Seb Rogers: mountain bike photography

The price of staving off climate change

(Yes, I know I'm supposed to be on a plane to Nepal... )

So I'm just finishing off some work late last night, and it's time to power down the computer and unwind in front of the TV for a while. I've been working late quite a bit lately, to fit in everything that needs to be done before I go away.

Putting the office to bed has become more complicated over the past year or two because of the rapid growth of my, erm, 'system'. Nine external hard drives, two Macs, monitor, powered speakers, scanner... you get the idea. Many of these bits and pieces have external power sources which stay warm to the touch even when the device they're powering is switched off... so I decided a while back to always switch off at the wall socket when I'd finished for the day. Cuts the electricity bill, conserves energy a bit and saves a few more kilos of CO2 from being pumped into the atmosphere. Simple.

Trouble is, last night I went onto autopilot. Must be because I'm tired from too many late nights. Normally I wait until the power light on my Mac has gone out before switching off at the wall. Last night I didn't. And I didn't give it another thought until two minutes later, when I realised I'd forgotten something and tried to boot it back up.

Nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. The sound of the drive unparking itself and a glowing power light... but no startup 'bong', no video, no drive contentedly chugging away...

Long story short*: it's going back to my friendly Mac repairer today so it'll be fixed when I come back from Nepal. And I'm kicking myself for a forgetful couple of seconds that'll likely land me with a hefty repair bill. At least all my important data is stored - and duplicated - on external drives. And I have a backup Mac that I can use in the meantime. But it's a right, royal pain.

Will I still switch everything off at the wall? Probably. But I'll be sure to wait until that light's gone off from now on...

* in case any Mac experts are reading, I tried most of the known 'fixes'. The trouble is it won't boot in any mode, so I can't even use it as a target drive and back up to another machine before a reinstall. And I do, in fact, have a recent clone of the entire drive that I could use to restore it... if I could only get the //expletive deleted// thing to start up. //Sigh//.

Be careful what you wish for

Me and my big mouth. When I commented last year that I'd be shooting more video in 2007, I had a rough plan that involved setting up a couple of short films for fun. I had no idea that, less than 6 months later, I'd be getting on a plane to Nepal with Hans Rey, Wade Simmons and Richie Schley to help shoot a TV documentary. Weird, eh?
Wade, not in Nepal
Nikon F5, 17-35mm f/2.8, 1/250 sec f/8 on Fuji Provia 100, single on-camera flash

The whole thing is, unsurprisingly, Hans' idea, and the trip will involve a mixture of riding Himalayan singletrack (natch) and some work for Hans' charity, Wheels 4 Life. Blake Jorgenson is the trip's official stills photographer, so I'll be flying one of these - as second cameraman - instead of my usual Nikon gear.

I'd better watch what I write in future...

In the meantime, chances are the blog won't get updated for a while. So, um, talk quietly amongst yourselves while I'm gone...

Nowt so queer

The stats for my blog show, amongst other things, where visitors have come from. Some of them, inevitably, stumble on my little corner of the web via a search engine. But I can't help feeling that they're not always getting what they bargained for.

Some of the best search strings that have brought browsers here include 'how to dismantle a Nikon D2X' (the mind boggles), 'lame pony' and 'pot of gold' (both of which are victims of my not entirely descriptive post headings), and 'the best mountain bike photographer in the world' (no, really... though I don't actually get top ranking if you put that into Google).

Many others fall into the category of 'best lens / shutter speed / miscellaneous widget for mountain bike photography'. If only it were that simple. Er, actually, if it were that simple I'd be out of a job...

In the bag part 2: the kitchen sink

When I first wrote about the gear I carry, I had a three-part series in mind. But I've since realised that my midway solution - a Lowepro Mini Trekker stuffed to the gills with as much as I can get in it - just doesn't get much use any more. I tend to either go as light as I can, or take the biggest bag I own.

So here we are: this is my 'kitchen sink' solution, for shoots where I'm either on foot or don't have to ride too far (I did end up riding all day with all this once last year, but that was by mistake... and resulted in a hypoglycemic trudge back to the car on the final 1/4 mile climb...)

Lowepro Photo Trekker AW
I bought this bag second-hand from a friend who hardly used it about eight years ago, and it's been going strong ever since. When it's full it weighs as much as I can comfortably carry, and the waterproof cover has saved my bacon (and my cameras' electronics) on more than one occasion. Inside you'll find most or all of the following:

- Nikon D2X. The D2X is my primary camera, even though I've taken to using the smaller, lighter and nearly-as-good D200 on those occasions when I'm doing a lot of riding. The D2X is big, heavy and expensive, but the files it produces are incredibly detailed and have an almost film-like quality that the D200 can't quite match. It also has incredibly sensitive autofocus, amazing battery life (I don't think I've ever had to change the battery on a job) and a reassuringly solid, dependable feel. Niggles? It'd be nice if it offered slightly less noisy files above ISO 400... but since I rarely shoot in light that low, it's (almost) a non-issue.
Weight: 1.264kg

- Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8. Since buying this lens (and returning the first sample because it was a bit soft on the right hand side), I haven't touched my Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8. The Sigma is smaller, lighter and has a useful extra 30mm at the short end. No, it's not as sharp as the Nikon (not even close at f/2.8). But it's sharp enough, and the size and weight advantages are enough to win me over.
Weight: 0.849kg

- Nikon 12-24mm f/4. My 'standard' lens. Couldn't live without it.
Weight: 0.514kg

- Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 fisheye. It's easy to overdo the fisheye 'look', so I use this lens sparingly. But it's great for working in tight spaces.
Weight: 0.357kg

- Nikon 50mm f/1.8. My old standard lens - 1989 vintage - was almost unused for nearly 10 years, until I bought the D2X. And then I discovered just how much sharper it is than my zooms, even at f/2.8. The coatings on mine aren't optimised for digital use, so I have occasional problems withh a blueish 'flare' in shadow areas, but in all other respects it's a stunningly sharp lens. I pack it so that I've got a small, light and sharp solution for close-ups (in conjunction with the D2X's high-speed crop mode), low light and portraits.
Weight: 0.227kg

- Quantum 4i radio slave transmitter and receiver. For firing my flashguns remotely. Held together with insulating tape and still going strong...
Weight: 0.425kg

- Nikon SB800 x 2. Two flashguns take more time to set up, but allow me to use a main light plus second rim / back light on my subject. Ironically, I hardly ever get to use Nikon's wonderful TTL flash metering these days - I rely on experience, the histogram on my camera's display and fine-tuning the output manually. I'm hoping Nikon's next generation of pro cameras will incorporate true wireless TTL control, so that I can tweak everything from the camera.
Total weight: 1.012kg

- Nikon D200. When I'm out and about with this kit, the D200 is usually relegated to backup body status.
Weight: 0.972kg

- Nikon SU4 slave unit. This optical slave (permanently attached to one of the tripods - see below) allows me to trigger the second flash off the first (radio-triggered) unit. It means I have to use line-of-sight between the two flashes, but it's a smaller, neater solution than using a second radio receiver.
Weight: n/a

- Velbon CX mini tripod x 2. These two tripods allow me to position my remote flashes (almost) where I like. When I get around to it I might investigate replacing them with something altogether smaller and lighter... but I always seem to have something more pressing to do.
Total weight: 1.700kg

- I also carry up to 4 x 2Gb memory cards, a blower bulb and brush, an Oakley lens cleaning cloth, spare batteries for the D200 and a bunch of spare AA NiMh batteries for the flashguns.
Total weight: c. 0.600kg

That's a little under 8kg (or 17.5lb) of kit, plus the weight of the bag. More than enough to be carting around for a whole day, particularly if riding's involved (which will mean carrying tools, food, water and spare clothes as well).

What's missing from this setup? The eagle-eyed may have noticed that there's a gap betwen 24mm and 50mm in my lens setup. I do own a mid-range zoom, but I hardly ever use these 'normal' focal lengths and generally tend to leave it at home. And at the long end, 150mm (225mm FF 35mm equivalent) is as long as I go. I could squeeze in (say) a Nikon 200mm f/2 for more reach, and in fact I've considered doing so. But long, fast lenses tend to be disproportionately big, heavy and expensive - and this one's no exception. And cheaper alternatives tend to be too slow for use in lowish light.

This isn't a setup that'll suit everyone. But it caters to 95% of my photography, and having a little spare space in the bag makes it quicker to work from.

Update: there's a bunch of other stuff in a whole 'nother bag under my desk that sometimes sees the light of day. It includes my venerable old F801 and F5 plus my F6, 17-35mm f/2.8, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5, 80-200mm f/2.8, 24mm f/2.8, 85mm f/1.4, 135mm f/2, 1.4x converter, various remote release cables and... well, you get the idea. None of it (with the exception of the 85mm) gets much use, but I hang onto the film gear for largely sentimental reasons and the 17-35mm may eventually get pressed into service when Nikon launches its FF dSLR...

RIP film II

I discovered the lyrics to this 1973 Paul Simon song over the weekend:

'Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away'

(Paul Simon, Kodachrome, 1973)*

On the same day I'd been reading about the 161 exabytes (that's 161 billion iPod Shuffles' worth, apparently) of 'total digital content' generated in the world last year. And I couldn't help but get a little nostalgic - again - for the days of film. I know, I know... but I shot film professionally for a decade (and for a quarter century in total). It's in my blood.

I've heard many post-digital converts to photography talk dismissively of film. Sometimes they're remembering the frustration of print colours not being quite right, or of not knowing on the spot whether or not the picture would 'come out'. But mostly the complaints boil down to the fact that there was a wait of hours, days, weeks or months before they could see their pictures. Delayed gratification, but not in a good way.

No-one wants that any more. Why wait to view your slides on a lightbox when you can see the picture on a tiny little screen fractions of a second after it was taken?

20-year-old Kodachrome shot on a Nikon D2X and processed with Bibble Pro. Irony not pictured.

But I think the focus on speed misses the point. What Paul Simon's song captures is the way that an entire generation viewed their memories - of family, places, holidays, special occasions - through the prism of Kodachrome's unique tones and colours. The millions of inch-by-inch-and-a-half rectangles of film languishing in little yellow boxes in the back of cupboards and in forgotten attic corners throughout the world have one thing in common - that Kodachrome 'look'.

Despite its fabled accuracy, Kodachrome - like any film - was never capable of faithful reproduction of a scene. High mid-tone contrast gave it its fabled 'punch', but also meant that small exposure errors could result in washed-out midtones or blocked-in shadows. But with a little care - and an acceptance that every roll of film would have its duds - it was capable of producing stunning results. Like all good films, it just needed a bit of patience to learn its idiosyncracies.

And therein lies the downfall of the silver halide process. Used successfully and extensively to document more than a century and a half of political turmoil, family holidays, war, weddings, space exploration and barmitzvahs, it's been dumped unceremoniously in the space of a few years because it's too slow. Patience? Who's got patience any more?

One of the things we've lost in this scramble to instant gratification is that unique 'look'. In the past, tonal and colour responses were defined largely by which film you loaded into your camera. Now it's all built into the camera's chip (if you shoot jpeg), or defined by the software you use (if you shoot raw). You can tweak it, but you can't fundamentally change the way your camera 'sees' the world.

Funnily enough, I'm very protective of the 'look' of my digital pictures. I shoot raw and process every single file individually (yes, I spend a lot of time in front of a monitor!). After a couple of years of refining the process I've got a pretty clear idea of what I'm looking for as I press the button, much like I did after years of shooting the same brand of film. No-one else is likely to process my raw files exactly the same way as me, and I rather like that thought. It's one of the main reasons I shoot raw.

But I also miss using the pre-defined response of a particular film - the colours, the dip into solid black in the shadows, the gradual roll-off into highlights... the subtleties and intricacies of the entire process. There was an art to doing it well, but it's an art that's been sacrificed on the altar of speed and convenience.

A song about the 'nice bright colours' of a digital EOS just wouldn't have the same ring.

* One of the reasons it escaped unnoticed all these years is probably that it was never released in the UK, thanks to the BBC's rigid policy of not allowing any commercial content - the same policy that forced the Kinks to change the line 'we drink champagne and it tastes just like Coca-Cola' to 'cherry cola'.

Pixel density and portability

It's been an interesting PMA show this year for light, high quality cameras. High pixel counts up till now have tended to come in (relatively) big, heavy bodies. But two cameras look particularly interesting for mountain bikers (/ kayakers / climbers / hikers / skiiers / assorted adventure sports nuts) interested in the highest possible pixel count per unit weight and volume. This is, incidentally, a completely different version of the commonly accepted definition of pixel density, but I'm adopting it as a measure of a camera's usefulness for high quality mountain bike photography.

The long-awaited Sigma DP1 has been seen for the first time in finished form, and it looks rather good. The addition of a hotshoe and (external) viewfinder address two of the main concerns I had about the prototype. At just 240g and with a simple, relatively flat body shape, it certainly fits the bill for portability. I'll be interested to see how it performs on raw write speed and one or two other usability benchmarks, but if the price is reasonable I'm likely to be first in the queue.*

The other manufacturer to throw a curveball is Nikon, with its D40X. Essentially identical to the small, light D40 but with the 10mp sensor from the D80 and D200, it's appealing to me because it offers the D200's image quality in a body that's nearly 3/4lb lighter. There are tradeoffs, of course - smaller viewfinder, longer shutter lag, clumsy manual metering and so on - but I can see situations where the lower weight would be really useful. The one thing making me pause is lens choice. I'd really like something like Nikon's old 45mm pancake lens... only wider. Short, light and stubby is the way to go.

Which, ironically, brings me right back to the DP1. Decisions, decisions.

* It's perhaps worth pointing out that the 14 million pixel spec of the DP1 is a tad misleading, because it actually produces 4.6 million pixel images. The higher figure comes from the fact that its Foveon sensor uses three separate 4.6 million pixel layers, each layer sensitive to either red, green or blue light. Experience suggests that this arrangement - which is unique to Sigma - results in higher per-pixel resolution than with traditional Bayer sensors. So although the output looks a bit miserly, in theory the DP1's images should upsize extremely well. Time will tell.

Agnosticism on two wheels

Nikon D200, 50-150mm f/2.8, 1/80 sec f/5.6 @ ISO400, single radio slave

Quote of the week, courtesy of fellow bike journo Guy Kesteven:

'I don't do deities. Dalai Llama, that big bird from Dibley or bearded fanatics. I don't do drugs, drink, poetry or pixies either. I save my wild-eyed evangelism for the almost sickening fix of feedback, fear and hardwired reflexes from synapse to sticky-compound shoulder tread. Floated drops, every-last-sinew climbs, the song of tree bark millimetres from your ear and the hallelujah spray of earth from a perfect power slide. F**k the flock - find your own truth on a trail with a pearly gate at every corner.'

Couldn't have put it better myself.

There's more in the April 2007 edition of MBUK in a feature called 'Soul Biking' (there may also be one or two of my pictures in there...), in the shops March 14th.

Cover: What Mountain Bike April '07

And talking of remote flash... here's my fourth cover of 2007, courtesy of two remote flash units and a persistent art editor who wouldn't let me quit.

By the time we got to this spot I'd shot three or four potential covers at different locations, all of which were usable but hardly inspiring. That's sometimes the way it goes, though, and at the end of a long, overcast day I was ready to say 'enough'. But Robin, What Mountain Bike's tenacious art ed, wanted one more shot here.

Nikon D2X, 50-150mm f/2.8, 1/250 sec f/2.8 @ ISO400, two radio slaves

The stream in full spate (you can see it over the rider's right shoulder) made an unusual backdrop, and a series of roots on this short, technical climb made for interesting riding. But the light was both flat and in short supply, so I had to rig up two lights to put some contrast and depth into the bike and rider: the main one on the left behind the tree, and a second unit on the other side of the trail to add a rim light. This was one of the first shots that I took with that setup, and the best of the lot.

Worth staying on an extra few minutes, I reckon. Which just goes to show that my decision-making isn't always at its best at the end of a long day's shooting!

Remote flash: the Nikon conundrum

Remote flash - taking the flash off the camera and putting it exactly where you need it, in essence - has become a staple of my photography, as anyone who reads my picture captions will have noticed. Working out where to put the light and how to use it is something I really ought to come back to another time (I've been putting it off because it's potentially a rather big, complicated subject). But before you get to that point, there's the question of how you're going to trigger a flash that's not on the camera any more.

There are two problems here, both of which need solutions. First, you need a means of firing the flash. And second, you need some way of controlling its output. With the flash mounted on the camera's hotshoe (and switched to automatic), both of those functions are handled automatically. Take the flash off the hotshoe, and there are decisions to be made.

That blinding white light is a dead giveaway...
Nikon D2X, 10.5mm f/2.8, 1/250 sec f/7.1 @ ISO100, single radio slave

Nikon users - and particularly D70, D80 and D200 owners - have a potential advantage here.* The current version of Nikon's flash system includes the capability to remotely fire and control several remote flashguns from the camera. On the D70, D80 and D200 you can even use the camera's built-in flashgun to do the controlling. It's very cool. You don't need to buy or carry anything else, and having set up your remote flash there's no need to go back to it - you can control its output from where you're standing.

But I don't use this system much, for two reasons. First, the communication between camera and flash relies on a system of pre-exposure mini-flashes which unavoidably introduce a small delay to the shutter release**. And second - and far more significantly, in my view - it also relies on line-of-sight between camera and flash. That means no hiding the flash behind a convenient rock or tree, and limits on distance from and position relative to the camera.

So my solution is to use a third-party radio trigger. There's a sender on the camera hotshoe and a receiver plugged into the remote flash. Take the shot and the flash fires. There's no extra shutter lag, the range is easily several hundred feet and it doesn't rely on line-of-sight.

But (there's always a but, isn't there?). I lose all the clever metering and remote control functions. I have to set the flash's output manually, and to do that I have to schlep backwards and forwards between the flash and where I'm taking the shot, tweaking and making test shots until I've got it right.

If you want to give remote flash a try, which system should you go for? If you don't own a Nikon*, you don't have much choice - you'll have to go the radio slave route. Ebay is a good source for cheap radio slaves, though not having tried them myself I'm not sure how reliable they are. If you own a recent Nikon, though - and particularly if it's a D70, D80 or D200, with a remote-compatible internal flash - I'd be tempted to give the Nikon system a try first. It does have its limitations, but it'll give you a taste of what remote flash is all about without having to buy anything more than a single external flash.

Before you know it, you'll be running around setting up your own mini outdoor studio lighting setup...

* Update: I'm told that Canon has a similar system, though I have no experience of it myself. Mike D's comment (see link below) may help Canon owners...

** Second update: it's been pointed out to me that the extra delay only occurs under certain conditions, and there's a way of getting around it for D200 owners. More information buried towards the bottom of the comment posts (see link below).

New IMBA trail book

After choosing three of my images for its 2007 calendar, Colorado-based IMBA has put another of my shots on the cover of its latest book. Building on the books covering trail building and maintenance that it already offers, 'Managing Mountain Biking' looks at the bigger picture of planning, designing and managing successful trail networks.

Nikon D200, 12-24mm f/4, 1/200 sec f/9 @ ISO100, single radio slave

As for the picture, it's one of my personal favourites from 2006 and is currently gracing my office wall. Shot on a hot and sunny August day in Chamonix, Jez's perma-grin was spontaneous (but may well have had something to do with the conversation he'd been having with Ian before setting off). Harsh overhead light is normally the worst time of day to shoot, but the clear mountain air meant we got away with it - and a hit of fill-in flash from a remote unit a few feet to Jez's left opened up the worst of the deep shadows. And yes, that's Mont Blanc in the background.