Going Back to Lucas Oil Raceway

I first went to a race at Lucas Oil Raceway in August of 2000. I went to see LaPorte native Tony Raines race in what was then called the Busch Series. At that time I made a photo of Tony coming through the turn with then up and coming racer Kevin Harvick right behind him. I still love that photo. My goal on the day was to make a similar photo from the stands in turns three and four. What I found when I entered the track though was that those stands are now gone. That is how things work sometimes.

I have wanted to go and shoot there for a couple of years, but the dates have never worked out for me. This past weekend the date worked so I shot it. I wanted to make a special picture of the raceway, but with the stands down in turns three and four I had to find a new place to make a photo.

Making a Large Panorama

I wanted to really try something here that I have not done before. The new Lightroom has two new features that I have been using a lot. The first of those is the 32 bit HDR function. I love the way that it makes it very easy for me to merge three exposures into one. It has made my workflow so much faster. I have also been trying some things out with the panoramic feature. I decided to try and use both of them to make one large file. Here I made seven sets of photos using my camera vertically to capture a wide view of the track. Inside of Lightroom I merged each of the seven sets into one HDR photo. From there I merged the seven HDR images into the panoramic that you see above. It is a great way to get the larger view that you are looking for without using a fisheye lens. I was at 17mm for the seven photos so it really gave me a wide view on a beautiful day. I may try this a bit more in the future as I attend some cool venues.