Grizzly Hare Scramble

This past Saturday July 19th, I shot the kids Grizzly Hare Scramble XC motorbike race. What a blast! Girls and boys as young at 5 were racing their bikes through the Maclean Creek Recreational Area just southwest of Bragg Creek, Alberta. The kids were great and were very keen to hang out with me when they weren't racing. The weather was great too, so that made it all the more fun.

It wasn't the easiest event to photograph and I was a bit disappointed with my camera's (Canon 5D) servo focus. I have photographed many mountain bike races and other fast action sports using servo as well as manual focus, but the camera focus could not keep up with the action in this event. I'm pretty sure it's not the lens, as I've shot ski racing with my old EOS3 with no problems tracking focus. Maybe it's time to upgrade to a higher-end sports shooting camera.

Other technical details: I shot using fill flash for many of the images, with my Canon 580EX flash set at -1 using TTL and the High shutter speed setting. I shot using all sorts of shutter speeds as I was experimenting, but 1/800s and higher speeds seemed to freeze the action best. I used 400 and 800 ISO to try and keep decent depth of field, but that wasn't always easy, especially in the trees. Lots of mixed lighting in the trees made post processing a bit of a challenge too. One or two images would have been fine, but having to deal with hundreds was daunting. Shooting in RAW saved me.

Just like the triathlon, I focussed on the individual athletes as opposed to the event as a whole. My goal is to sell files and prints to the riders through my PhotoShelter Personal Archive. Check out the Grizzly Hare Scramble gallery. It was the first time I shot motor cross country and I learned a lot by doing it. Great workout too! My butt was sore from all the crouching and hiking along the course. A special thanks to Joal (#75) and Owen (#900) and their parents for inviting me to the races. And congrats to Joal for winning his race, and to Owen for placing 3rd in his!