A day on Mt Baldy........at the races. C&C welcome.

[Desi]

This week has been the annual pilgrimage of some of the worlds best cyclists to the Tour of California. Yesterday the race was decided on the slopes of Mount Baldy in the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles. I rode up the hill with a backpack full of camera gear to catch the action.

I've never really tried shooting a bike race. I found it fairly difficult. The riders came by at noon on a 90 degree day with no shade. Gettting the right exposure was a challenge and the asphalt came out looking blown out. Also, I made the mistake of picking the wrong autofocus mode (I was riding with a friend who shoots canon who told me to put it on servo mode....I figured this meant AF-S, not realizing the that is the single shot mode. I lost at least 5 out of 6 shoots to crappy focus. The ones that were reasonably well focused had too narrow depth of field for what I wanted. I wanted a shutter speed of about 1/500, so with the 70-300 lens and a polarizer, I wound up using f7.1 and bumping up the ISO to 500. Maybe I could have done without the polarizer, but I was trying to avoid glare from the asphalt. Maybe I should have been farther from the corner to get better DOF.

All in all, the experience has really left me in awe of sports/cycling photographers such as Graham Watson who make it look so easy.

There is a real cast of characters on the road, especially at the finish line. I really wanted to catch the descent, so I hung out on a lonely stretch of rode....and met the Pope. I didn't have the legs to reach the ski lifts at Baldy this year.

I hope you enjoy the images. Please feel free to comment and critique.

Desi

1. Il Papa, the shepherd of Mt BaldyDSC_0427.jpg by Javier Descalzi, on Flickr

2. An unknown rider on the descent of Glendora Ridge Road

DSC_0512.jpg by Javier Descalzi, on Flickr


3. The BMC squad. George Hincapie is third in that line. It is an s-curve. Note Hincapie is upright wile the front and back of the line lean in opposite directions. Also, there is almost no shadow. I think the asphalt acted as a reflector.

DSC_0486.jpg by Javier Descalzi, on Flickr

4. The Blessing of the Race Helicpopter
DSC_0596.jpg by Javier Descalzi, on Flickr

5. The Shepherd in search of his flock (serious racoon eyes....I with I had brought a flash to shoot the people on the roadside...no detail left to be brought out in lightroom...I tried)

DSC_0600.jpg by Javier Descalzi, on Flickr


6. Attending to the suffering masses (this is the group of sprinters who ride way in the rear on the mountain stages...this one had over 10,000 feet of climbing)
DSC_0618.jpg by Javier Descalzi, on Flickr

I hope you enjoyed these images. Thanks for looking.

 

[Desi]

Bump

I used the a D90 with a nikon 70-300 on these. Aside from using the wrong autofocus mode, do you think I would see a big difference had I used a 70-200 f2.8 for the action shots? I wonder if If this is the best that my equipment can do or if I just need more practice. I have always had difficulty getting an in-focus moving subject with that lens.

 

[spacefuzz]

It takes practice, you have to anticipate the move, especially when they are descending.

I was at the start in Ontario, imagine it was a better view of the race on baldy

 

[Desi]

It takes practice, you have to anticipate the move, especially when they are descending.

I was at the start in Ontario, imagine it was a better view of the race on baldy

Spacefuzz, I've been enjoying your landscapes. Hope to see more.

You would have loved it on the mountain.

I spent a while scouting a good curve to shoot at and then shooting the race caravan and motorcycles to get my focus and exposure right. When the breakaway group came through with Jens Voigt leading with a great grimace on his face I started shooting and all of those came out out of focus. Man, I was bummed.

I'll have to get some more practice in.