david vt Loc: Vermont

A few from racing this last weekend. Was hard to be a photographer when your own child's team is racing. Conditions were difficult in that it was partly cloudy and windy, so the sun kept coming out and back under dark cover. About 3 stops different!

Most of these shots are from a different angle than I usually shoot - more from the side with runners in profile, and I tried to capture the racers just after the start. Was happy with the results for this experiment, but let me know what you think

settings: D7200 with 70-200 lens, most often at maximum. Mostly f2.8-f4, auto iso, and shutter speeds between 1/800 and 1/2500, depending on what the light decided to do at that instant. ISO often higher than what I would like, at around 200-800, but I had to give some room in making the settings in case it changed during the "shoot" of short time segment (normally about 50 shots in about 30 seconds as the runners stream by, sometimes less for the lead groups). Twice it happened that I set up for one light, and 10 seconds into shooting it changed to the other extreme. grrr! Took me a bit to set the "target iso" at more like 400 so it could move up and down if needed.

Yes, you will see a lot of CVU red. You are correct noting that it is our school team. Final note: These are "quick edit" jpegs, not finished raw photos (still working on a faster workflow for that)

All comments and suggestions welcome. If anyone has a suggestion on how to shoot in widely and quickly changing light conditions when you (or at least I) cannot change settings fast enough, let me know.

BTW. Men's and Women's Varsity and JV teams won their respective divisions in the 4 races they raced. Both Varsity teams qualified for Nike Cross Regional championships.

Enjoy

CVU Varsity Women runners up front

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CVU Varsity runners at start (with dramatic cool filter to "pop" the red runners)

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CVU Varsity runner

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CVU Varsity Mens team at start

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CVU JV team working hard

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Pre-race Pep talk by head coach

tshift Loc: Overland Park, KS.

Nice work David. Thought I would make a couple regionals but weather wasn't what this old guy can handle. Post more when you can. Thanks

Tom

david vt Loc: Vermont

Thanks Tom. I will. Two more major races (NE championships and now the Nike Cross Regionals) to go.

The three girls in the first picture were thrilled with that shot and all want prints of it.

Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

I really like what you have accomplish here. I have not shot this type of event but I would say you have it handled. Nice work. My settings would have been about the same under this fast moving sport.

pnittoly Loc: Mountainside, New Jersey

I especially like the last one. Nice look. Paul

Thomas902 Loc: Washington DC

fabulous series David... the first and third are truly iconic in my humble estimation... love the intensity of expression latent within...

"...how to shoot in widely and quickly changing light conditions..." believe you have already solved this with Auto ISO... it's just a matter of tweaking these parameters till you've optimized for your particular kit...

That said, if there is money on the table then you might look into HDR processing of each high value single RAW capture... while the learning curve is steep the result are totally phenomenal...

In Photoshop, the Merge To HDR Pro command can accomplish this, albeit the lion's share of those who work commercially use hdrsoft photomatix... https://www.hdrsoft.com/

I use and recommend hdrsoft photomatix... But please don't rely on my endorsement... do your own research... This is high end post processing software and there are many reviews available for enlightenment on it's capabilities and limitations.

Hope this helps David
again epic series... thank you for sharing...

muphoto

Nice work!