Rosetta Famellette

Oct 4, 20237 min read

Canon at the Glen! Watkins Glen 9/9/23 - 9/10/23

This is it race fans- I've finally gotten a chance to edit my Watkins Glen pictures. Very few of them, but enough for a solid post. I took ~6,000 over the two days, so it's impossible for me to look through each and everyone even throughout one month. I've been dealing with huge burnout from college and work being busy at the same time.

I had an absolutely amazing time at the Glen. As soon as I can, I want to start looking into events like the Vintage Weekend. These events give you free reign of the track in a sense. You can go around and sit wherever you'd like, instead of being seated in one place for NASCAR events. You'll see that we tried four different grandstands over the weekend, and found our favorite. It was rainy on Sunday, so we didn't get a chance to buy too much merch, but I don't need to spend money to capture the best souvenir. I lied, I had to buy a camera and a memory card, but those have returned their money to me easily.

As I'm sure you've noticed, I've given this the title of "Canon at the Glen!" a play on one of the Glen's sponsors, "Go Bowling!" and the saying "Go Bowling at the Glen!" For me, it was learning how to use my Canon EOS Rebel T7 for what I want to do with it; car photography. In the end, I learned a few lessons which I'll share throughout the post. My biggest was that I really need a better lens; I'll most likely get a used EF 70-2000 f/4 around Christmas time, so I'm better prepared for next season.

Ok, one last thing. If you want to see car pictures posted on a semi-daily basis, you can follow my car pages on Instagram and Tumblr. You can just click the social media name you prefer in the prior sentence. Now, onto the pictures. I'll sort these best I can by pictures taken first to last.

An image of a blurry car on a racetrack.

Shot at shutter speed 1/180 f/5.6

An image of blurry race cars on a track.

Shot at shutter speed 1/125 f/5.6

An image of blurry race cars on a track. The image captures more color then car for artistic reasons.

Shot at shutter speed 1/40 f/16

First up is a few pictures from the Seneca Grandstand. The map provides an idea of where I could see, check the yellow circle and arrows.

A map of Watkins Glen International Raceway with the Seneca Grandstand circled in yellow to indicate it's location.

I have a bunch more, but I was using the wrong shutter speed and f-stop, which created a big issue. The cars were blurry, so were my images, and it was way too bright. The images shown above have been edited. By the last picture, I had purposely slowed my shutter speed to capture the motion rather than the cars.

The races we watched from Seneca Grandstand were a Porsche only race and vintage cars, mostly American but a few Euro in there as well. The view was just too far from any action, so we moved.

As we realized we could just go anywhere, we decided on the Pit Terrance Grandstand (see map below), which was an awesome place to sit, but it was impossible to catch most of the action shots. We had sat too far from any of the action in the pits besides cars coming down the false grid, but we did get to see the start and finish of a few races. There was a decent view of the first and last turns though.

A map of Watkins Glen International Raceway with the Pit Terrace Grandstand circled in yellow to indicate it's location.

Shot at shutter speed 1/200 f/22

I was still attempting to capture some motion in this shot. The focus was in the wrong place- on the sponsors- so the pictures aren't as great as I'd like.

F1 car crossing a racing finish line as a man waves the checkered flag above it.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1250 f/16

Frozen! The faster shutter speed froze the winner of this F1 race.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1000 f/16

Less frozen, but here's two more F1 cars on the track.

F1 car on the false grid, preparing to race.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1250 f/16

A Mazda F1 coming down the false grid before it's race. This was my favorite part of the pit, the ability to see so many of the cars up close like this. I think the sponsor of "Good Cars Only" is a great name. It's actually located in Canada, but I suppose that's a sponsorship will done, since there's often Canadians traveling in the upper parts of New York.

False grid of a car race track with cars and staff working on it.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1250 f/16

Some pit action, some cars going out for another race, I believe a Euro race. I like how people use bikes and carts to get around on the false grid, it makes sense. You just don't get to see this part of racing everyday.

A blue Lotus car with no roof. The driver is wearing a helmet, and the car is numbered 2.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1250 f/16

I believe this is a Lotus of some kind, but I could be wrong. Euro is out of my knowledge range. It did end up winning the race it was in, though. I mean, it crushed most of the other cars. Was super cool the see the winners cross the finish line, but I love this close up with the fence just out of the way, blurred some, and the car in focus.

A 2010s red and white Mini Cooper labeled 57.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1250 f/16

You can see, if you're watching my shutter speed here, that I had settled on some settings now. I didn't really need it for these rolling shots, since the cars weren't going very fast down the false grid, but I was also shooting moving cars at the same time. This one isn't as in focus as I'd like, but it was so fun to see a Mini Cooper on the track. There was a green one, vintage, in the first picture of this set as well.

A NASCAR/Trans Am racing style black and gold Camaro numbered 24. Crew consults the driver.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1250 f/16

Of course I was over the moon when I saw this Camaro up close. However, I didn't manage to get too many good pictures of it. I called this one "Camaro Consult," because I saw the driver being spoken to by some people. Crew, track officials, sponsors, I have no idea. I just thought it was an interesting composition for a photo.

A black and orange Corvette on the false grid of a race track.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1250 f/16

Not a little red one, but a Corvette nonetheless. I believe this one is from the 2010s-2020s, but it could be 2000s. Too round for the 2010s-2020s, but it may have to be modified for racing purposes, who knows. I like it, but I love Corvettes.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1250 f/16

I'm not sure why I was so interested in this Datsun, and have posted about it twice on my car socials, I think it's because I just don't see them anymore. I have a framed ad in my room for the hatchback F-10, because I find it neat. Was cool to see one in real life. The car ended up placing 3rd in it's race, maybe a minute behind that Lotus? Super cool that I was able to freeze it's win.

This was the end of Saturday for us, we'd driven up, spent a few hours at the track, and wanted dinner, so we did that and went back to our hotel and watched Back to the Future. Was a nice way to end the day.

On Sunday, we started in the Esses Grandstand. We later tried the Jackie Stewart Grandstands, but we didn't like it as much. I didn't get a chance to edit those photos, so we'll focus on the Esses, which we loved.

A map of Watkins Glen International Raceway with the Esses Grandstand circled in yellow to indicate it's location.

I think the best part of the Esses is how much could be seen. I found the best way to see over the fence is to stand on the highest seat of the stand, which had a backing. Don't worry, I was safe. I got my best pictures here- although this trick worked well for the Jackie Steward Grandstand as well.

Four Trans Am 2 race cars on a race track.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1500 f/16

This race was the Trans Am 2 (TA2) race, which had a variety of drivers in it.

A Trans Am Camaro numbered 25 on a race track.

Shot at shutter speed 1/1500 f/16

Love this shot. The Camaro is super clean looking and I hadn't even found the best place to shoot pictures yet.