I shot the 2009 Highland Fling for Cycle-Photos.com on the weeknd of the 7th – 8th of November. I really love these MTB evens; the people are nice and relaxed, you’re out in the bush, and you’ve got 2,000 acres of toilet with no queues.

I used the Elinchrom Ranger Quadrafor the first time on an MTB event and I’m really impressed with the results. They are not too heavy to carry around in the bush, but are really powerfull. I have invested in 2 x 18cm 50degree reflectors to make the most of the power. There’s no point spraying light everywhere, and there have a nice beam – At 6″ from the subject, there have a 6″ area…..easy to rememeber.

Here’s the video of the set-up and some other guff (Shot on 5D MKII)

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

Overall a really great weeknd with some good results.

From the 9th to the 13th of September I had the pleaseure of working with Duane Hart and the rest of the SportingImages team at the ITU Triathlon World Champs on the Gold Coast. It was a hot couple of days for a Sydney sider like me, but great fun.

My job was to run the remotes at the finish line. I had my main camera (1D MK3/70-200) which triggered 2 remote cameras. The idea is to have 3 of the same shot from different angles.

Everything ran pretty well. There were some hitches with camera location, batteries etc, but generally I was really happy with how it all worked.

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

I’m going up to Noosa this weekend to do much the same thing, but this time I have arranged mains power for the cameras. this time there’s not worry about batteries.

I spent the first weekend of September at Mount Stromlo, Canberra, covering the UCI World Mountain Bike Championships. I drove down with Murray on the Thursday afternoon to get the Accreditations, then we shot Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Last year at the World Cup we are both sick with various ailments, but this time we were good to go. Some great results. As usual, I overcomplicated things, while Murray kept it simple and clean.

I used flash for most of the weekend using the PocketWizard ETTL flash system. My aim was to shoot backlit and to fill the subjects with flash. It worked ok, but even using 2 x 580EX flashes I lacked some punch against the sun. I was pushing it a little however, trying to shoot 1/1600th in high speed sync at f5.6. Generally I just pumped the flashes to full power and went from there.

Here’s the video of the weekend….it’s a bit big, so please be patient while it loads….

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

I did try something interesting and that was to use a fish eye with the flash on the hot-shoe (at full power), but the flash head was zoomed to 50mm. This gave a tight center of light in the frame and as long as I kept the rider in that spot as they flew past, It looked great. With the fisheye you can use f5 and due to the lenses great hyperfocalqualities, everything was sharp.

Click HEREto see our results.

I shot the 2009 Go Natural Multisport yesterday, and for it’s versitility, I used my 28-300. On a day where I had to move quite a bit and carry a variety of set-ups, the 28-300 really excelled.

Image Courtesy of Canon.com.au

I needed to be able to shoot cyclist, Kayakers, and Runners with the smallest set up possible. This lens, and a fish eye, are all I used all day. Some people have been quite harsh on this lens for not being as sharp as others (70-200), but for it’s range and size it does a really great job, and I can’t fault the results. Would I use it for a studio magazine cover…..not likely, but I’m not shooting for that. I’m outdoors lugging my fat arse backpack up hills.

Even with a hot-shot or wireless flash the lens performed admirably. I’ll definitely use this lens again when shooting adventure races.

My archive server at http://archive.diversionimages.com.au has recently kicked up it’s heals and died. As a result, some images, videos and galleries will not work until I can get the replacement up and working.

If you need any archive images urgently, please use the contact page to send me an e-mail.

Cheers, Trent.