The oddly named “The Entrance” is a picturesque small coastal town on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia, and is the ideal location for a festival. It hosts the annual Chromefest — “a celebration of American Hot Rods” — in October in a waterside park. There are a children’s playground, cafés, bars and, of course, fish and chip shops, right at hand. All the vital ingredients for a hot rod festival.
The Entrance is located 100km north of Sydney and 80km south of the city of Newcastle, beside the ocean outlet of Tuggerah Lake. It has glorious beaches to the north and a shallow, sandy channel which is ideal for fishing and which you can walk across at low tide.
It’s only 15km from my home to The Entrance, so it was easy to make a brief visit to the most recent Chromefest. Furthermore, it was the first I had been to since 2019, and it certainly had grown in size-at least in terms of crowd numbers.
When the appeal of chrome begins to fade
This time, the number of cars and bikes on display was well down on my previous visits. Cars were more ‘straight’ with very few ‘rat’ cars and hearses and similar oddballs on display, which are my personal favourites.
No longer “My Generation”
A friend who is familiar with such matters has explained to me that the reason for this is that the generation of hot rod enthusiasts is fading away. The upcoming generations have little or no enthusiasm for 50s and 60s culture and American cars of that era.
Perhaps the best indicator of this shift is Harley-Davidson, whose worldwide and local sales have fallen 50% since their peak in 2006. And this year they are experiencing a further decline.
The original hot-rod/50-60s American culture enthusiasts are now playing dominoes in aged care/retirement homes or spending their money on cruising. That’s cruising on cruise ships, not cruising down Main Street in their V8 Chevies or on their Harleys.
Chromefest: Finding an excuse for a day out
It makes sense as an explanation to me, although it does not explain the bigger crowds of spectators. Perhaps they just fancied a day at the seaside. It may simply be that younger generations still find the lifestyle of the 50s (as in “Grease”) appealing, if not the ownership proposition of older cars and motorbikes.
At the Hop
Back at the 2019 Chromefest there were many attendees in “period” costume. This year there were few. However, there were three stages and dance floors with groups and Elvis performing while oldies dusted off their 1950s/60s dance moves and demonstrated their period outfits.
I have only ever had a passing interest in hot rods and my reason for going to Chromefest has always been to take photos which show the hot rod enthusiasts and the atmosphere of the event, but not the cars.
Getting in tune with the right camera and lenses
In previous years, I’d used the Leica X Vario and then my Q at Chromefest. This year I tried a different approach — choosing the recently acquired Leica SL2 fitted with a Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. This lens is also marketed in a Leica version with, of course, a much heftier price tag.
The metadata shows that most of the photos were taken with the lens at between 45mm and 70mm, so I could have just as easily have used my Summicron 50mm f2.0.
We are very fortunate now that we have wide aperture lenses which can deliver superb images wide open and digital cameras with very high shutter speeds which enable the use of wide apertures in very bright conditions.
In bright sunlight using an ISO 100 film at an aperture of f/2.8 or f2.0 even a shutter speed of 1/1000s was a recipe for overexposure so you had no option but to stop down. Now you just dial up the shutter speed.
American Graffiti
In the accompanying photographs, only two were not taken with the lens wide open at f/2.8. These were also the two taken at shutter speeds of less than 1/1000s, as they were the two where I stopped down to increase the depth of field. For one picture — below-the man wearing the blue Chromefest shirt — the shutter speed was 1/8000s.
The downside to L-mount wide aperture lenses is that they are heavy. Add the brick-like SL2 body into the equation and you have a hefty, weighty combination. It is far from being an ideal travel camera. I carried the SL2/Sigma 24-70mm outfit around Chromefest for 90 minutes and that was enough. And it was not, by our standards, a hot day.
Having said that, it is a camera which is capable of producing superb results. For an outing such as Chromefest I would have been better served in terms of weight by an M camera, but I have been there and done that. So I have not again gone down the M route on cost grounds. Furthermore, I want to use longer lenses than the M system permits.
Keeping the good, purging the bad and the ugly.
Recently, I migrated from my elderly iMac computer to a new, much more powerful Mac Studio. As part of the migration process, I cleaned up my Lightroom library, which had built up over the 16 or so years. The reorganisation was long overdue.
Following the move, I have adopted a more rigorous approach to sorting and editing my images. Now I download them from the SD card into Lightroom Classic. If there are only a few — as there were from Chromefest — I review them and delete the losers from the computer hard drive then and there. It’s a good discipline, but occasionally, it’s akin to purging a wardrobe. Will I need that again?
Being ruthless
No more keeping any photos “just in case” or for no good reason. Only the real keepers survive. If there is a larger number of photos, I download them all and review them in batches over a couple of days, still applying the same rules.
After 90 minutes’ walking and savouring the delights of Chromefest I headed home with about 50 photos on the SD card. I reviewed them and ended up with just the images you can see here. I hope they have given you a taste of Chromefest 2024. And, to wrap up, here’s a lady who truly entered into the spirit of the event.
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You’ll have to come up to Coolangatta next June, they have over 900 cars, lots of ratrods, even the odd hearse.
They even have loads of younger guys building cruisers and rods.
I’ve been going to Cooly rocks on since back when it was called Wintersun, over 20 years and there certainly aren’t less cars. Mind you the Gold Coast is the heart of the car customising industry.
Next year I might have to come down to the central coast to visit this show with my SL2-S and 24-70mm Leica lens. It’s not too far from New England where I live.
And yes, Harley is dying on it’s arse…
J’aime beaucoup les photos que vous avez gardées.
Mais je suis vraiment fan des commentaires techniques. J’apprends beaucoup et d’une façon tellement agréable !
Excellent article John. Love the chrome bumpers of old cars. I voted against the SL system because of weight. I did try the panasonic S1 and with the 24-105 last year. It must not be far from the outfit you used in terms of weight.
Except for fish and chips this could be stateside, not sure about last photo though. Your observation on SL is why I have not bought into that line, price is good but weight is the deal breaker. Love the photos.
Hi John, a very enjoyable article. You captured the atmosphere of the event. I used to go to multiple events a year and enjoyed seeing cars that brought back nostalgic memories when cars were automobiles with personality.
I enjoyed capturing the atmosphere as well as the cars but capturing the cars due to the crush of people required much patience and being ready for the decisive moment.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
In view of your camera/lens observations, John, for a similar event, I recommend you try pairing a lighter weight 50 mm Summicron-M lens, or similar, and survive such an event for an extra hour or more. It does depend on the extent of interesting photo opportunities available. Of course you also need an M-ADAPTER L.