Tom, You mailed it with the long lens description. Besides the narrower view angle, compression occurs with long glass.
Knowing what lens to use affects many aspects of the image.
Large images of cars at Bonneville are easily achieved but the longer the lens, the less background, so the mountains disappear and so does the feel of B'ville.
Them days are apparently gone forever. I had great image size using a 300 mm lens, wonderful backgrounds and the feel of the place. But I was only 200 feet from the course. That doesn't happen anymore. That lens was manual focus and constant focusing was required along with the pan. Todays auto focus lenses eliminates a lot of concentration. Now framing is the only problem and the longer the lens, the easier the pan. Angular velocity is reduced with long glass.
Even 500 mm on a film camera kills the background. I see that some people are using 1200 mm. That's like looking thru a drinking straw but conditions have changed a lot for shooters.
FREUD
Freud,
my "old" photographer friend,
your wish that the autofocus system of today will helps you to get the racer sharp is unfortunately still a dream - especially when you try to make a photo with the parachute - the object which has to be sharp - means racer and parachute - has not enough contrast to the salt for the camera system to get the spot for the focus on this. At some places at the salt you be close enough that you can try it to use the autofocus - the result will be a 50/50 that it works out or not - when I go up to 400 mm or more I still do it manual focus - and a very quiet hand.......
The only racer which was big enough was George Nielsen's Dragon truck - and still there 20 percent was not in focus.
My wish - I could be so close to the course as you was 30 years ago - dreams are still allowed
And, Freud, thanks again to the complement you done me during the salt talk on my small photo book - a so complement from a photographer like you counts.......hope I can keep my work on this level for some more years
