Mountain Biking

Shimano MTB GP 5 – Stromlo

Shimano MTB GP 5 – Stromlo

  1. Rocky Trail Shimano GP, Stromlo, 2013

Last weekend was the final round of this year’s Shimano GP enduro series held on the wonderful trails of Mount Stromlo Forest Park near Canberra. Again I was there with OuterImage to capture the action. There was forecast for rain but once again the weather held and we had beautiful clear skies. That did mean the track was a bit dusty for the riders but it did give us the chance for some interesting shots.

Stromlo Forest Park is situated on the side of Mount Stromlo near Canberra. There is some beautiful trails there. Some years ago the area was destroyed by a fire which burnt most of the trees to the ground. A massive replanting program has since happened and slowly the area is regaining a lot of its trees. With the trees being quite small though views around the trails can be wonderful looking out across the surrounds and across Canberra.

Over 300 competitors competed this year at the Stromlo event and after shooting the whole series I recognised many familiar faces there too. Eliza Kwan and Troy Herfoss took out their 7hr solo categories while Kyle Ward and Wendy Stevenson took out their 4hr categories. Just in case you were wondering, as a rough idea the course is usually around 10km’s in length. Troy managed to complete 15 laps or around 150kms in 7 hrs.

So that’s it for this year as far as this series goes.  We are quite often out shooting for fun at many local tracks around the  Sydney region. If you see us out there be sure and stop for a quick hello. If you are competing in any races soon there is always a chance we will be around too, we tend to swing by a lot of them even if it’s just as spectators.

As this was the final in the series Gil and I would like to say a big thank you to all the competitors who raced this season and made our work as much fun as it is. A big congratulations to all the winners from the races and the series. And of course a huge thank you to Martin and Juliane from Rocky Trail Entertainment for all there hard work in putting on such a wonderful series.

Posted by Richard in Bikes, Events, Sports, 0 comments
Revolution Magazine Issue 32

Revolution Magazine Issue 32

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I’ve got a few shots in this month’s Revolution Mag. I had the chance to do a bunch of product shots for them with a couple of action shots thrown in to show the bike in use. We shot the Santa Cruz Bronson, the Jetblack Race Rack, some new threads and shoes from Sombrio. If you are in Oz get down to your newsagent and check out the mag, It’s always packed full of goodness for mountain bikers.

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Mountain Biking at Ourimbah and Oxford Falls

Mountain Biking at Ourimbah and Oxford Falls

Mountain biking at Oxford Falls on Sydney's north.

Mountain biking at Oxford Falls on Sydney’s north.

Sunday I took my Einstein strobe out for a play. I use Odin triggers by Phottix to fire my flashes remotely. They are fantastic with my speedlights allowing me to access all functions of my speedlights from my camera. Just recently Phottix released a firmware update for the triggers which included giving me the power you use hi-speed sync with studio strobes.

Einstein Strobe

Einstein syncing at 1/1000th

Normally I cannot use my Einstein past a sync speed of 1/200th of a sec with my 5dmkii. With the new firmware update I can now push the speed up to 1/1000th of a sec. giving me much more stopping power. This means that even in the shadows cast by the Einstein I will be able to freeze motion. Its all still early days and it takes a bit of fiddling around to get the settings right. I can only seem to sync them at full power at the moment which is kind of limited. I will need to make myself a cheat-sheet and write all the working settings down.

 

So I took it all up to Ourimbah downhill track on the weekend to test it all out. I had a bit of a dual reason for visiting there as next weekend is one of the Redass Downhil series races and I wanted to get some ideas for shots. On the way back as I still had time I swung by Oxford Falls downhill track to see if there was anyone there and got to fire off a few shot there too. So at this stage I am looking forward to next weekend.

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Shimano GP Round 4 – James Estate

Shimano GP Round 4 – James Estate

RockyTrail Round 2 James Estate Winery 2013

There is a new course on Rocky Trail Entertainment’s Shimano GP’s circuit and that’s the trails of James Estate Winery, where round 2 was recently held. The race marked the opening of the trails to the public.  The 10km track winds in and out between grape vines, out the back towards the edges of Wollemi National Park before bringing you back through the vines and even weaving you through wine-vats on the way back to the start. The start was conveniently located by the cellar door where plenty of sampling of the local produce was done.

Well done to Rocky Trail, Graeme Scott and all involved withe the James Estate Winery race for putting on such a great day.

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Lens Testing at Oxford Falls Downhill Track

Lens Testing at Oxford Falls Downhill Track

Downhill, Oxford Falls, Australia

Downhill, Oxford Falls, Australia

A couple of months ago I handed in my 28-300mm L lens to my local repair centre. It had been a long time since it had been serviced and it certainly gets enough abuse. It had a broken roller and wasn’t moving through the focus range smoothly. They were quick and prompt with the service getting it back to me before the week ended. I was quite happy with the service until I actually came to use it. From what was a broken roller I now had issues with my aperture, my image stabiliser and the lock that let me keep the lens shut. After jumping up and down in frustration at the camera repair man who more or less told me it was all in my imagination I took my lens directly to Canon. Almost 4 weeks later and nearly $1000 out of pocket I got it back so this weekend was spent putting it through its paces to make sure that it was all running smoothly again.

I spent a few hours on Saturday and a few on Sunday up at Oxford Falls downhill trails just shooting with a few friends and a couple of random riders. Quite happy with the shots. It’s great to have my old faithful back again and Canon, despite taking a silly amount of time to repair the lens, have done a great job at fixing, it. Thanks to all who were there and let me shoot them.

Enjoy.

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Single Track Mind – Awaba

Single Track Mind – Awaba

Sram's Single-track Mind Enduro

Sram’s Single-track Mind Enduro

Last Sunday saw me up at Awaba to the north of Sydney. Chocolate Foot were hosting their final event for the Sram Single Track Mind series. An 8 hour enduro and an enduro it was with temperatures pushing up around 35C. Toasty to say the least. There was around 360 competitors who braved the heat. The track led through some beautiful Eucalypt forests and down into a great section of rainforest. Note to self: When shooting in rainforests be sure to use insect repellent. 2 days later and more and more mosquito bites keep showing up.

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