As I was checking the internet and news recently, I came across an event that was happening in Putrajaya here in Malaysia. It seems that the F1 Powerboat race is in Malaysia this weekend. I quickly packed up my bags with my camera and ran over to Putrajaya from KL and reached in the middle of the race at about 2:40pm.
Amazingly, after trying to find a place to park my car, I reached the banks of the man-made lake surrounding Putrajaya and found myself about 20-30m away from the boats itself, which is quite good considering I have with me up to 200mm lens maximum. Just perfect.
The first few shots were quite difficult. My first few shots were just either the back of the boats or the nose only. After about 5 test shots I began to shoot proper pictures. Setting the aperture at f2.8 fixed, I managed to freeze the frames at around 3000-4000th of a second shutter. Tried not to use a high aperture number since I have dust on my D70 sensors.
At the end, on a hot and humid Sunday, it was quite clear that a certain yellow boat (driven by Fabio Comparato) had won the race. Was planning to see some spectacular flips during the time I was there but it seems that I missed it. During the race (maybe towards the start of the race) there was a collision and boats flying and flipping. Too bad I didn’t get to see it. Anyways I was staying at one end of the route, maybe it was during the time when I was there but missed it.
Was a good afternoon out. The noise was not that loud, and it sounded like one of those modified Protons on the street of KL. At the end of the day, I shot about 160 pictures. Some blur since my camera was set on continuous focus and the boats are moving quite fast.
Will be there again next year.
nangka.org 