It’s that time of year again. The clocks have moved forward, the weather is warming up and the British GT is rolling into Silverstone. Once again I’ll be heading back to Silverstone in 2025 to photograph the action.
It was a little bit of a last-minute decision. I didn’t find out until last week that Andrew Gilbert and Fran Rueda would be competing again this year. I also hadn’t made any plans to meet up with the guys from Piston Click. A few clicks later and I had my tickets and hotel booked.
Thinking About Gear
With the logistics for the weekend sorted out, my thoughts turn to gear. Last year was my first year shooting the British GT with the Nikon Z8. I primarily shot with the 100-400mm and the 180-600mm Nikon Z lenses. For this year, I am considering taking the Z8 and 100-400mm lens, and then the Nikon D500 and Sigma 150-600mm.
My current train of thought is that it will reduce the amount of lens changes I need to do. The other advantage is that the D500 is a crop sensor camera, effectively making the Sigma an effective 225mm-900mm lens. Even with carrying two bodies, it doesn’t really increase the weight of the kit I’m carrying.
The flip side of this is that the Z8 also has a DX crop mode giving me the same advantage. The only slight difference is that the D500 is a 20.9mp sensor and crop mode on the Z8 is 19.3mp. It does mean I’d have room in my bag for the Z 24-120mm f4 lens for shooting in the paddock.
I will be using the same monpod and gimbal I used last year. I was quite impressed with the versatility of it. My arms also can’t really handhold the 180-600mm for extended periods anymore. Well, not and get decent results anyway.
I still haven’t made my final decision on what gear I’ll be taking. I might get some of the kit out and have a test run before packing my bag and heading to back to Silverstone in 2025.
What’s New
Something new for 2025 will be my attempts to capture some video footage. I’ve never been very interested in capturing video. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve set any of my cameras to video mode. Recently acquiring a drone (more on that in another post), I’ve started to dabble with capturing video and learning some basic editing.
To aid me in this endeavor, I’ve also purchased a DJI Osmo 7. Last year, I did have an go at capturing some video with my iPhone. The below video shows just how much I’ve got to learn.
The video was taken from the balcony of the Brooklands suite. It was handheld without a gimbal and put together using apple movies. While I won’t have access to the Brooklands suite this year, I’m hoping the gimbal will help me get some better footage from the paddock and around the circuit. Hopefully I can make a better reel than the one from last year.
More To Come
This will be the first of two trips to Silverstone for me this year. I’ll be back again in September for the European Le Mans Series. This is the first time in six years that ELMS has been to Silverstone, so I’m really looking forward to it. Some of the focus of next weekend will be ensuring I have the right kit for the ELMS.
Time to start packing. Look out for a follow up post about the gear I decide to take. There may well be more posts when I get back describing what I got right and what I plan on changing for September.
Thanks for stopping by. Until next time, take it easy and make some images.
