Although most of my work involves taking pictures of people riding bicycles off the beaten path (or at the very least away from traffic), I'm a big fan of just about anything that happens on two wheels, particularly when the engine is a carbon-based biped. So when the opportunity arises to shoot something a little different, I usually jump at it.
Cycling Plus magazine caters to a broad church of riders who mostly use their bikes on the road, whether it's for commuting, racing, training, touring or just for the sheer joy of pedalling. Although I've been a contributor in the past, it's been a while since I shot anything for the mag. So earlier in the year I approached the art ed, asked if he had any work available, and found myself with a big commuter bike test to shoot and a deadline 10 days away. I was busy already, but how could I say no?
Given that it had been a while, I treated the shoot as a first-time job. Which is another way of saying I wanted to impress the client. So I chose a gritty urban location that would give me a mixture of backdrops, lined up a bunch of willing riders... and prepared to open my Big Bag of Techniques.
We started with some straightforward long lens pics, using shallow depth of field to make the riders stand out against some industrial architecture. Er, that'll be an old railway bridge, then...
Nikon D300, 80-200mm f/2.8, 1/500sec f/2.8 @ ISO400
Next I dropped the shutter speed right down to emphasise the riders' speed, choosing a couple of different backgrounds. Can you say 'panning technique'?
Nikon D300, 80-200mm f/2.8, 1/30sec f/9 @ ISO400
Nikon D300, 80-200mm f/2.8, 1/15sec f/7.1 @ ISO200, two radio slaves
Finally I broke out the Magic Arm, the fisheye and Capture NX's magic fisheye straightening function to shoot some on-bike action:
Nikon D300, 10.5mm f/2.8, 1/25sec f/5.6 @ ISO400
Nikon D300, 10.5mm f/2.8, 1/30sec f/18 @ ISO200
I'm pleased with the results, on the whole. You can't put a skinny-tyred commuting bike in the same kind of dramatic scenario that you can (say) a 150mm travel full bouncer, so it's a question of coming up with techniques, backdrops and angles that play to the bikes' strengths. Which, in this case, is covering the (tarmacced) ground fast.
Incidentally, if you've been paying attention you'll have noticed that I broke out my rather neglected D300 for this shoot. There's a simple reason for that: working with DX and FX bodies alongside each other can easily lead to a rather cumbershome lens selection. Since I knew I'd be shooting some onboard pics with the Magic Arm (the D3 is just way too big and heavy to even consider it for this job), the D300 was already in the bag. I figured I might as well do the whole shoot with it. Although the day started out pretty dull and I was pushing the ISO for several pics to 800 and beyond, it held up remarkably well and reminded me why I bought it in the first place.
I think I need to use the D300 more...
The problem with camera reviews
Update: in a piece of comic timing that couldn't have been better scripted, I've just been asked to compile a mini camera review. So in the spirit of putting my words where my mouth is, I'd better make it a good one. Watch this space...
//Warning: mild rant content ahead//
The other day I happened to read the final part of a head-to-head review of two top end 'prosumer' dSLRs. The conclusion surprised me, then got me irritated, and finally got me surprisingly cross. The 'winning' camera emerged on top not on the basis of its build, handling or image quality. No, it earned its position on the podium because it has an in-camera 'rating system'. Say what? You can 'rate' images while you peer at them on the 3 inch wide screen. This, apparently, is a Good Thing.
Really? I mean, really?
Leaving aside the fact that this amounts to little more than a tit-for-tat breakdown of the cameras' spec tables ('this one goes all the way to 11. It's louder, so it must be better'), I can't think of a single good photographer who would do such a thing. There's the time factor, for a start. Being able to review images is very useful, but while you're out there taking pictures the thing to do is, um, take pictures. Not squint at them on a teeny little screen. And if you're not actually taking pictures, it's probably time to whip out the card, stick it in a card reader and pull up those images nice and big so you can get a proper handle on which ones are worth keeping and which aren't.
Why on earth would you even attempt such an exercise on a tiny, uncalibrated screen?
The trouble is, this is just an extreme example of the fallacy of much camera 'testing'. Years ago, when Nikon's venerable F5 was my tool of choice, I remember a reviewer complaining that the camera's various locking controls were fiddly and slowed operation down. Not if you used the camera day-in, day-out they didn't - and they were there, after all, to prevent settings from being dislodged inadvertently. I can still switch an F5 on and off (two finger operation) and change all the settings without even looking at the camera.
When you don't use a camera all the time, 'testing' one quickly becomes an exercise in comparing spec tables and squinting at resolution charts. Both of which are largely meaningless. The same reviewer who liked the in-camera rating system has also recently posted some speculation about Nikon's allegedly forthcoming D800. It amounts to little more than a wish-list of specs including 24mp, 8fps, 100,000+ ISO and - yep, you guessed it - an in-camera rating system. I don't even know where to start with what's wrong with that little lot.
There have undoubtedly been some dramatic and very useful advances in camera technology over the past decade. But in-camera rating sytems, frankly, aren't on the list. The lesson? Don't pay too much attention to reviews. Buy a camera that feels good in your hands and then go out and use it.
//Rant ends//
Posted at 10:05 AM in Comment, Gear, Media | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
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