Granted, this post is a little over a year late, but I blame the lack of a blog.
I was given the chance to shoot an MX1 and MX2 event in Loket. I know absolutely nothing about motocross, other than it’s on dirt bikes and a mud track. I found out later that this event was some sort of European motocross championship and there were quite a few big name European riders here. And even a few American teams that could afford the logistics of getting their stuff shipped over.
An MX1 and MX2 event in Loket, Czech Republic from August 2009
Me, Geoff and Loci left town early enough in the morning to get to Loket in time for the start. I was letting Geoff use my old XTi with a Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6. I was carrying my trusty Canon 1D Mk III and 16-35mm f/2.8 L and 70-200 f/2.8 L. I wasn’t quite sure how close I’d be able to get to the track with a big white lens and no press credentials, but either no one noticed or more likely no one cared.
An MX1 and MX2 event in Loket, Czech Republic from August 2009
We setup on a pretty well occupied section of track at first, right near a large tabletop. This was the first time I was shooting insane fast action sports with high contrast situations on the Mk III so it took me a few minutes of shooting and chimping to get my settings nailed down. I was shooting in Aperture Priority with center point AF and center weighted metering (if i remember correctly, I’ll check my EXIF eventually). And of course, still being relatively inexpirenced at shooting motocross, I decided to use the ‘shoot at 10 frames per second and sort it all out later’ approach. Needless to say, I took something like 2400 photos of the event. Now talk about a pain to do any post processing with at all. 2400 photos was overkill. I suppose I didn’t need to shoot every rider at every portion of the track we went to, but I was having fun and really enjoying the day. At one point, I broke out the 16-35mm and took some wide angle shots of the riders coming down into a corner of the track.
Overall, I’d have to say it as an outstanding day of me learning more about photography. Recently, the 1D Mk III has decided to act up. I’m having some of the infamous Canon auto focus issues. Great. But I bought a 5D Mk II which is amazing, so I’m working on sending the 1D into Canon for a service.
Untill next time,
Adam
