Thanks to the power of Twitter I found that the Red Bull Hill Chasers event was to be held in Bristol last Saturday. I thought it an excellent opportunity to photograph a night cycling event which was a double first as I had neither photographed a cycling event or a night time sports event before.
My pre-event banter with another local photographer was about which lenses to use and what ISO would be needed. In a naive fashion I said I'd go for 800 ISO and see what happened. I found I was completely unprepared for the sheer speed of the event and despite the lighting I found I was using 3200 ISO to get anywhere near freezing the action. Due to the crowd, I couldn't see the approaching cyclists, so I just had to setup the camera, use continual auto-focus with high-speed continuous shooting, hold the camera out past the crowd line and hit the button. Needless to say 80% of the shots were empty but as for the rest .. well see for yourselves ...
In a twitter discussion with Maz Hawes from Light And Day Photography I mentioned I was worried about the graininess I'd see when I processed the photos. The response from Maz was 'Embrace The Grain And Go Mono'. You'll see that with some of the shots I've done just that, I hope you enjoy the look, for me it's very different and refreshing.
The full gallery is at http://www.kevinleightonphotography.com/redbullhillchasers
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