Time to decide: What camera gear should I bring to the Rolex 24?

In reply to Colin Wood :

Now you've got me thinking...  Never a good thing.  B&H has 50 sheet boxes of T max 100 4x5 film for $240.  I wonder how hard it would be to tray develop that at home?
 

I fear we have wandered a bit off topic. 

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

I'll allow this tangent. 

So last night I was thinking, I shoot track side and usually only have a 70-200 mm lens and I always wish I had a bit more reach. That turned into some googling and on Thursday a 200-600 mm lens is showing up from a lens rental service. I have not shot on a lens that long before and have had my eye on one to use when we go to the FIRM so lets call this a trial.

Chris Tropea said:

So last night I was thinking, I shoot track side and usually only have a 70-200 mm lens and I always wish I had a bit more reach. That turned into some googling and on Thursday a 200-600 mm lens is showing up from a lens rental service. I have not shot on a lens that long before and have had my eye on one to use when we go to the FIRM so lets call this a trial.

You dog!  Everyone at the track will be enviously ogling your big lens!

Also, with a 70-200 f/2.8 and a 1.4x converter and a crop sensor, I can shoot action from the top rows of the infield bleachers. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

That's some nice range. A good reminder that teleconverters are a thing–and that I should buy one.

Welp, delivery of my rental lens has been delayed due to the weather in the southeast so I'm not sure if I'll have it in time for the race. Fingers crosssed it gets here tomorrow or I'm back to my 70-200. 

In reply to Colin Wood :

TC's seem like something best purchased knowing how well they work with a specific lens.  It seems like some are great with one lens and not great with a lot of others.

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

That's good to know, thanks for the heads up.

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

Yeah, not all converters work with all lenses. My Canon 1.4x converter only works with specific Canon lenses. 

pres589 (djronnebaum) said:

In reply to Colin Wood :

TC's seem like something best purchased knowing how well they work with a specific lens.  It seems like some are great with one lens and not great with a lot of others.

I made this mistake when buying my 70-200. I wanted to save some money and got the f/4 lens. Turns out you can only use the TC with the f/2.8 lens so now I can either sell my current lens and buy a f/2.8 and a TC or save up and buy a longer lens like a 200-600 for about the same money. 

The other thing about teleconverters is that they hurt the image quality, both from the fact that there are more lens elements that the light has to pass through, but also because you are magnifying the image that went through the original lens, which means you are also magnifying all of the imperfections in that lens.  There's a case to be that for some combinations of lenses (and cameras with enough megapixels), the resulting image is of similar quality to just digitally cropping the center out of the image taken with the normal lens.  Yes, you need to do it manually in Lightroom afterwards, but that also means you don't pay the f/stop penalty for the teleconverter either.

At least for today (Friday), I’m bringing my Canon gear–7D MkII, etc.–plus this: my Olympus XA2. It has a 35mm lens so good in the infield, garages, etc. 

Good news everyone, I emailed Lensrentals about the delay on the delivery for my rental and they overnighted me a replacement that will be delivered today. I was shocked by the customer service and speed of communication. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

You should buy my Yashica T4!

Chris and I saw a dude walking the paddock with a twin lens reflex camera! (I know, should have stopped him.)

I didn’t use as much film as hoped during the weekend. The XA2 was loaded with 200, so once I lost the light, I lost the light.

Thursday evening, though, I was at a hangar party (I know, so bougie) courtesy of Hagerty. I had some film gear with me, so once everyone left, I took advantage of the situation. Hope to drop off the film later today. 

So, on Friday I was able to pick up my rented lens from the FedEx location and was happy to give it some test shots. Unfortunately the lens arrived broken. I connected it to my camera, waked out to the grid to start shooting and had no auto focus or aperture control. Just to make sure it wasn't the camera body, even though every other lens I own works fine I put it on my backup body and the got the same results. Its a big bummer but it made me re-think how to shoot some stuff and I ended up with some images that I typically wouldn't shoot. I emailed the company so hopefully they make things right.  

Chris Tropea said:

it made me re-think how to shoot some stuff and I ended up with some images that I typically wouldn't shoot.

Now that I think about it, this is pretty much how I ended up with some of my favorite photos.

Something about restrictions makes the creative juices flow stronger or differently or something.

Chris Tropea said:

So, on Friday I was able to pick up my rented lens from the FedEx location and was happy to give it some test shots. Unfortunately the lens arrived broken. I connected it to my camera, waked out to the grid to start shooting and had no auto focus or aperture control. Just to make sure it wasn't the camera body, even though every other lens I own works fine I put it on my backup body and the got the same results. Its a big bummer but it made me re-think how to shoot some stuff and I ended up with some images that I typically wouldn't shoot. I emailed the company so hopefully they make things right.  

That sucks. I saw the Lens Depot in Orlando had its going-out-of-business sale this weekend, too. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Cessna 680 and 560XL.  Some nice stuff in that hangar.

In reply to pres589 (djronnebaum) :

And a nice place to make some pictures. :) 

The Racer’s Group had a car on display, so while they loaded up, I took advantage of the situation. Plus the cheese plate was still out.