Winter Downhill MTB.

Oli R C

Oli R C

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I was at the 2nd round of the Alpine Bikes Winter Series at Innerleithen this weekend, and like the first round, the track was frozen. Basically, within an hour of practice starting on Saturday, braking areas, and off chamber sections began to glaze over, and it looked like someone had been out with the Mr Sheen.

Rd1 was cancelled shortly before race runs were due to start, so the organisers were adamant for this round to go ahead. Track Maintenance crews worked up and down the course with pick axes, loosening up the slippery bits, but the effects were short lived, and the track would soon polish up again. So the track conditions meant that only the best riders were looking anywhere near fast. Most riding was pretty tentative - not many taking the chance to get air on the jumps, and only the banked corners allowing riders to lean the bike over.

So loads of opportunity for some great action shots. :LOL:


1. Very first shot of the weekend. Slightly odd framing, but I love the lighting.
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2. Alternative processing.
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3. Bex. Naturally lit.
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4.
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5. Love the colours.
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6. Taking a different line.
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Hope you like! :cool:
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chrisphoto said:
A really good set there, i like the processing on the second pic!
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Thank you Chris :)

locostbob said:
lovley set mate... loving 1... so sharp could cut your self on it! and really like 4, a composition i need to try some time soon! :)

bob :)
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Hey Bob, cheers. I love the lighting in 1. I got it bang on first shot. The sharpness is down to the new 70-200. I'm now using auto focus all the time, and letting the camera do the work for a change, and it's working. My hit rate has gone through the roof! Well chuffed! As for composition, I just try to keep it all as simple as possible. Constantly checking out possible backgrounds. Very difficult to get anything without the tape though, and actually, in a couple of these I've photoshopped it out (well 3 actually). Don't tell anyone. :cool:

Dangermouse1964 said:
good set but not sure bout #2 it lacks contrast
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Thanks Peter. Well you gotta try something different from time to time. It was actually one of the new presets on Aperture 3, which I then tweaked a bit more. :)
 
Technically on the money, but I think they lack the snap and bite of your side on wide angle flash work. Good images however. Nice one.
 
Diego Garcia said:
Technically on the money, but I think they lack the snap and bite of your side on wide angle flash work. Good images however. Nice one.
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Cheers. Yeah I take your point. I promise to be a bit more varied for the next round. Doing an XC race tomorrow, but I'm part of the organising side of things, so not sure how much time I'll get shooting. :D
 
Oli R C said:
Cheers. Yeah I take your point. I promise to be a bit more varied for the next round. Doing an XC race tomorrow, but I'm part of the organising side of things, so not sure how much time I'll get shooting. :D
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Cool, not a crit, just love seeing your other stuff mate. (y)
 
didn't see these earlier but love #1 :)

Funnily enough I was going to say I didn't care for the processing in #2, looks a bit washed out. Just as well we're all different :)
 
Diego Garcia said:
Cool, not a crit, just love seeing your other stuff mate. (y)
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(y)


dod said:
didn't see these earlier but love #1 :)

Funnily enough I was going to say I didn't care for the processing in #2, looks a bit washed out. Just as well we're all different :)
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Thank you dod. Well that's 2 to 1 against now. I think I'll be giving it a tweak. :LOL: Or revert to original.

Whilst I do love No1 also, my faves here are 3 and 6. 3 for the natural lighting factor, and 6 'cos he looks pretty menacing and it's a nice angle. Taking the tape out the background would probably improve it tenfold.
 
Great set, #2 does look to lack contrast compared to the rest. Caught the action abd filled the frame well.
 
namllihs said:
Great set, #2 does look to lack contrast compared to the rest. Caught the action abd filled the frame well.
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Thanks namllihs, glad you like'em. It seems the edit isn't really working for peeps so I'll try something different next time. :D

Just for the record, I though I'd better post the normal version...

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danmon_81 said:
im sure you've answered this before but what is your standard MB lens? your 70-200?
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Thanks for the comments. Well I now just take 3 lenses out with me when I do the MTB stuff. The 70-200, a 17-55 DX, and a 12-24 DX. The 70-200 does tend to stay on the most (not that I've had it long), but as pointed out earlier in this thread, it's good to get up close with the wider angles lenses. I'm just loving the 70-200 though, and it's hard to take it off the camera. :love: :LOL:
 
these guys have got balls! my mate is quite into downhilling, i tried it once, think i'll stick to traking photos!!

Great set, much prefer the original of #2 though. favourite would be 6, really shows the concerntration
 
Great set I would love to have a go at taking some of this insane sport - those guys and gals have some nerve. I see you were shooting at 1/250th of a sec or so can you please explain what sort of speeds you use?

Lovely work something I would like to achieve.

Cheers

Matt
 
Oli R C said:
Hey Bob, cheers. I love the lighting in 1. I got it bang on first shot. The sharpness is down to the new 70-200. I'm now using auto focus all the time, and letting the camera do the work for a change, and it's working. My hit rate has gone through the roof! Well chuffed! As for composition, I just try to keep it all as simple as possible. Constantly checking out possible backgrounds. Very difficult to get anything without the tape though, and actually, in a couple of these I've photoshopped it out (well 3 actually). Don't tell anyone. :cool:



QUOTE]

out of interest how come you used to manual focus? werent you on a D200? would have thought that would be up to the job!? even my historic olympus E1 will auto focus just about quick enough! :0 is the D300s a big improvement? its on my wish list... one day, would poss start with the D200 and nice glass :)

bob :)
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Peter-T said:
these guys have got balls! my mate is quite into downhilling, i tried it once, think i'll stick to traking photos!!

Great set, much prefer the original of #2 though. favourite would be 6, really shows the concerntration
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Thanks Peter. Yeah, pretty scary seeing how fast some of the riders go. Glad you particularly like 6. It's my favourite here too.

bensherman said:
Great set I would love to have a go at taking some of this insane sport - those guys and gals have some nerve. I see you were shooting at 1/250th of a sec or so can you please explain what sort of speeds you use?

Lovely work something I would like to achieve.

Cheers

Matt
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Thank you Matt. For the head on stuff I usually stick to 1/250th. Captures the rider nice and sharp, and usually gives a bit of blur on the wheels. I do sometimes go a bit slower, especially when doing the closer stuff with the wide angle. And obviously panning, you can get down to stupidly slow speeds with a good dose of flash. Sometime successfully as slow as 1/30th. But generally speaking, most used range would be 1/160th - 1/250th, but fast glass and good high ISO performance helps a great deal at these speeds when in the trees. :)

locostbob said:
out of interest how come you used to manual focus? werent you on a D200? would have thought that would be up to the job!? even my historic olympus E1 will auto focus just about quick enough! :0 is the D300s a big improvement? its on my wish list... one day, would poss start with the D200 and nice glass :)

bob :)
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Hi Bob. Well I think it was more down to the lenses I started out with, being not particularly good, and for some reason I just didn't trust the autofocus to keep track. But in the end, the D200 was back focussing anyway, so had no choice. I think the D300s is a massive improvement. Battery consumption is HUGELY improved, and I can get away with 2 batteries for a whole weekend, and actually, more often than not, it hasn't switched to battery 2. The new dynamic focus is pretty sweet too, and image quality is really nice, due to the low-noise. The D200 did serve me very well mind, and it is a perfectly capable camera, so I'd still recommend it. But noise is fairly significant at ISO800 and above. Especially where the MTB stuff is concerned, since you're so often shooting in the trees, late in the afternoon.

But as I say, still recommended. (y)

Mucho Ado said:
good set there
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Thank you. :)
 
I think this sort of need a little more punch with either some well placed natural lighting (a sunny patch in a dark wood) or adding some off camera flash(s).

Dunno, just my taste really... perhaps its because its a subject (one of many I might add) that doesn't inspire me in itself so feel the need to get a bit mad with it :D
 
desantnik said:
I think this sort of need a little more punch with either some well placed natural lighting (a sunny patch in a dark wood) or adding some off camera flash(s).

Dunno, just my taste really... perhaps its because its a subject (one of many I might add) that doesn't inspire me in itself so feel the need to get a bit mad with it :D
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Cheers desantnik. Yeah, I'll be back up there this weekend, and will be trying a few different things. I did actually take a variety of shots this time around, but only liked the head-on type shots, so that's all I posted up. :LOL:

1,4 and 6 all used 2 off-camera flashes, and it's quite rare for me to not use any at all, but conditions were pretty good for it at some sections of the course. And believe me, a try to hunt down every ounce of sunlight available, but this hill faces West and takes ages for the sun to hit it, but when it does it can be pretty nice!

Hopefully my next set will inspire you. :D
 
Superb set of shots, not a fan of the processing of number 2, I prefer the original, but number 1 especially literally jumps out of the frame!
 
Thank you very much David. Glad you like them. Think I'll forget about the alternative edits though. :LOL:
 
Number 4 is really good, love the colours as well - always nice to see colours popping out.
 
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