Colour slide scans from Donington history ...

[LongQ]

... when it was still young and you could get near the action and there were not many fences.

Best lines for Capri's

[pic]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v663/longq/Old%20Motorsport/eps218_despeck_usm_web.jpg[/pic]


or

[pic]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v663/longq/Old%20Motorsport/eps232_edit_web.jpg[/pic]


whilst the rest get into an argument.


[pic]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v663/longq/Old%20Motorsport/eps198_despeck__usm.jpg[/pic]



And there were sometimes people who later became quite well known.

[pic]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v663/longq/Old%20Motorsport/eps234_edit_web.jpg[/pic]


(Worth just mentioning that this was a real devil to scan as the car only just fits in the frame and the scanner kept cropping a tad of the side. I tried it all way around and in the end gave up with the holder and scanned it without specific positioning and used a marquee from the preview to pick an oversized version of the frame. When I came to crop the edges of the slide holder away I realised why there was a problem. The mount has rounded corners so the software attempts to trim the edges to give a square cornered image, this trimming the side. I left a couple of round corners in place - to remind me.)

[nick francis]

pics 1 and 2 look like theyre going round Coppice the wrong way!

[Andrew Noakes]

But that's not Coppice, is it? I thought it was Goddards, the chicane leading onto the pits straight (if the Melbourne loop isn't being used).

[nick francis]

A slight optical illusion. My first impression of pic 2 was that the capri in the background was off the circuit, parked on the grass.

[LongQ]

The first 3 were indeed taken at the Goddards Esses before the pit straight. I think this was before the Melbourne loop was added, hence the barriers and banners across the back of the shot.

No fences and iirc (I'll have to do a proper assessment from comparisons with other more recent shots) the pathway was lower at the time giving a different perspective then to what you would get today from the spectator area. These days you would need a photographer's pass to get the same perspective and avoid all the fencing.

The files have lost some quality in compression for some reason. The original slides are mostly a little pale with odd an colour castbut with quite a bit of contrast and films back then seemed to have a lot of grain. So trying to deal with that has seemed to produce something that looks reasonable, though not perfect, until it reaches the web. The shot of Tiff Needell is particularly obvious in that respect, though it did look better under artificial light when I loaded it last night!

One day I will find the right balance.

Not sure you can see it well on the third shot but the Rover has just shunted the passenger door of the RX7 and there is glass flying from the broken window. Maybe I should do a close up edit.

>> Edited by LongQ on Tuesday 27th September 09:24

[_dobbo_]

these are great!

[Phil S]

This is what you can see from the same place nowadays (Well last year anyway). Appologies it's not the best photo in the world!