Red Bull Exodus DH Race

While I was up at Whistler this weekend, Red Bull was putting on Canada's first ever mass start downhill race. They also decided to have a photo contest which was perfect for me since I wasn't about to enter the race. After a beautiful day of riding on Friday, we were treated with light to heavy rain on Saturday, which was race day. Not the best conditions to race in and possiby worse to shoot in. After hiking up to where I wanted to shoot I had to get my 2 flashes setup and covered so they'd stay dry. I decided to do some 2nd curtain sync with the off-camera flashes. To do this you use a dedicated on-camera flash to trigger the PW. By setting the on-camera flash to 2nd and using an optical trigger on it to trigger the PW, you then get all off-camera flashes to shoot 2nd curtain sync. Let me know what you think.

Our friend Carolyn from up North.
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/b...xodusForum.jpg

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/b...odus3Forum.jpg
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/b...odus6Forum.jpg

This is the picture I'm thinking of entering. It partly depends on how many people can see what's wrong.
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/b...odus5Forum.jpg

Here's Shaums March before the race
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/b...traitForum.jpg
Here he is towards the finish.
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/b...MarchForum.jpg

Here I decided to try rotating the camera instead of panning. I rotated it clockwise which would've been fine except I was shooting 2nd curtain sync so it looks like I was shooting 1st curtain. I should've rotated the camera counter-clockwise instead.
http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/b...odus2Forum.jpg

Tad the shot you are thinking of entering, the rear tire is off the rim. Glad you had a good time up there, JB

Try not panning with the second curtain. When panned, it makes the background look like it's moving (i.e. the stick on the left in the second shot). Looks like you did good with the lighting on a lousy day. – TF

I would consider entering one of the last two. I like that there is little to no motion blur on the riders in these. The intensity in the shot of March on his bike is great (this one is my favorite).

Besides the tire coming off the rim, I would prefer that the top of the rider's head was not cut off.

The winners for me in this lot are the first one and the second to last image. The head getting cropped negates the pic you selected IMHO. Over all a very nice day at the races I would say. Way to go.

Thanks for the comments. That gives me some more things to think about next time. As for the contest, I have to enter 1 portrait and 1 action shot. They will be voted on by fans on Red Bull Canada's Facebook page. The cut off helmet does bother me, but not that much. I like the story the shot tells about racing. I'm still not sure how far he rode like that, but he still finished. I did get a portrait shot of him after the race which he was fine with, but he wasn't interested in letting me do anything more formal. I wanted to get a nice portrait with the bike, but oh well. That would've told a better story I thought. I got a shot, but it's nothing special. I may go with the two of Shaums March. I like the idea of having both shots of the same rider. I really like the last one, but either he lost his race number or wasn't in the race. The guy after him was though, but that shot isn't as good. I'm not sure if missing a race number matters or not, but the contest was to shoot the race. I can include more than two shots, but I have to pick the two I want considered. I could include the last one with a note explaining that I don't know if he was in the race or not. The conditions were pretty bad. Plus once I had my flashes set up and the riders started coming through, I couldn't do anything with the flash on the left so I pretty much was stuck with them the way I set them. I can see why someone would like the Radio Poppers. It would've been nice to have been able to shoot ETTL and be abke to make changes from the camera. I believe the Radio Poppers will let you so that.

Thanks for the featured photo. That one really is my favorite and the one I wanted to enter in the photo contest. I went with the 2 of Shaums March and the one of him riding made it as a finalist. Now it's up the the Facebook fans. I suspect not a lot of people entered due to the crappy weather as they only picked 4 when they said they'd pick up to 10. Who knows, maybe only 4 of us actually entered!