Seb Rogers: mountain bike photography

Tri something new

Over the years I've shot most things on two wheels, but it's been a while since I've turned my lens on the skinny-tyred forerunners of mountain bikes. All that's changed recently with commissions from new triathlon mag Tri Plus, who asked me if I wanted to shoot some bike tests for them. I jumped at the chance, because it's an opportunity to look at a familiar subject in a new way.

I shot most of the test (with the exception of some detail pics and a couple of individual bike shots) without flash on a bright, sunny day. Students of my photo courses will know all about my enthusiasm for accurate panning technique, and mine was certainly being put to the test. Flash can cover a multitude of sins including slightly misjudged panning - without it, I had nowhere to hide. 

Luckily my eye-hand coordination turned out to be better than my team sports skills would suggest. I came away with some openers like this:

Nikon D3, 80-200mm f/2.8, 1/30sec f/20 @ ISO200

The flowers added a splash of colour and a heightened sense of speed, but the success of a shot like this all hinges on whether at least one of the rider's heads (and preferably a good chunk of one of the bikes) is completely sharp. Here's an unsharpened, 100% crop of the second rider's head:

The sun must've really been shining on my luck that day, because through a fortuitous sequence of events I also ended up selling one of the images to the UK importers of Wilier frames for use in a series of ads:

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/320sec f/11, two radio slaves

Regular readers will know that I'm a stickler for retaining as many rights in commissioned images as possible - and this is a perfect example of why that's important. If I'd reliinquished my copyright to the commissioning client, I would never have been able to make this sale. The small print in contracts isn't the most exciting reading, but it's there for a reason...

XXtra effort

Media launches - of new product to the mountain bike press - are one of those eagerly anticipated perks of the job. It often means a trip somewhere warm and sunny, great riding, lots of high-end bikes to try out and plenty of free food and beer. What's not to like?

Of course, from the manufacturers' point of view it's all about ensuring their new widget gets the maximum possible exposure. You don't need to be a psychologist - or a conspiracy theorist - to understand the reason for all the wining and dining. And there's no denying it's fun to get together with a bunch of like-minded bike geeks and discuss the finer points of (say) DOT 5.0 over DOT 5.1 brake fluid. 

But from a photographic point of view, media launches aren't always the best places to be. For a start, everyone else is there. Looking at the same stuff, riding the same trails, using the same locations. The manufacturer doesn't care if everyone's images end up looking the same - for them, it's not about art, it's about product.

Nikon D300, 50mm f/1.8 w/+2 dioptre, 1/250sec f/6.3 @ ISO200, single radio slave w/softbox

But I do care. And so when I found myself in a corner of Tuscan loveliness recently, basking in 30 celsius sunshine as SRAM's product managers extolled the virtues of their new (and admittedly very impressive) XX groupset, I found myself preoccupied less with the niceties of chainlines and exit ramps and more with how to turn yet another press launch into a visually arresting 7 page feature.

There's a golden rule that I apply when I'm faced with having to get shots amongst a group of other photographers: watch what they're doing, and then do something different, preferably somewhere different. So, whilst everyone else was clustered around the SRAM truck shooting static closeups of XX components on various bikes, I was working out how to get a shot of the new kit in action.

Component shots that break the mould aren't easy. I didn't want an action shot of an XX-equipped bike being ridden, because it wasn't the bike that was the story. So, I figured, I'd have to break out the Magic Arm and get my camera in close and dirty. Here's the result as it appeared in What Mountain Bike, which I'm really rather pleased with:

Nikon D300, 10.5mm f/2.8, 1/15sec f/22 @ ISO200

What you can't see is the dozens (and dozens) of pics that didn't quite work. For a variety of reasons I wasn't able to find a smooth enough trail for my usual Magic Arm technique to work, so I had to improvise and, er, 'cheat'. If you look closely at the pic you might be able to figure out what I did.

The moral of the story, I think, is that it's worth going out of your way to try something different. There were more than a dozen photographers and journos at the XX launch, and no-one else came away with an image anything like this one despite having access to the same raw materials. If I can keep coming back with images that everyone else misses, it gives my clients a reason to keep coming back to me.

Better the devil you know?

Working as a photographer means making use of lots of arcane bits and pieces of skills or knowledge that often have little to do with photography. For example, when I get a call to do a shoot, one of the first things I need to sort out is location. 

A fast bit...

This is one of the joys and bugbears of shooting to spec - instead of recording something that's already happening, like an event, I spend most of my time fabricating the features I shoot. It gives a lot of flexibility, but puts a lot of the decision-making back in my hands. A double-edged sword if ever there was one.

I've got a mental list of locations - a kind of grey matter rolodex that's got a bit dog-eared over the years from constant flick-throughs. Rocky trails. Narrow trails. Trails with good corners. Trails with good views. Trails that aren't too far from the carpark. Trails with big drops. Trails to avoid because they're likely to be muddy / in the shade / hidden under 6 feet of bracken according to time of year / weather conditions. And so on.

... an open rocky bit...

It is, needless to say, a very incomplete list. One of the things I'd definitely like to have more time to do is just get out and ride. It's good for the soul and it'd update my location list. But, for now, I'm stuck with the one I've got. And actually, it's served me pretty well over the years.

... a concrete bit...

So I've got another shoot coming up in the next 10 days or so with various different requirements, and I've been flicking through the ol' rolodex again. And the location I keep coming back to is, in fact, one that I've come back to on countless occasions over the past six or seven years: Cwmcarn in south Wales. A nine mile ribbon of purpose-built singletrack (and a couple of miles of separate downhill track to boot), it's one of the most weather-resistant and versatile locations I know of.

... a peachy singletrack bit. And it's all in one corner of south Wales

It's got trees, rocks, roots, fast bits, gnadgery bits, open bits, views, lots of corners and plenty of airtime if that's what floats your boat. It's shootable year round, stands up to the Atlantic weather fronts rolling up the Severn estuary remarkably well, and has provided me with more feature, bike test and cover material than I care to remember. 

Can I eke another shoot out of it? Yeah, I reckon so.

Pocket rocket?

My search for the ideal lightweight, compact riding camera has taken me nearly 15 years so far. And I still haven't found it. Along the way I've tried (and rejected) several:

- Ricoh GR1 (the original film version). Too fiddly, controls too easy to knock, lens not nearly as good as the hype.

- Olympus 8080 - too bulky, too menu-driven and just too damn slow. Shame - it had a great lens.

- Nikon F80 - horrible slow flappy mirror and dreadful shutter lag

You'll notice that, Olympus 8080 aside, there's nothing digital in there. That's because there's never been anything compelling enough to make me want to break out the credit card. There's always a compromise somewhere, whether it's noise above base ISO, shutter lag or the lack of a viewfinder.

And now Olympus comes along with something that's got a decent-sized sensor, is ridiculously small and light, has a full range of manual controls and with access to some of the best lenses ever made for digital cameras. Since I've long had a soft spot for Olympus (my first camera was a Trip 35 and I still have my OM1N), it's not hard for me to see the appeal.

And yet... early hands-on reports suggest that the new camera's achilles heel may be sluggish AF. That might be excusable if the manual focus option were reasonable, but the electronic viewfinder isn't exactly over-endowed in the pixel department.

Let's hope Olympus pulls something out of the hat for the production cameras. Panasonic developed an entirely new - and remarkably fast - AF system for its micro Four-Thirds system, but didn't share the technology with Olympus. Shame. With decent AF and / or usable manual focus, I could see one of these with a 7-14mm f/4 and something a bit longer being a permanent companion on rides...

It's the little things...

Pro press photographer Andrew Wiard (co-founder of the excellent Editorial Photographers UK mailing list and one of the UK's most respected newspaper snappers) has written a revealing account of why he switched recently from a Canon 5D to a Nikon D700. His comments echo the general tone of many pro's attitudes to gear - it's the little things (like shutter lag) that make the difference. 

Whilst camera maker marketing departments and interweb forums may trumpet megapixel counts, frame rates and autofocus modes, pros whose livelihood depends on getting the shot may have other fish to fry. I think it's particularly interesting that increasing numbers of pros are turning away from the bulky, expensive offerings at the top of both Nikon and Canon's ranges in favour of smaller, lighter, cheaper alternatives like the 5DII and D700. With the Nikon, in particular, you give up very little opting for the D700 over the D3. And it's (roughly) half the price.

Intriguing, too, that many Canon-based bike snappers have been picking up 5DIIs. Why intriguing? Well, as Andrew Wiard points out, it's kinda slow on the uptake. Throw in the ho-hum frame rate and alright-ish AF, and on the face of it it's a surprising choice. 

So there must be something else going on. Is it the video? The pixel count? The full frame-ness? My hunch is it's a mix of all of these things. But given that these same snappers have been relying on Canon's sports-orientated 1DII and 1DIII bodies to earn their living, the fact that they're prepared - in some circumstances at least - to give up the high speed and accuracy of those bodies for something significantly slower tells us at least as much what's wrong with the current high end bodies as what's right.

I have a hunch that the next big pro body bun fight is going to be around the £2-£2.5k mark. Canon 3D and Nikon D800, anyone?

Digital paper cuts

I've been going through some of my pre-digital images recently as part of a couple of projects I'm involved in. Whilst most of my business is now generated through commissioned work or sales of digital images shot over the past three or four years, I also have a huge back catalogue of film shots from the previous decade. And much of it is still generating income.

What's interesting about going through these older images is how different they are from my current output. Although I've made no conscious changes to my approach or style, I can see several significant ways in which my film images differ from my digital work.

There are subtle differences in framing, composition and what, for want of a better turn of phrase, I'll call 'adventurousness'. Digital's instant feedback loop has undoubtedly enabled me to nudge boundaries a little. Whether it's getting closer to the action, dropping shutter speeds lower or shooting with wider apertures in lower available light, many of my older film images look positively staid next to what I'm shooting now.

Remote flash and film: been there, done that. South Wales circa 2003

But I'm also fascinated by the technical differences. Shots that I would have regarded as razor sharp five years ago now look, to my 12Mp eyes, distinctly soft. And Fuji Provia's once uncannily accurate colour rendering now looks cool and unbalanced with blue-tinged greens.

It's all relative, of course. There are still dozens - no, hundreds - of rectangles of celluloid of which I'm proud. But the ability to shoot an action shot and instantly check whether (for example) the rider's eyes and the bike's head tube badge are both sharp (no, really - i do that) has undoubtedly changed the way I work. I'd like to think the change is for the better, but for an unbiased view you'd have to ask some of my long-standing clients. Many of them shared the agony of waiting for the film to come back from the lab to find out what we'd really captured...

Choosing the right lens

'What lens(es) do you recommend?' is one of those questions that crops up fairly frequently in my inbox. Given that I own more than a dozen and use most of them pretty regularly, it's one of those 'simple question, not so simple answer' scenarios.

it's worth establishing a few baselines. First, there's no such thing as the 'right' lens. Sure, I have a few favourites. But although I'll always try to choose the best lens for the job, that's not always possible. I may have chosen to leave the 'right' lens at home because of space or weight restrictions, for example. And in any case, the lens I pick for a particular shot may not be the one picked by another photographer faced with the same situation.

Decisions, decisions

Second, it's easy to get caught up in the 'range at all costs' doctrine. Simply put, this gear-headed approach holds that the best lenses are the ones that cover the greatest possible range from wide to long, preferably with no gaps. Woe betide the photographer who skimps by leaving a lens at home. Now, I know pro bike photographers who ride everywhere with the gamut of lens choices from fisheye to 300mm f/2.8 (and get amazing results). But there's a heavy price to pay for this approach... literally. Unless you have the fitness and sheer bloody-mindedness to carry a 35lb-plus pack around with you all day, it's not a setup that's likely to work for you. It doesn't work for me, most of the time.

Related to this last approach is the idea that you'll miss shots if you don't have every base covered. It depends, of course, on what you're trying to achieve, but in many scenarios I'm a big advocate of the 'less is more' approach. A smaller - but well thought-out - selection of lenses can actually help you get better pics by focussing - pun intended - your attention on a limited range of options. It's quicker, less likely to result in pissed off riders as you faff around changing lenses, and it's much kinder to your back.

With the ground rules out of the way, what are the choices? Here's the way I see lens selection, from wide to long. Your mileage may, of course, vary. Oh, and whatever lens(es) you choose, bear this in mind: you get what you pay for. It's better to have fewer better quality lenses than more inferior ones. Modern dSLRs are easily good enough to show up rotten image quality, and there are a surprising number of poor performers still out there. Luckily, they're easy to spot - they're often (though admittedly not always) the cheap ones.

1. Fisheye

Good for

- getting the shot in really tight spaces

- adding a little dynamism

Watch out for

- overuse

- unnatural-looking distortion near the edges

 

Have fisheye, will climb tree

My fisheyes (10.5mm for DX and 16mm for FX) are firm favourites and usually come along for the ride - they're small, light and versatile. It's often possible to get a shot with a fisheye that just wouldn't work on any other lens, but it's important to make sure that you're using it for the right reasons. As a rule of thumb, if the first thing you notice about a pic is that it was shot on a fisheye... it might have been the wrong call.

No, really - the world is flat

2. Ultra-wide (including ultra-wide to wide zooms)

Good for

- getting into the thick of the action

- working in tight spaces where a fisheye will add unwelcome distortion

- adding speed, dynamism and depth

Watch out for

- unwanted distortion, particularly to wheels, near the corners of the frame

- too much background with no link to the foreground

Feel the pull

I seem to see in ultrawide terms. How else to explain the fact that most of my pictures over the past decade have been shot on a 17-35mm, or thereabouts? Used with discretion, the corner-pulling drama of an ultrawide grabs the viewer by the collar and yanks them into the picture. It's easy to overdo, of course, but if you told me I'd have to shoot with just one lens from now in it'd be an ultrawide.

Caution: objects in viewfinder are closer than they appear

3. 'Normal' (including standard zooms)

Good for

- getting used to your camera

- mimicking the way most people see the world

- subjects at close-ish to moderate distances

- not breaking the bank

Watch out for

- the 'meh' factor

It's small and there's not much light: break out the 50mm

Back in the day, 35mm SLRs would come with a 50mm lens as standard. Nowadays you'll find a 'standard' zoom instead, but chances are it'll cover the rough equivalent of 28mm to 70mm, or thereabouts. Or, in other words, a bit wide to very short telephoto. You can shoot most subjects with a lens like this. They're small, light, relatively inexpensive and usually reasonably decent optical performers.

Look into my lens, not around the lens

Why, then, am I not a bigger fan? You'll rarely find me using a lens in the 35mm to 80mm range, unless it's for a specific purpose like a close-up product shot or a portrait in low available light. The answer's simple: I find this range of focal lengths a bit uninspiring. Neither wide enough to be of much use in tight situations nor long enough to really start compressing perspective, it's all just a bit too predictable for my taste.

But don't let that put you off. I spent years shooting with a 50mm (and then a 28-70mm) before graduating to longer and wider glass. And the humble ol' 50mm f/1.8 is still a bargain that should find its way into any photographer's bag: cheap, small, light, useful in low light and probably sharper than most zooms, even at f/2.8.

4. Long (including telephoto zooms)

Good for

- compressing perspective

- isolating elements in a scene

- pulling distant subjects closer

Watch out for

- lack of dynamism in moving subjects

- accurate focus

- over-reliance on autofocus (and centred subjects)

It's just a large rock about 30 feet way. Honest

One of the most popular second lenses is a telephoto zoom. What's not to like? You can stand right where you are, twiddle a ring and bring subjects closer to you without putting one foot in front of the other. But bringing things closer isn't what long lenses do best, in fact. They're more useful for compressing perspective, making a dramatic background even more so and isolating a subject with their inherently limited depth of field.

It's that last characteristic that trips most people up, actually. Long lenses need accurate focussing, so it's tempting to leave it all to the camera. But subjects slapped in the middle of images rarely make the most interesting compositions, so it pays to learn how to prefocus. It's also harder to get a sense of movement in images shot with long lenses.

5. Superzoom (the one box, do-it-all solution)

Good for

- times when space or weight is really (really) restricted

- avoiding lens changing

Watch out for

- mediocre image quality

- indecisive framing (zoom zoom syndrome)

Why not ditch the bag full of lenses and just buy one do-it-all superzoom? It's a fair question, and the best answer is this: for my money, superzooms impose too many compromises to be worthwhile except in situations where a single lens is the only practical solution. image quality tends to be mediocre, manual focussing is usually all but impossible and the huge range tends to stifle creativity and encourage a fixed position, turn-the-ring approach to framing.

What to buy?

So... if you currently have a dSLR with a standard zoom, what should you buy? Most people will opt for a telephoto zoom first, but I'm not convinced that's the best option unless you particularly want to shoot events. Mountain biking's one of those rare sports where it's often possible to get in close (and use flash), so an ultrawide zoom would probably be top of my list.

If you must have a telephoto zoom, buy the best - and fastest - you can afford. Entry-level zooms usually feature f/5.6 apertures at the long end, which quickly becomes limiting as light levels fall. Go for at least f/4... and f/2.8 if your bank balance (and back) will stand it.

Don't forget prime (non zoom) lenses, either. Often overlooked, they offer amazing optical performance, brighter apertures and often lower bulk and weight. Watch out for 85mm or 135mm second hand bargains as a faster, lighter alternative to a slow, bulky zoom.

Want more info? You can read more about all my lenses and the different combinations I use in different circumstances here.

Cover: What Mountain Bike July '09

One of the pages I had to fill whilst I was in the middle of my megashoot earlier this year was What Mountain Bike's Bike of the Year cover. Instead of a single rider, the WMB team wanted to feature three riders on the front, each riding one of the BOTY finalists.

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/160sec f/13, two radio slaves

Sounds simple enough. As with all such concepts, though, the devil's in the detail. The lead bike - the Bike of the Year itself - would have to be large and prominent in the frame in order to fit in with the mag's house style. That left precious little room to fit in two more bikes and riders, some scenery and a hint of trail, all with enough room to fit headers, coverlines and straps.

So we played it safe and shot a standard single rider cover first, making the most of the stunning Lakeland scenery and unbelievably fine spring weather.

Having got that safely in the can, we moved on to the three rider brief. Just one problem: we only had two riders. With a swift bike and top change and some care on my part to make sure I didn't move too much between shots, the problem was solved with some careful Photoshop work back at WMB HQ to drop in the 'third' rider. Bet you can't see the join.

Now, I know this is going to upset the purists. But the way I look at it is this: if we'd had a third rider the shot would have looked exactly the way it turned out. There's no re-positioning, no putting a rider where there's no trail and no reshaping of the landscape in Photoshop. And be honest... if I hadn't owned up, would you have spotted?

Nikon D3, 17-35mm f/2.8, 1/320sec f/13, two radio slaves

As it turns out, we also got a third crack at the cover. My lakeside packshot nearly made it to the final cut, but was ultimately passed over in favour of the more traditional riding option. That water, by the way, is a whole lot colder than it looks. I was in so much pain after a couple of minutes standing in it that I had to hop to the shore and stand with my bare feet on a rock warming in the sun for while before braving another short session.

On balance I prefer the packshot, I think, partly because it's a bit different but also because - with my 'own worst critic' hat on - I'd like to have been able to inject some more dynamism into the riding image. 

But there you go. Photographers are often the worst judges of their own images, which means it's a probably a good thing I don't get to choose what goes on the cover.

New and improved?

If the latest rumours are to be believed, it's possible that Nikon may launch a warmed-over D300 before we see a full-fledged replacement. Twin card slots (though the second slot is SD, not CF) and HD video with the option of an external mic are the supposed headline features.

A D300s would actually make a lot of sense. Nikon has a history of launching 's' and 'x' updates to prolong the life of an existing product. More importantly, as far as I'm concerned, there's very little on the D300 that needs fixing - and, as I wrote recently, a pixel increase wouldn't really interest me. On the other hand, I don't particularly fancy paying a hefty upgrade premium to change my perfectly good D300 just so that I can have video. Though it would probably be cheaper than buying a separate D5000 or D90 body...

Shoot of the year

It's not in the shops for another few days, but subscribers will already be receiving the first copies of What Mountain Bike's annual Bike of the Year issue - and I can't resist giving a sneak peak at some of the photos I've been sitting on for the past few weeks. Go on, go out and buy a copy - it's got lots of shiny bikes in it, one or two decent pics... and you'll have the satisfaction that comes from knowing that you're indirectly helping to pay my mortgage. What more could you ask for?

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/640sec f/5.6 @ ISO200

The Bike of the Year issue has always been a bit of a bumper round-up of the absolute best in mountain bikes and kit, put together by indisputably the most experienced test team in the business. But this year editor Matt Skinner pulled out all the stops, bumped a few of the suits' heads together and put into action a Master Plan of truly epic proportions - including a five-day shoot in the Lake District and a trip to California.

And yours truly got the call to shoot it. All of it.

Nikon D3, 80-200mm f/2.8, 1/320sec f/9 @ ISO200, two radio slaves

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/200sec f/13 @ ISO200, two radio slaves

To say I was chuffed would be an understatement. Forty-odd pages of editorial in a single issue is a pretty good showcase by any standards. It's also a fairly big responsibility, and there were a few wobbly moments (me to Matt, on hearing of his plan to fill 28 pages of the mag on a 5 day shoot in the Lakes in early April: 'er... are you sure you want to do that?'*). But I love a challenge - and this was certainly it.

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/400sec f/8 @ ISO200, two radio slaves

So I spent 11 days on location, 7 of them shooting. Drove 1500 miles. Flew around 10,000. Filled umpteen 2Gb cards with raw images, then spent nearly 3 days editing them down to a more manageable number before processing the resulting several hundred files to jpegs. Dropped one of my Pocket Wizards in a lake. Got sunburnt, twice. Stood in cold water for so long my feet hurt. Cursed the D3 sensor's magnetic attraction to dust, a lot. Praised its ability to turn in clean files in almost no light, several times. Rediscovered the joy of Duck Tape.

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/60sec f/4.5 @ ISO1600, single radio slave

Nikon D3, 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/250sec f/11 @ ISO200, two radio slaves

And, although the resulting swathe of pictures in the new issue inevitably has me focussing on the ones I coulda shoulda woulda shot better, I'm actually quite pleased with the results. All 43 pages of them. 

With such a wide-ranging brief I had to shoot a bit of everything - from epic landscapes and atmospheric riding pics, to portraits of slightly reluctant subjects and the biggest, most complicated location still-life of bikes I've ever undertaken. it's good to get out of my comfort zone every now and then - it pushes me to try new techniques and look at familiar problems in a new light. And it's usually in situations like these that I turn in my best pictures.

It's been a busy month. But a worthwhile one.

Nikon D300, 10.5mm f/2.8, 1/20sec f/22 @ ISO200

* Perhaps you have to be British to understand: the Lake District is to rain what Arizona is to the lack of it.