Trunce 2 seemed to come along so quickly, a gap of two weeks to be precise. I've been suffering with toothache for a while, with some days being easier pain wise than others. It's a root that needs to come out and my dentist has kindly put me on the LONG waiting list at my local hospital. Only five minutes work, but he thinks that a specialist should see to it.
Monday seemed to be a low level pain day, time to prepare for snapping runners.
There is an update later.
Favourite shot of the day.
Everything packed and checked, with a choice of two lenses. The 85mm fixed onto the D7500 and the 35mm in case I changed my mind.
Met up with Andrew Swales, kids in tow, to show him possible snapping points for his first visit to a Trunce race. Donation bucket left at registration, time to make a move.
With Andrew, having chosen to set up just off the TPT, I was left to natter to a first time junior and her mum. She came second girl and absolutely loved it.
River level appeared to be slightly higher than it was at Trunce 1. Time to hold my breath and enter the water. Not too bad, my frozen feet would soon numb enough not to notice the temperature.
Worked out where to stand and decided that the 85mm would mean positioning myself well back from the stepping stones. With the water being quite a bit deeper, I changed back to my normal choice of lens ... the 35mm f1.8
Took a few practice frames to see if everything was okay.
"Looks a bit out of focus."
Quick check and the problem found. I'd forgotten that I'd used the lens at the road league event the week before. It had been set up on the "video" camera and left on manual.
You can see the switch on the lens in the above image. It was on M instead of M/A. Leaving the lens on "M" would have resulted in just about every image being out of focus.
Thank goodness I had spotted it in time.
Phew!
Going home with 1,000 plus images that were out of focus ... NO!
Here they come. The car park hadn't seemed that full but in reality, there were only two finishers fewer than last time. Thought the Easter hols might have trimmed the number of runners down quite a bit.
What's it like to snap 260 odd athletes as they cross your path.
Thought I'd try to explain what goes on behind the lens.
It isn't as simple as it might appear.
Let's focus on how I focus and where:
There is a grid system of available focus points, these cover a proportion of the image seen through the viewfinder. As the runners pass in front of me, I have to quickly decide which one I want to "focus" on.
I'll try to explain why this may change in the examples below. None of the images have been cropped, they are the original compositions.
Example 1: Runner is on his own and the choice of focus point is straight forward. I'll use the one which is exactly in the middle of the grid. Depending on the height of the runner and other factors, I might have to move the FP up or down one. I'm trying to hit the body rather than the legs.
Example 2: The solo runner has gone and due to the fact that my eye is glued to the viewfinder, I have only a fraction of a second to assess the situation.
A quick glance to my left.
Solo runner?
Group?
Two runners?
In the composition above, their wasn't time to move the focus point to where I wanted it, positioning it so that the two runners would straddle either side of the middle "line". Due to the fact that the ISO was at 6,400, it meant that any cropping would result in an even "grainier" image than the original.
I decided on a squarish crop with quite a bit of the background left in. If the light had been better and the ISO much lower, cropping even further wouldn't have been a problem. Not too bad resolution wise on a mobile, but not on a monitor.
Example 3: This image has the FP in the centre as well. There isn't time to step back and include the figures at the edge of the frame. If I could step back enough, then they would be. Step forward and they'd be excluded from the composition.
Do I try to crop tightly on the runner in blue and the one in yellow? Or do I just leave it as it is?
Example 4: Large gaps start to appear and I have the chance organize my composition just that little bit better. In the image above, I've turned my body round so that I can include far more figures in the frame. The FP is moved to the extreme right and hits the lady in grey. The shutter speed has been lowered and the aperture opened a little more. With the aperture set at f3.2, it's unlikely that all the runners would be in focus. The wider the aperture, the smaller the depth of field.
Example 5: The runners return in far smaller groups, with quite a few on their own or with just one other athlete.
I'd set myself up on the opposite side of the river, but still in the water. Crouching down would allow me to include a reasonable amount of sky. For some reason, I can't abide very thin strips of blue and cloud, Rule of Thirds and all that.
Wet bottom.
Never mind.
Adopting this position creates a more dominant runner, you're looking up at them rather than down. I do this at most of my races, though it doesn't do my back or knees any good. The FP was moved away from the centre to hit the young lady at the front.
It's a cracking shot, thanks to the two athletes behind being spaced out nicely behind her.
It would have been even better if the two onlookers were just a couple of feet to the right.
No cropping took place and the composition was spot on.
I found that Monday produced way more shots than normal that required no cropping. I must be improving.
The light hadn't been too bad, surprisingly lighter for the runners and myself on their return.
Time to go.
Back to the field and picked up the donations bucket. Another successful evening with around £100 to sort out and bank. We're nearly at the £2,000 mark and I'm grateful for to everyone who threw something in.
Sorry about the wait for images, the toothache continued and in the end my dentist gave it a go and extracted the root. I'm in pain from the extraction, gums bruised where he ... anyway, let's hope the pain subsides a bit and I can get some relief.
As far as I know, I won't be able to make the next couple of Trunce races. Hopefully see you on June 20th when the sun will be shining, the river will be bone dry and the photographs ... boring.
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