nice big prints. The main reasons I had for upgrade my Sony A9 to the new Mark II had all to do with improved weathersealing, ergonomics, faster SD card slots and faster WIFI connection.

My A7R3 is mostly used for paddock / pitlane work aswel as it being my Backup body if the A9II for some reason refuses to function properly (not that it ever happend).
The A7R3 has a very large 42.4MP sensor that captures al lot of details with great colour reproduction. Both Cameras are equiped with Batterygrips to ensure i dont run out of Battery during the heat of the moment.

 

The big boy on top is one of two lenses Sony has for shooting sportevents. The 400mm F2.8 GM is the smaller sibling to Sony’s 600mm F4. The reasons i choose the 400mm over the 600mm is weight and flexibilty. When i couple my 400mm with the 1.4x Teleconverter (Smallest in the picture) it transform the lens into a 560mm F.4 lens. The cost of extending the range of any compatible lens is always losing some light, sacrificing some image quality and sometimes Autofocus speed. I my case, the stop of light i lose is no problem, F4 is more then enough to photograph outside with a lot of cloud cover or a rainy day. Image quality lost is no more than 5 – 8 percent. Autospeed is still extremely fast when mounting this combo on the A9II body.

The second largest in the picture is the Sony 200-600 F5.6 / 6.3 G I use mainly on Raceday.
It is way more flexible covering whats happening on the track during the main racing events. You can easily go from photographing Desmo Dovi overtaking MM93 to close up action in twist of the zoom ring. Image quality and sharpness is very very good but this lens uses a rather small apature of F5.6 / F6.3. This means increasing the ISO value (Sensor sensitivity for light) a fair amount. Luckily the latest Sony camera body’s handle large ISO values with ease.

The black coloured lens in the bottom is my all purpous Sony 24-105 F4 lens.
This great allrounder is always mountend on either one of the body’s when doing pitlane or paddock photography. Its very good for portrait shots as well as some wide angle work in the padock (capturing filled grandstands). 

The big boy on top is one of two lenses Sony has for shooting sportevents. The 400mm F2.8 GM is the smaller sibling to Sony’s 600mm F4. The reasons i choose the 400mm over the 600mm is weight and flexibilty. When i couple my 400mm with the 1.4x Teleconverter (Smallest in the picture) it transform the lens into a 560mm F.4 lens. The cost of extending the range of any compatible lens is always losing some light, sacrificing some image quality and sometimes Autofocus speed. I my case, the stop of light i lose is no problem, F4 is more then enough to photograph outside with a lot of cloud cover or a rainy day. Image quality lost is no more than 5 – 8 percent. Autospeed is still extremely fast when mounting this combo on the A9II body.

The second largest in the picture is the Sony 200-600 F5.6 / 6.3 G I use mainly on Raceday.
It is way more flexible covering whats happening on the track during the main racing events. You can easily go from photographing Desmo Dovi overtaking MM93 to close up action in twist of the zoom ring. Image quality and sharpness is very very good but this lens uses a rather small apature of F5.6 / F6.3. This means increasing the ISO value (Sensor sensitivity for light) a fair amount. Luckily the latest Sony camera body’s handle large ISO values with ease.

The black coloured lens in the bottom is my all purpous Sony 24-105 F4 lens.
This great allrounder is always mountend on either one of the body’s when doing pitlane or paddock photography. Its very good for portrait shots as well as some wide angle work in the padock (capturing filled grandstands). 

The tech featured from Hyper is whats keeps my Macbook connected and powered to the outside world. The SlimDock (the top one) has all the connections I need to make sure my pictures can at least make it to the Internet when editing en culling my pictures from within the Mediacenter. With alot of WiFi connections always messing up the internet, this thing lets me connect a decent ethernet cabel the the Mediacentre’s Lan Network.

The HyperDrive Cardreader (middle one) is what i use to import (download) the images from my camera’s SD cards to the Macbook. The speed at which this guy dumps the images to the Macbooks SSD is incredible. I find it slightly faster as the cardreaders from Lexar and Sandisk.  I features an SD, Micro SD, CFast slot so U can always help some one who lost or forgot his reader.

Then last but most definitly not the least, The HyperJuice 130W powerpack. This is what keeps the Macbook powered when there is no poweroutlet available. Thanks to its USB-PD protocol it will power the Macbook with 100Watts of power. In my field test i tried charging my A9II Camera, IPhone, and Macbook Pro all at the sametime. As expected there was no problem you only need to optimise and connect the right device to the right power output port. There is a 100W USB-C (Laptops & Tablets & Phones & Camera) 60W USB – C (Laptops & Tablets & Phones & Camera) 18W USB-A (Phones, earpods and smaller devices). Filling this badboy up is fast and easy, just use the original Macbook charger (97Watt) and it will the HyperJuice in 90 minutes from almost empty to full. Use an extra power cord and you can even passthrough charge the Macbook, Phone, Tablet at the same time.

The Macbook 16″ is the home where my images stay during the Raceweekend. Any picture that needs some special attention, special watermark (RvM Logo) gets edited with the Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom applications. With the incredible and fast Thunderbolt 3 connection i can use the HyperDrive Cardreader to download the images with incredible speed to the Macbook. Exporting the final images goes very fast due to the beefy processor and Ram memory.

My Iphone is what keeps me personaly conneted to everybody when stalking the Racedrivers trackside. Because you need handle very fast in every situation the Phone is a vital piece of equipment. It runs the LiveTiming apps from all the major championships (MotoGP, WSBK, MXGP, BSB) so i can see whats happening even when im not near one of many Large TV screens scattered across the Racetracks. If some one want a specific picture they will send a message what to look out for.

Having the Apple watch is a great way to see the messages without taking your hands of the Camera and Lens. It also keeps close track on the distance i walk (+/- 45km each weekend), wich in turn i a great motivation seeying the distance coverd each day.

These pieces of equipment let me send images fast and accuratly from every location, Mediacenter / Trackside / when in transit. 

 

The Macbook 16″ is the home where my images stay during the Raceweekend. Any picture that needs some special attention, special watermark (RvM Logo) gets edited with the Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom applications. With the incredible and fast Thunderbolt 3 connection i can use the HyperDrive Cardreader to download the images with incredible speed to the Macbook. Exporting the final images goes very fast due to the beefy processor and Ram memory.

My Iphone is what keeps me personaly conneted to everybody when stalking the Racedrivers trackside. Because you need handle very fast in every situation the Phone is a vital piece of equipment. It runs the LiveTiming apps from all the major championships (MotoGP, WSBK, MXGP, BSB) so i can see whats happening even when im not near one of many Large TV screens scattered across the Racetracks. If some one want a specific picture they will send a message what to look out for.

Having the Apple watch is a great way to see the messages without taking your hands of the Camera and Lens. It also keeps close track on the distance i walk (+/- 45km each weekend), wich in turn i a great motivation seeying the distance coverd each day.

These pieces of equipment let me send images fast and accuratly from every location, Mediacenter / Trackside / when in transit. 

 

Carrying all the above mentioned gear is only possible if the bag you are using to carry the stuff is up to the task.

The Mindshift Backlight 36L fits all my gear with ease and still makes it possible to carry around all day without giving your back a harsh time.

Sirui is my preffered choice when it comes to monopods, tripods, and ballheads.
The P-326 monopod is very lightweight, stable and fast to deploy when out in the field. Combined with the L-10 ballhead its the perfect system to stabilize the 400mm all day long.