DSLR Photography Forum

Well folks, I photographed another Cycling Grand Prix over the weekend to take some shots of our athletes competing.
This time around it had a bigger international field and a bigger crowd than previously, and was non-stop racing for 4 hours.

As well as a large Australian contingent there were athletes from England, Scotland, Wales, Germany and Malaysia competing. There were quite a number of current and past world champions, a few olympic gold and silver medallists, and a handful of commonwealth medallists in the field. Needless to say the quality of racing was outstanding.

I have to say that shooting this time around I felt a lot more relaxed, in control, and on top of things than I have previously, and my new gear reduced a lot of the frustration and enabled many borderline shooting situations to become fairly straightforward. As always though, the lighting at the Speed Dome was quite problematic; fairly dim and patchy with varying white balance depending on where I was shooting on the track - it's very difficult to get the colour looking good in these shots.
I managed to get all the "safety shots" of our athletes in the bag to please our marketing manager however, and I then had plenty of time to experiment with some higher-risk shots and generally see how far I could push my gear and my abilities and still get good results.
I've posted shots from a couple of past events in previous years; here in 2005 and here in 2006 if you want to compare these to my previous attempts.

As much as I'd like to think I've been improving steadily since the last time I shot cycling, I really can't take all the credit for an improvement in the shots. These are exactly the kind of conditions where the 1DMk3 really shines and I was scooping my jaw off the ground regularly with some of the shots it enabled me to pull off. The Autofocus speed is just phenomonal, 10fps makes getting the decisive moment easier than ever, and I still look at these shots and can't believe most of them are at 3200iso. I ummm-ed and errrrr-ed about this camera a lot before I bought it but have never looked back.

Here is just a small sample of what I ended up with:


1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


6.


7.


8.


9.


10.


11.


12.

My biggest problem now is my workflow. I ended up taking over 2000 frames (over 20gb), so even after streamlining my workflow I still had a lot of work to do in front of a PC to narrow it down. I'm still working on that side of things, but setting up shortcuts and automated scripts for photoshop and lightroom is helping. Oh, and I don't intend to keep shooting this much either. I just thought Friday night was the perfect opportunity to practice my panning.

Thanks for looking.

Very beautiful pictures Kombi, great quality too.
Congratulations...

I like them all but the ones I came back to see again and again were the first one and #5...

Few questions.
What lens did you use?
Your bw treatment was done in LR or PS?
I like it a lot!!

I like all of these, and thanks for including the links to the previous years. Clearly the equipment changes have made a difference -- the last photo in the 2006 thread, shot at iso1600 and f/5.6 with the 17-85, is worlds away from #5 in this series. If nothing else, the new equipment has made the subject much more attractive.

My pick for the best shot has to go to #4 of Mark French. It's a classic if somewhat safe composition (versus the edgier #12, which is only let down by Mr Edgar spoiling the mood by clearly having a great time) but everything in it works. The bike's in a good position with the spokes on the front wheel not overlapping the fork, the rider's in a dynamic pose but doesn't look awkward, he has a good expression, and the sponsor's logos are visible. If I had to pick one to go in the paper or the press packet, this would be it. And it must have been the devil to get.

#1, 6, and 9 give a great flavour to the event. I can see that this is a meet where the athletes are enjoying themselves, and these are probably my personal favourites. It's a tough call, though, as I like them all.

Absolutely stunning. Great job. I would love to spend some time shooting with you to see if I could learn something. Too bad I don't have the money.

Great series of shots - those helmets like the guy on the left in #1 always remind me of Alien (the movie).

Thanks all.

I have just uploaded these shots and a heap more to a dedicated gallery on my website at http://digitalkinetics.smugmug.com/gallery/3824182. Full EXIF data can be viewed for each shot there too if anyone is curious (hover over the image and a menu with a blue/white "i" icon appears to display info).

Irma, I was using an EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS about 60% of the time, an EF 24-70 f/2.8L about 30% of the time and a Sigma 10-20mm the remaining 10%. I deliberately left my primes in the bag this time around to see what I could get out of my zooms.

Most of the panning shots were shot at around 70mm, so I could have used either of those Canon zooms, but I tended to favour the 70-200 because I could use Mode 2 IS (panning mode) to vertically stabilize plus it has extra reach for when the riders are further down the track. Having said that, I was really impressed with the 24-70's abilities and usefulness in that situation (shot #4 is an example of panning with the 24-70 @ 70mm) and in hindsight I should've just continued to use it instead of reaching for the much slower Sigma 10-20mm (which I was using at 20mm f/5.6).
I generally use Photoshop to do my b/w treatments, but I'm trying to streamline my workflow and use Lightroom for as much as I can rather than going straight to Photoshop. In this case I used Photoshop for #1 and #4 and Lightroom for #11.

Matthew, I also found it really interesting to look back on my shots from this event in previous years. And you're right, it was a very friendly competition showing sportsmanship at its best. It had somewhat of a festival feel to it which was really nice to be a part of.

And Toad, you are dead right about the Alien helmets. Either that or they look like streamlined head-crabs.

Fabulous, Kombi!

My fav are #4 and # 11, love the sharpness, DOF and great frame (crop in 11?)
I can see how 10fps adds to the number of shots you initially take and it must be a pain to
choose from them. I have been consistently reducing my number of shots while retaining rather stable output,
but then my shooting situations allow me to do so, while you can't risk missing the moment.

Actually, I have been having a question for you on my mind for a while:

So you say 10fps and higher ISO helped you much.
When you got the new cam you also talked about setting up the custom functions, and I have been wondering ever since which ones you use?
I keep browsing through the 5D's ones and don't really seem to need many of them. several are about AE lock, which I, ever shooting in M, won't need.

How did you set yours?

Uli

1, 4, 5 and 10 are the absolute stand outs for me and are some of the best cycling shots I have seen anywhere. Kombi - you have thrilled us again with your fabulous work.

Thanks for putting these up.

Absolutely awesome photos, Adrian!

that #5 shot just has something so... perfect and crisp about it. Almost to the point of being artificial.

Truely fantastic.

I can't even begin to imagine how you did it. Thanks for sharing... I feel inspired.

Hey guys.... Just a bit of a follow-up on this post.

I noticed that shot #5 of Sarah Kent looked like a good advert for Rudy Project (the brand of glasses and helmet she's wearing).
So I visited the Rudy Project website to see how it compared to the photos on their site.
As it happens, the company runs a monthly photo competition on their website for people to submit photos that feature their products... so I submitted shot #5 ... and it won the November contest!

I've got a free pair of top-quality sunglasses heading my way

I also noticed they sponsor many athletes, including some of the ones I've photographed in the past. I've even checked my photos and seen I have a number of shots of their sponsored athletes in photos that clearly advertise their brand.
I think it might be a bit rude to keep entering their monthly competitions though, and I don't need any more pairs of sunnies.

Hey that is great Adrian - good pick up.