Mt Bike racing In February -- New England Style

[splats]

Ok so last week end was the Team Bums Ice capaced , which is a Time trial. half the course is on a frozen lake half is on Land , you actually go on and off teh Ice 3 times per lap , the race was 3 laps. and to make thing more interesting , it was snowing .

Lots of Fun Was Had!!

My wife took about half of these , I took the other half.

Me


Donw the Boat ramp , which was a mix of snow and loose sand



my son showing his Game Face



Me coming off the ice



Going from the ice to land ( and Vica-a-versa ) wasalways tricky because the Ice had buckled and made it interesting



and what Would New England be with out rocks! , we had to navigate a Rock garden as we mad our way to the ice.



More rocks



A small drop in to a Slick entry on the the ice and we even had to contend with some Mud!!



And there was Single track , with a climb and decent , this race had everything you can imagine thrown at us.



Another Ice Buckle ( with racers on Ice in background )



some cyclo-cross action ( Stairs )




A Hump



and finally The straight away




this was Boat loads of fun!!

[VinnyC01]

wow - that's really cool stuff. Love to see these touched up and cropped a bit. You do some special things with these.

[BFiredup]

I am exhausted just reading and looking at them....LOL....I can tell you guys had a ball. Great job!!!

[retroactiv]

Looks like a load of fun. and great shots

[Photo-John]

That looks like a fun race! I haven't been on the bike since ski season started. I keep meaning to, but...

You have an exposure problem with these photos, though. All but one of the images you posted are underexposed. When you take pictures in snow you're light meter wants to make things darker because the snow is so bright. You need to compensate for that by exposing brighter than your camera wants to. If you're using auto modes then you set your exposure compensation for plus one. And if you're shooting in manual mode, you set your exposure so your meter indicates one stop of overexposure. If this doesn't mean a thing to you, take a look at the Exposure Primer in the Learn section. It will help you understand the basics of exposure.

Most of these images can still be adjusted in Photoshop or some other photo editing software, though. It's always best to get it right in the camera. But if your photos come out dark, there's no reason not to adjust them after the fact. I encourage you to try brightening a couple of these up to see if they don't look better to you. For me, taking the picture is just the start. Post-processing is an integral part of the photographic process. Everything I post or publish has had some software polishing done to it. And I don't let anyone see anything until I feel it looks as good as it possibly can.

Thanks for sharing. These photos make me feel like I should make a little effort and get on my bike, in spite of the cold and snow. Thanks for that. Hope my comments are useful to you :-)

[splats]

While I agree they are under exposed, the thing is it was a Dark Cloudy ( snowing actually ), so these actually catch a lot of the spirt of how things were . that said , Yeah they were under exposed ( I was wearing orange tinted lens so I really didn't notice.)

[jorgemonkey]

And I thought my ride when it was 33 degrees was cold, we only had a little ice to deal with.

Those guys are truly crazy.

[Photo-John]

While I agree they are under exposed, the thing is it was a Dark Cloudy ( snowing actually ), so these actually catch a lot of the spirt of how things were . that said , Yeah they were under exposed ( I was wearing orange tinted lens so I really didn't notice.)

Well, you may not have noticed when you were riding, but your camera's histogram would have told you. And you certainly must have noticed when you opened the files. The bottom line is, they shouldn't be this dark. This isn't how overcast light looks to the human eye when we're in these conditions. There should almost always be some pure white in every image. That's a rule I learned very early on. And even if you underexposed, it's not that big of a deal because you can lighten them up with software. I do it all the time. Presentation is important. So unless you're calling this artistic license, then they should be lighter.

[Photo-John]

My wife took about half of these , I took the other half.

Please only post photos you take yourself. That's one of the few rules here. And thanks again for sharing these photos. It's cool to see people riding in the snow. Makes me want to get out there :-)

[dhyravy]

You guys with all these sports in the snow are some hearty souls! Looks like fun, but a bit cold for me. As has been pointed out, I would bring these up with a little levels and curves to help the exposure. Nice shots!

[splats]

So unless you're calling this artistic license, then they should be lighter.

Nope not doing that , they are under exposed. I wanted my 50MM f1.8 lens but I forgot to grab it. and my lens was a 35-100 zoom f4.

Please only post photos you take yourself. That's one of the few rules here. And thanks again for sharing these photos. It's cool to see people riding in the snow. Makes me want to get out there :-)

well she took the first 4, 2 of me , one of my son and one of Linda. Normally I only post ones I took, except when it is Pictures of me , Got to have the pictures of me .