British Lawnmower Racing Association 500

Lawnmower racing has been a discovery in multiple acts. First we watched a random video on YouTube, then our friend nearly drove their mower into their pond, and then 5 miles from their house there was a 500 lap endurance race. This was all in less than a month. I like that.

We only ended up staying for the qualifying but I think if you're not personally invested in this in some way, staying for an entire 14 hour endurance race is probably overkill. Did we see some people riding lawnmowers very fast? Yes we did. Did we get some cool pictures? Again, the answer is yes. That's about all I could've asked from a day of lawnmower racing.

This is the first time I've used my 70-200mm lens and actually got some results that I'm happy with. I've spent 15+ years hovering around 35mm, and breaking out of that field-of-view and distance from my subject has been really difficult. I think I'm going to bring it to ArcTanGent with me so I can practice some more.

The R5 continues to be an absolutely ridiculous powerhouse. There's no way I could've got some of these shots at 1/80s without the crazy stabilisation and autofocus speed. I got about 740 shots in around 30 minutes, and ended up with 100 that are usable. That's an incredible ratio for a subject like this.

I do need another autofocus button though. Dan's been extolling the virtues of back-button focus to me literally for years, and now I have a camera that has multiple very capable autofocus modes, I finally get it. I have a button for AI target selection, one-shot spot, and now I need another for servo spot, but I'm not sure where it's going to go! I love that programmable buttons are on everything now.