So its back to the mini Nürburgring Ring, for the Historic Sports Car Club's Wolds' Trophy at Cadwell Park. As the title suggests this event has cars reliving old battles from a bygone era. Historic Touring Cars, Formula 3, Formula Ford and Pre’66 Touring cars are just a few on the packed timetable. And for this year you could also expect to see 1950s and '60s NASCAR putting on some demo runs in between races.

Nikon P7700.

At this event we had three photographers out and about but with a twist. I will be using a compact pocket camera, the Nikon P7700. I've wanted one of these for some time as it ticks all the boxes for me as a walk round camera. Its relatively light, small and has all of the controls I use on my DSLR, mainly the control wheels on the front and back to quickly adjust the aperture and shutter. The two other photographers were Hardyphotographic using a Nikon 5200 with a 55-300mm and RP Watkinson Photography using a Nikon 7100 matched to a 70-210mm f2.8 FL to help us compare and contrast the images.

Credit Hardyphotographic.

I had been stalking the various online second hand markets for a Nikon P7700 or 7800 for some time. When one came up for sale a week before the event at a good price I snapped it up as they don’t hang around for long. So this started a discussion about kit and if it makes you a better photographer.

Credit RP Watkinson Photography.

With automotive sports photography having the right lens is regarded as paramount to getting that picture, but is it? Most modern compact cameras have good telephoto lens with shutter priority and some sort of burst mode so in theory they should work, so why do we need to spend our hard earned cash on the latest kit? Read on and we will find out.  

Credit Hardyphotographic.

So lets take a look at the camera we have chosen, the Nikon Coolpix P7700. 

The Nikon P7700 was introduced to the public in 2012 so its not a modern camera and by today's standards only has a small 12-megapixel, 1/1.7-inch CMOS sensor so we aren't making this task easy for ourselves. One thing it has got going for it is its lens It can reach out to a focal length of 200mm and further with its inbuilt digital zoom.

Nikon P7700.

The ability to shoot in RAW, automatic, shutter or aperture priority and of course fully manual with built in neutral density filters and vibration reduction this camera is starting to look a little more competent for the automotive photographer around the paddock and pits. We will accept that the camera will be fine in the paddock so we will focus on the track to find out if you can get anything usable from a compact camera track side.

Credit Hardyphotographic.

The logical place to use this camera track side is Hall bends as you are close to the action with no fencing to obscure the view and mess with the auto focus. Regarding the focus modes we tried auto, sports mode, auto focus tracking and Continuous auto focus (AF-C). The best results came with AF-C, however the tracking mode wasn’t that bad but as I could see I was getting good results with AF-C I stuck with that mode.

Nikon P7700.

The Nikon P7700 has the ability to shoot 6 frames a second however, it takes an age to write these to the SD card so after a few attempts I reverted to single shots which still took a second or so to write so I had to be aware of what car was approaching and not just blaze away. 

Nikon P7700.

My top tip when using a compact camera for panning is use the strap. I've done a bit of video with DSLR and having the strap round your neck and pushing forward with your arms straight out helps to stabilize the camera. You will probably be using the display on the back of the camera to frame your shot as most compacts these day don’t have a viewfinder so this technique works well. 

Credit RP Watkinson Photography.

As you can see the results are not bad and prove the point that’s it’s the photographer not the kit that gets the picture. However, if you have the skills and the kit you are going to get great pictures but that's not the point here. 

Nikon P7700.

Most amateur photographers have a budget and they can't justify spending a ton of money on Pro kit. So use what you have, get out there be creative and capture images that are pleasing to you. Grab that camera you only get out for holidays, practice a bit, understand the menus and functions and get down to the track - you might surprise yourself.

Credit RP Watkinson Photography.

Credit Hardyphotographic.

Will I be trading in my kit and just using a compact? In short no, you will always get getter results form a dedicated DSLR and quality glass. However, this camera will be going with me on all of my trips from now on as the image quality looks to be as good as some of my short lenses. With the added advantage of an aperture of f2 and that means I can still be creative and reduce the kit I take out, lightening the load I carry around all day significantly. The quick startup time for this camera will be an advantage around the pits as I've missed a few pictures swapping lenses in the past.

Nikon P7700.

Credit RP Watkinson Photography.

I hope you have enjoyed this write up and photographs of the Historic Sports Car Club's Wolds' Trophy at Cadwell Park. As always I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject, it's just my random observations of a day out with some friends carrying a camera and hopefully I will inspire some of you to get out there and take some great images . If you would like to contribute an article to PistonClick drop us an email.