2017 Project 52 - 1st Quarter by Mal Schulstad

[Craigie]

I agree. The position of the more distant/lower rider helps give a real feel for the up and down nature of the trail.

Same for me.

[joebranko]

Another great action shot!

[Shadowman]

Week 9, photo 1 nicely captured.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Thanks for the feedback everyone

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Week 9 Photo 2
_DZ19955 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

I'm running a bit late this week due to becoming a tutor and having a bunch of my evenings now occupied. Anyway, my photo shoot for this week was focused on closing down the aperture to see if the photo would come out crisper, and where applicable using a faster shutter speed (and by default accepting the consequence of a higher ISO) to see whether having a sharper picture and more noise would be better than have a slightly slower shutter speed and lower ISO.

This first one was taken as we approached sunset so there was still plenty of light. It seems to have succeeded in what I was trying to achieve, although compositionally there is a random arm sticking out from behind a tree that in hindsight I might have been better cloning out....

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Week 9 Photo 3
_DZ19971 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

Close to the same spot, and with the same camera settings but with the subject closer. So one thing I've definitely noticed is that as the subject gets closer to you, the faster their motion will be relative to the camera. So while in W9P2 shot at 1/800 the speed is enough, for a subject that's closer the subject isn't quite as crystal clear.

The upshot - I'll need to get better at changing the shutter speed on the fly... without losing track of everything else...

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Week 9 Photo 4
_DZ19978 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

A bit later on in the day in a place where I had less light and fast moving subjects. In this shot I had the shutter at 1/800, aperture at f4 (in W9P2 and W9P3 it was f5, but not down to f2.8 which is what I often shoot at), which pushed the ISO up to 1600. With the subject still off in the distance (and finished in a sepia style) I'm happy with the result.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Week 9 Photo 5
_DZ10017 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

And a again, a bit later on in the day where the light disappeared even more. I kept the aperture at f4, with the shutter speed at 1/1000 as this was a fairly fast section of track. ISO as a consequence was pushed up to 4500. From the looks of things, not having the shutter wide open and having the faster shutter speed, despite the higher ISO, has resulted in a sharper picture of the subjects (both fore and aft riders), without adversely being impacted by noise which couldn't be PP'd out.

Historically, I would have shot with a slower shutter speed and wide open to bring the ISO down because I would be afraid of noise. This photo (and the series of photos taken in this location) seems to imply that the strategy to use a higher ISO when a faster shutter speed and a slightly greater depth of field works better for action shots.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Week 9 Photo 6
_DZ10103 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

Next location, less light again. In fact, the light was so reduced that I felt the need to open the shutter wide to f2.8, while decreasing the shutter speed down to 1/800, despite this particular track being a high speed section. ISO settled between 3600-4000, with this particular shot at 3600.

I found a noticeable increase in noise and a reduction in sharpness of the image with the changed settings, so much so that I had decided to process the series of photos this particular shot belongs to in a bleached fashion - but I still wasn't happy with the end result. So in reviewing this shot, it appears that having the aperture wide open with the slower shutter speed appears to degrade the sharpness of the shot while increasing noise.

And from a compositional perspective, I left my bike to close to the target area so I had to crop the left side of the photo off so there wasn't a random stationary bike left in the shot. Placement of transport when doing these shots is important!

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Week 9 Photo 7
_DZ10149 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

The last shots of this ride where the sun was almost below the horizon. I'd left the aperture wide open at f2.8 but upped the shutter speed back to 1/1000. ISO settled on 1600. Despite the faster shutter speed and the what was a comparatively low ISO compared to some of the other sequences taken for this week, there was still a lack of clarity in the subjects, along with a bit more noise than I would have like.

So for this week, I think I've taken away that unless the subject is very close to me I need to avoid shooting wide open, even if the subject is the central focus of the shot, while having the shutter speed set to something appropriate to the scene, no slower, even if I end up with a high ISO - which can't always be avoided.

[Wavelength]

Liked your study on the subject very well...all are fine

[skitterbug]

Mal ~ Although I understand much better about the way the "triangle exposure" works, I still struggle with it. I appreciate your dialog about how you chose your settings and what the results were.Wk9 Photo 2 fascinates me. First, that arm had to belong to another rider that was hidden by the tree? Right?

Also, how fast are you all going to be able to jump as high as some do? Wow, it takes nerve and talent to get through these trails in one piece!

Thank you for sharing your hard work!

[Craigie]

A great series for week 9.
Looking forward to week 10.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Mal ~ Although I understand much better about the way the "triangle exposure" works, I still struggle with it. I appreciate your dialog about how you chose your settings and what the results were.Wk9 Photo 2 fascinates me. First, that arm had to belong to another rider that was hidden by the tree? Right?

Yes it is another person. I have the next two photos in this sequence below. In the first photo you can see both arms of the rider behind the tree:

_DZ19956 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

And then he finally comes out (the rider with the green helmet), although I think by this stage there's someone else hiding behind the tree!
_DZ19958 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

Also, how fast are you all going to be able to jump as high as some do? Wow, it takes nerve and talent to get through these trails in one piece!

Thank you for sharing your hard work!

Generally on these trails we're probably travelling in the vicinity of 15- 35 km/h (10 - 20mph) when we're hitting these jumps. Off road I've probably clocked up to as fast as 45+ km/h (almost 30mph) although that tends to be when there are less trees close by on a wider bit of trail, and never with the camera in the back pack.

It's more confidence than nerve which comes from experience, learnt skill than just raw talent (although admittedly talent will certainly get you to a point much faster than not having it), but also a lot of fitness. It becomes very hard to control a bike at speed when you're short of breath with blurry vision from fatigue!

[skitterbug]

Yes it is another person. I have the next two photos in this sequence below. In the first photo you can see both arms of the rider behind the tree:

_DZ19956 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

And then he finally comes out (the rider with the green helmet), although I think by this stage there's someone else hiding behind the tree!
_DZ19958 by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr



Generally on these trails we're probably travelling in the vicinity of 15- 35 km/h (10 - 20mph) when we're hitting these jumps. Off road I've probably clocked up to as fast as 45+ km/h (almost 30mph) although that tends to be when there are less trees close by on a wider bit of trail, and never with the camera in the back pack.

It's more confidence than nerve which comes from experience, learnt skill than just raw talent (although admittedly talent will certainly get you to a point much faster than not having it), but also a lot of fitness. It becomes very hard to control a bike at speed when you're short of breath with blurry vision from fatigue!

I really enjoy looking at your work! I chuckled thinking that you ought to tell your friends to stop hiding from your camera! <lol>

Maybe as a kid, I could go fairly fast on my bike which was called an "English bike" for some reason I don't remember. But I doubt that it ever would match your speeds. I admire the skill it takes to traverse these trails! Amazing!

[Goldcoastgolfer]

I really enjoy looking at your work! I chuckled thinking that you ought to tell your friends to stop hiding from your camera! <lol>

Maybe as a kid, I could go fairly fast on my bike which was called an "English bike" for some reason I don't remember. But I doubt that it ever would match your speeds. I admire the skill it takes to traverse these trails! Amazing!

Actually, I forgot to mention luck. I'm pretty sure there's a lot of luck involved as well - because I hear myself saying under my breath all the time "That was lucky!"

Also, I'm usually telling people (I actually don't know a lot of them, although they seem to know me now. For some reason they think that when I take a photo of them, it actually captures their name somewhere in the photo and implants it in my brain) not to look at the camera as they ride past. There's been a few times when they've been so focused on me that they've almost run into me...

[Shadowman]

Week 9, 3-7 nice action series.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Week 10 Photo 1
Drop and Flare by Mal Schulstad, on Flickr

I haven't been taking out my camera as much on some of my rides, mainly because I haven't been riding as much and sometimes it's good to go out and just have fun. However a friend of my decided to have a birthday ride and so I had to take my camera out for this outing.

However, this photo is not part of that series! While I was waiting for the birthday group to ride past friends from another group spotted me and decided they wanted to have their photo taken - so they swung by where I'd set up.

I had been playing with some settings in the spirit of what I'd recently learnt (not to have the shutter wide open, increased shutter speed, and tolerate the higher ISO). However because of the position of the sun, I aimed to under expose the shot and hoped that I would be able to bring up the highlights and reduce the shadows PP.

And so I got lucky...

Admittedly there's still a bit of noise when you go in close, but I didn't want to kill off too much of the detail in the rest of the shot.

[skitterbug]

Mal ~ I was looking at the EXIF data and I enjoyed your caption! "One of those rare times when just for a few seconds the light hits a certain spot just perfectly - Hitman Horton hitting the drop on the Comm Games Jump Track"
I am guessing that "Hitman" is his nickname?

Also, the data indicates you used manual exposure! I doubt that I'd be quick enough to get things in focus. Do you set up and get things pretty much dialed in so you don't have to do much adjusting when the picture happens?

[joebranko]

There's been a few times when they've been so focused on me that they've almost run into me...

That is so funny. I can almost see it!