Seb Rogers: mountain bike photography

Cover: What Mountain Bike March '08

Rain and high winds have temporarily stopped play on the shoot front (back to it tomorrow, though)... which gives me time to write about the new What Mountain Bike cover.

Nikon D2X, 85mm f/1.4, 1/320sec f/7.1 @ ISO100, two radio slaves

This is Specialized R&D manager Brandon Sloan putting the company's flagship S-Works Stumpjumper FSR through its paces on a dusty Santa Cruz corner in November 2007. The cover ties in to one of the issue's main features - a behind-the-scenes look at how this expensive but beautiful machine was brought to life.

The cover itself was straightforward enough to shoot, but it was only a small part of the package that I'd been commissioned to produce. I had just two days to bag the cover, interview the engineering team responsible for the bike - on this occasion I was both photographer and writer - and get all the shots needed to illustrate what turned out to be a monster 10 page feature. Great weather and seemingly limitless help from the guys at Specialized helped, but I didn't have any time to spare (in fact, I managed to miss my flight down to LA the following day...)

Still, it was worth the effort. I spent some time shooting the bike in a workstand in Specialized's test lab, with the idea of getting a packshot a little different from the norm. Mono suited the lighting and I was pleased with the result, which ended up opening the feature:

Nikon D2X, 50mm f/1.8, 1/60 sec f/2.8 @ ISO200, two radio slaves

Although I was worried about not getting all the shots I needed, in the end it turned out that I over-shot a little. Always better to do it that way, of course, but there were some nice shots that didn't find space in the mag. Here's one of my favourites, shot on the same corner as the cover just as the sun was setting:

Nikon D2X, 10.5mm f/2.8, 1/320sec f/4 @ ISO200

Despite the time constraints, this kind of job is always satisfying to finish. Shooting features is often a logistical exercise as much as anything, juggling locations and people to get all the shots that are needed. It also stretches my photographic abilities, demanding every kind of image from well-lit product close-ups to atmospheric portraits and, of course, plenty of action. But that's the challenge, and that's why I enjoy it.

Number 42 to Snowdon via Quantoxhead

For a freelance photographer, commissioned shoots are rather like buses - you wait for ages, then three come along at once. Or, in my case, five. Five shoots in a little over a week is as busy as I've probably ever been, and certainly more than busy enough for January. The weather's uncertain (but mostly dull and cold), the trails aren't exactly buff (mostly sludge, in fact), and I'm not in the best shape after a winter battling one virus after another. The next few days are likely to be a blur of packing the car, driving, riding, shooting, driving, unpacking, grabbing a few hours sleep and then repeating.

Still, it's good to be out there shooting, and I'll certainly be fitter this time next week than I am right now. The blog is bound to be neglected for the duration, so talk quietly amongst yourselves until I'm back in circulation again...

Coals to Newcastle

I've just signed up with a Vancouver-based image library that specialises in adventure sports. You can check out my initial (rather small, at the moment) portfolio here.

Funnily enough, a few years ago I had pretty much exactly the same idea: bring together photographers from all over the world who specialise in adventure sports, and put together an online one-stop shop. The idea crumbled to dust for a variety of reasons, not least of which was that I didn't really have the skills - or money - to build a web-based business of that size.

You could argue, I suppose, that the last thing a Vancouver-based image library needs is a bunch of mountain bike images from a UK-based photographer. But hey, I'm quite enjoying the irony - and I can now reach a north American market that I otherwise probably wouldn't be able to tap into.

Autopilot

I've been pretty dismissive about autofocus in the past, but not without good reason. Like any of the 'auto' options on modern cameras, autofocus can make photographers lazy, 'see' the wrong bits of the subject and get the focus completely wrong, or just throw a hissy fit and refuse to work. Autofocus is clever stuff, but it's not magic and it can't make up for a photographer's technical shortcomings.

Nikon D200, 200mm f/2, 1/500 sec f/2 @ ISO800

There are times, however, when AF is just wonderful. If there's no chance of getting a shot by focussing manually, sometimes it's worth trying the autofocus route just to see what happens.

I found myself in just such a situation recently. Crappy light, fast-moving subject, no chance of grabbing a shot manually. The light was so low, in fact, that even the normally competent AF of my D200 was struggling, but I figured I had a better chance with it than without. My 200mm was cranked wide open to f/2, I was on ISO800 and was just about squeezing 1/500 sec shutter speed out of the dim, overcast day. And I got this shot, which turned up as a full bleed contents page background in Februarys' What Mountain Bike.

It's only fair to point out that I shot a sequence, of which fewer than half were critically sharp. But I don't care, because this one is perfect - and I couldn't have shot it any other way. There's so little depth of field that the handlebars are in focus and the bottom bracket is out of focus. Way out, in fact. Here's an unsharpened 100% crop:

There's always the exception that proves the rule, and I suppose this is it. Those 'auto' functions do have a use, after all.

Colo(u)r woes

Pre-digital, photographers didn't have to worry too much about colour. Clever scientists at Fuji, Kodak and Agfa sweated the details about converting photons into silver halide crystals, whilst semi-automated processing and printing machines ensured that our images were, for the most part, a passable facsimile of the world beyond our lens.

Not any more.

One of the little-noticed side-effects of the digital revolution has been a dramatic shift in responsibility for output quality from third parties (film manufacturers, processing labs) to the photographer. Even when you click on 'print' and send an image to your desktop inkjet, or upload a batch of images for an online processor to do the printing for you, you're making choices about how your pictures will turn out. The question is, do you know what those choices are, and do you know how to control them? If your prints often don't match your computer monitor, chances are the answers to both those questions are 'no'.

Nikon guru Thom Hogan has just posted a very good, extremely thorough summary of the ins and outs of digital colour management. To which I can only add, if you're even remotely concerned with the output quality of your dSLR, you should invest in a good (i.e. not the cheapest, or even close to the cheapest) monitor and, just as important, a monitor profiling kit.

Here endeth today's sermon...

This is why

I cut my mountain biking teeth on the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs nearly two decades ago. This gently undulating landscape on the UK's south coast isn't, at first glance, a natural home for mountain biking. The highest point is less than 600 feet above sea level, there's precious little in the way of rocky or technical riding, and the views are subtly expansive rather than obviously dramatic. But I like it as a place. After thousands of miles and hundreds of hours riding there, I have a deeply rooted appreciation of the way the light plays across the hills and the English Channel beyond. It's magical.

Nikon D2X, 12-24mm f/4, 1/160sec f/7.1 @ ISO100

It's also the 'home' of British ovine cartoon legend Mint Sauce and his creator Jo Burt. Jo and I have shared countless rides across the hills that Mint also rides, in all weathers, throughout the year. Snow, hail, driving rain, rivulets of summer sweat; death marches through the cloying mud, endless trails of summer dust.

Nikon D2X, 200mm f/2, 1/1250sec f/2.8 @ ISO100

So when the opportunity arose to shoot a 'Burt's Backyard' profile on Jo for MBUK, I jumped at it. And then started to worry about how I was going to do the place - and Jo's work - justice. Mint afficionados and South Downs regulars will be aware of how well Jo captures the machiavellian character of the place according to the whims of weather and season. But I had just one day to evoke something of the magical quality of the hills, and I could only work with the light I was given. In the end an unpromisingly overcast morning turned into an afternoon with beautifully soft, low sunlight. We headed out on a short loop and got several of the shots that I was after.

Nikon D2X, 12-24mm f/4, 1/30 sec f/4 @ ISO800

But the riding is only half the story. I also needed pictures that give some idea of how Jo works - he's one of the few cartoonists still using paper, ink and paints. The more I thought about how to do that, the more I became convinced that black and white was the way to go. I had an idea that monochrome images of Jo at home would contrast nicely with the soft light of the late summer downs. And I decided to use natural light only - for both the riding and indoor shots. It's rare that I don't use at least a small amount of fill-in flash, but I was determined to make this shoot a bit different.

Nikon D2X, 85mm f/1.4, 1/3200sec f/2 @ ISO 100

I had another reason to use mono - Bibble has a cool plug-in that allows raw files to be processed straight to black and white whilst simulating several film, developer and paper combinations. So I 'developed' my shots of Jo working as though they were Kodak Tri-X, processed for 7 minutes at 75F in T-Max and printed on Agfa Multicontrast Premium. High ISOs and no noise reduction completed the gritty look I was after.

You can see the results for yourself in the Feb 2008 issue of the mag. The ones that appear here are a few that didn't make it into the feature.

Pot meet kettle?

In case you missed it, my recent post about a well-known airline's attempt to blag free images for use in an in-flight magazine has generated a fair bit of debate. And it shows little sign of abating.

Comments, as always, welcome. Go on, take a swing. I've got broad shoulders...

Cover: What Mountain Bike February '08

One of the themes I keep coming back to is that, in the broad scheme of things, the camera doesn't matter that much. And recently I put my D40X where my mouth is - by using it on a proper shoot.

And here's the result in print:

Nikon D40X, 12-24mm f/4, 1/250sec f/6.3 @ ISO 200, single radio slave

It's a long way from being my best ever cover shot, but I quite like the light, the bike's shadow on the trail and the look of determination on Simon's face. The sun was rapidly disappearing over the hill by this point and we had no more than 3 or 4 minutes of light left. We had to work fast - and the D40X delivered the goods, under pressure. If you get a chance, have a look at the cover up close. The image quality's every bit as good as you'd get from a dSLR costing 10 times as much.

What does this prove? Not a lot, probably. I shan't be making a habit of using the D40X on shoots - it's too slow overall and not as flexible as my other cameras. But I hope I've at least demonstrated that it's the photographer that makes the image, not the camera.

If you're not happy with the photos you're producing, try upgrading your technique before you spend more money on gear. Because if I can shoot a magazine cover on an entry-level dSLR, anyone can.

Dear Nikon, in 2008 I'd like...

Now that Nikon has finally given (sorry - sold) me the camera I've always wanted in the D300 (12mp, up to 8fps, decent ISO 800, removable grip), I've been cogitating about lens choices (long, dark winter days do that to a photographer. I'd rather be out shooting, but it's either daydream about glass that'd make my life easier or finish my tax return. I know which I'd rather be doing).

With the launch of the D3, Nikon has understandably been concentrating its efforts on lenses that will work with the larger sensor. The 14-24mm f/2.8 has got me pretty interested in spite of the size (large), weight (lots of it), loss of a few degrees at the wide end on the D300 (18mm equivalent on the 12-24mm vs. 21mm on the 14-24mm - an appreciable gap) and, er, price (hefty). But it'd leave me short (pun intended) at the wide end, and there are other lenses I'd like to replace in my lineup too. So here's what I'd like Nikon to deliver this year:

DX 12mm f/4
Assuming I replace my 12-24 with the 14-24, I'll be gaining a stop of extra speed but losing a few useful degrees at the short end. A 12mm f/4 prime, built to cover just the DX sensor imaging circle, should be small and light enough to just pop in a corner of the bag and win back those lost degrees. f/2.8 would be nice but would, I suspect, add too much to the size, weight and price to be worth the extra.

50mm f/1.4 AFS
I've been using my nearly 20-year-old, first generation 50mm f/1.8 AF lens quite a bit. It's very sharp from f/2.8 on, and small and light enough to carry everywhere. But it has some optical liabilities (susceptibility to flare and ghosting; indifferent wide open performance) and a nasty, plastic, rattly manual focus ring with slow, noisy AF. An update is overdue.

DX 50-135mm f/2.8
My Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 has served me well, but it has its limitations. It's not as sharp as my old 80-200mm f/2.8 wide open, and more prone to colour fringing too. I do like the smaller size and lower weight, though - a lot. And Pentax already has one in their lineup. I'd snap up an optically superior Nikon version straight away. Pretty please?

The trouble is that Nikon's recent (read: last 2-3 years) DX lens attentions have been focussed on the mass market mid-range zooms. At last count, I reckon there were around half a dozen 18-ish to 55-plus Nikon zooms for DX-sensored cameras, and it looks like they're gearing up to launch another in the next few weeks.

Commercially this decision makes a lot of sense for Nikon. Despite all the interweb hot air about 'full frame' (use of the quotation marks is quite deliberate, since the entire debate centres around a legacy film format which was itself a bastardised setup borrowed from the movie industry. But I digress), it's the mass market that generates the biggest revenue. Nikon has launched a succession of well-received mid-range dSLRs, and it needs the zoomage to support them. Ripple of applause, please, for Nikon's (mostly) well-executed corporate strategy.

But if we're to believe Nikon when it says that the new, larger FX format of the D3 and the DX format of all its other dSLRs are to continue to evolve side-by-side, I think it needs to show greater commitment to the higher end of DX SLR users. I'm sure the DX format will be with us for many more years, and I have no problem investing money in good glass to go with it. Let's have a couple of high-end, specialist DX lenses to demonstrate that commitment to DX. They won't sell in huge quantities, but they'll send a clear signal that Nikon stands behind DX for the forseeable future.

Goodbye 2007

It's been another busy year. Hard to believe it's my 12th year shooting bikes professionally. Time flies when you're having fun, eh?

Although I didn't quite match 2006's record numbers, I still managed to notch up 14 magazine and book covers, plus the odd supplement and map cover. Oh, and two catalogue shoots.

It's tough to pick a favourite shot from a year's worth of images, but there's one that I keep coming back to. My trip to Nepal in March with Hans Rey, Richie Schley and Wade Simmons is one that I'll remember for a long time, for all kinds of reasons.

Nikon D200, 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6, 1/350sec f/8 @ ISO100

This shot of Hans riding a dusty Himalayan trail at 4000m sums up the experience for me. I took this the day after suffering the worst diarrhoea I've ever had, at an altitude I'd never before experienced on a bike. I didn't, in all honesty, feel too good. But it was hard not to be inspired by the incredible backdrop - and I was also in the unusual position of being able to shoot purely for pleasure, because I wasn't the trip's official stills photographer.

I like the look of concentration on Hans' face, the dust he's kicking up, and the awesome Himalayan mountains behind him. But most of all I like the memory of being there.

Roll on 2008. Happy new year!