Run!

Here's a quick post, taken from a Schools Cross-Country event last weekend.

Most newspaper work, especially local newspaper work, involves filing "straight" pictures, faces visible, of people, both news and sport.

It can wear you down, after a while, especially if you like entering competitions as a condition of some is "pictures must be published"...

Here's one that I went looking for and liked what I got. It might as well get an airing here...

The details: Nikon D3s, 16-35mm f4 @ 35mm, 1/1000 @ f8, ISO 200.
The ground was so muddy that I was dangling the camera low one-handed, not looking
through the viewfinder, as I used the other for balance on the slippery surface!

Wirelessly, on a budget...

(Edited: correcting a silly error - the router/access point unit is, of course, a TP-Link unit (looking not unlike the Cam-Ranger device..?).

It's the norm with Smartphones and other such devices to expect to snap a picture, then tweet, Facebook, Flickr or otherwise publish it within moments to the world.

Ignoring how worthy many of these pictures might be (..!), it's also becoming the norm that "proper" news and sports pictures should be available within moments of them being taken. Sadly, though the Smart device makers have understood this, the camera manufacturers, almost without exception, haven't really "got" it. I think this is the main reason why sales of compact camera have utterly bombed over the last few years. Phones are doing what their users want.

Not a WT5. But a £40'ish workaround that DOES work in some situations... It's possible to buy flat ribbon-type LAN cables that help reduce bulk. As you can see here, you'll need to think about some way of stowing the router. I wonder about getting one of those cold-shoe things (cheap accessory) and gluing the unit to that with an epoxy resin, so that it sits in the hot shoe.

Wifi modules have now begun to creep into mainstream, dedicated cameras, though the execution of their workflow leaves a lot to be desired, still. (The recently-launched D750 has one built-in, but it's of the type that uses the rather limited tablet and phone App, not the WT5-type software.)

More after the break...

FINE-TUNING YOUR AF AIN'T LIKE DUSTIN' CROPS, BOY!

Time to reactivate the blog. It's something that scratches an itch but sometimes infrequently, so apologies for the terrible lack of posts in recent months. Having been added to several lists of Bloggers by Tweeters recently, I guess it's best if I do something to put that right...


A technical post, then, first off.

Something that I've recently worked on, with very positive results, is making sure that the Autofocus on my pair of D3s bodies and my D4 is working as well as it should.

The D4 AF Fine Tune, within the Set Up menu. I found with all my lenses that this body likes to back-focus (i.e. sharp focus is actually behind the subject) quite a bit, so all lenses have individual adjustment to make them
focus in front of where the AF system wants at its default, or they use the body default I set up of -4.

ALL mechanical devices are built to tolerances. That is, "10mm" may be between 9.99mm and 10.01mm (for example) and the machinery should still work. The more expensive a thing, normally the tighter the tolerances, because you are paying for tighter quality control as much as anything.

More after the break...

SIMPLE LIGHT

This doesn't happen very often, but just occasionally, I get a chance to add some light that's not done quick-and-dirty with an on-camera flash. It's time and far too little of it, usually, that's the decider.

But at this job (I'm reluctant to use a grandiose term like "assignment" for the things that appear on my lists...) I had a little extra time, the location and a subject that could do with a bit of extra treatment.

These three ladies were rehearsing for a forthcoming musical ("Norma Jean, The Musical" about Marilyn Monroe) and were to be featured in the county-wide entertainment and culture supplement. It was script-only, not costume rehearsal and they were outdoors. However, there was a wooded patch which both brought the sun under control and offered a little bit of interest with a tyre as a swing. There wasn't time or location to switch much around but I swapped the ladies positions a couple of times to ring the changes a little.

The extra light was a simple off-camera SB 900, on a light stand, into a white umbrella in reflected mode. It was set about 4ft to my right, slightly high and was triggered at 1/2 power by an on-camera SB700. There wasn't a grand plan to this position, it just added a nice amount of light at an angle to counterpoint the daylight that was washing under the trees.

L/R Jay Aston, formerly of Bucks Fizz, Lorraine Gray and Sarah Rose Denton are rehearsing for a new show, Norma Jean, The Musical.
 This is a "quickly-found" location where they were rehearsing, which got them out of the full sun.
Nikon D4, 24-70 f2.8 AFS, 1/250th @ f5.6, 160ISO plus off-camera SB900 into white reflective umbrella at 1/2 power.

And a couple of slightly-changed poses....

I moved and clustered them closer and in a different order
after this. I also pondered getting them to push Sarah on the swing,
but decided that it meant changing the light enough that I didn't
have that much time to hand. Regret not doing that a little
but you do what you have to do and move on...

A GOD OF DUMB SNAPPERS?

There must be, like a Terry Pratchett novel, a god who looks after luckless snappers.

Dartford FC's first game, and home game, of the new season, and I was trying to get stock as well as action from just one half of the game. This meant filling the frame and so, 35 minutes in and with no goals scored, I risked fitting the 2.0x converter to my 300, to give 600mm and some reach into the midfield from the away end of the pitch.

So guess when the Darts chose to score a goal? On 40 minutes, Adam Birchall made a solo run into the box from the right and scored.

Needless to say, I had too much glass on for that (!!), though the photographer next to me said that the goal moment wasn't much to look at, as he had his back to anybody on that side and there were loads of bodies in the way.

But having that 600mm reach did give me this, really full-frame...

Adam Birchall is mobbed by teammates after scoring Dartford's opening goal (and as it turned out, the winner) against
Alfreton Town in their opening game of the Skrill Premier 2013/14 season, at Princes Park, Dartford.
Nikon D4, 300mm f2.8VR plus TC20E3 converter (= 600mm), 1/1000 @ f8, 200ISO.
The aperture is stopped down because of the TC, but the effect of the converter is also giving much less
 depth of field than the equivalent "true" 600mm lens would at f8, and a nicely defocused background.

I shall burn an out-of-date roll of Fujicolor Press 800, as an offering...

CRACKING VISIT, GROMIT!!

Labour Party leader Ed Miliband visited Kent in April and I was tasked to get pics from three locations, Dartford, Gravesend and Maidstone.

Here's a couple which are rather unkind but rather confirm the Times' cartoonist's caricature of him as one half of the animated pair "Wallace and Gromit". Even the background adds to this...

At Gravesend, indoors in the Borough Market. Oh dear.  I've had to get low because it was, as usual, like trying to get pictures inside a telephone box and it's just added to the look... 

And another gesture. Oh dear. 

By the time he got to Maidstone he was running late, and the local edition were expecting images for their deadline at 2:30. However, there are 'phone calls one shouldn't have to take, and being asked by a reporter "Are the pictures in, yet??" when he would barely have arrived - even if he wasn't running late - makes one wonder if certain people have any clue how this lark works, at all...

Especially as I went to send what I did get and the mobile network was overloaded. A good signal, but nothing going out, which meant another five minutes drive to a different location in the hope that would do the trick. Fortunately, transmission was successful from here.

WALLET-BUSTINGLY GOOD?

(Canon and other brand users: Move along, nothing to see here...) 😃

After the trip to Canterbury for the new Archbishop, I made another little trip to London and Grays of Westminster...

Yes, I have finally succumbed and stumped up for a D4. Well, if I can't have one for making a half-century, when can I have one??!

Is it worth the money? Well, this is an accusation you can throw at any pro-spec camera. Most all of today's "consumer" DSLRs take excellent quality pictures, so unless you buy into something like the mega-resolution of the D800, or the High ISO and frame rates of the D4, what's the point of spending more?

It's "robustness" and "build quality", two very ephemeral qualities, I think. My D4 hasn't been used solely - I have two D3Ss still - but already has 17k frames on it. It has been rained on, several times, too. Pro bodies DO cost a lot, undoubtedly. But that does bring some peace of mind as well as their capabilities.

D4. Just add ££££s

OK. So is it better than the D3S and therefore worth the extra premium?

More after the break...

BISHOP TAKES THRONE

March 21st saw the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, enthroned at Canterbury Cathedral. It's not every day you get a new Archbishop, so it was "properly covered" with three photographers shooting and the chief 'tog acting as picture editor.

I ended up being the one perched up on an eyrie deep in the cathedral to see the actual enthronement, alongside Reuters, Getty and PA, a rare privilege for a local paper, but then again, it's all archive material and why shouldn't the main local newspaper have at least one photographer in that line-up?  Mind you, no pressure, eh...?

One of the reasons I ended up inside was because I have the kit to deal with the dark. My pair of D3S bodies were joined by a loaner D4, and all of them were at 6400ISO to give typical 1/500th - 1/640th at f2.8. Lenses were 24-70 AFS, 70-200 AFS, 300vr and then 300 + 1.4x converter. The latter meant upping the ISO to 8000, to give 1/320th-1/400th at f4. I had a monopod for the 300, but gave up using it as it was very tight with three other photographers, so the ability to keep a high shutter speed to handhold - VR on - was great.

It must have looked like contemporary dance on our platform as we all moved around, looking for angles, swapping bodies and trying to avoid getting in each others way...

Chief 'tog Barry Goodwin had been at the rehearsal the day before, so we had an idea what to expect and what the light was like, so it was just a question of settling down to record a bit of history.

New Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, from the photographers' eyrie -
I think this is D3s plus 70-200mm. If anything, it demonstrates just how good the
4 year-old D3s still is at stratospheric ISOs.

More after the break.

Some Blog Love...

Well, it's been a long time since I last posted here.  Apologies to all my followers (yes, both of you :-)  !!) and I wont bore you with the reasons for being away.

Suffice to say the motivation and interest in actually putting something up here on a regular basis is returning, slowly. So there'll be a little catching up done over the next few days, then I'll attempt to post at least a picture story, at least once a week. Okay? Thanks.

BANG!!!

A quick post, to keep things ticking over.

A charity kick-boxing event at Gravesend recently, with martial artists trying to make a record number of kicks to raise money.

There was almost too MUCH to shoot here. But here's a couple that I was reasonably happy with.

As usual, these all had to be flash-lit and basically that means one pop per shot. I was pleased to see that, once I'd seen the moves being made a couple of times, I was able to hit the shutter release consistently to capture the peak moment in-camera. Phew....

The background was rubbish, but then, it was from any angle, so nowt I could do but ignore it!

Gops Biring (correct), working with the pad held by Austin Laver. Charity Kick-a-thon, at The Fitness Centre, Gravesend, where members are making kickboxing moves to raise money.
Nikon D3S, 24-70 f2.8 at 24mm, 1/250th @ f5.6, ISO3200.

Danny Dhell, left, and high-kicking Ricky Dhell. Nikon D3S, 24-70 f2.8 at 24mm, 1/250th at f5.6, ISO2200

And a celebrity appearance, with Sussex and England cricketer Monty Panesar visiting!
(As usual, his time was monopolised by the Daily Fail and ITV sport so much that I had about 45 seconds to grab something, and I'd already stayed 10 minutes beyond when I really had to leave...)
From left, Ricky Dhell, cricketer Monty Panesar and Danny Dhell.

MORE MINIMALISM...

Yet more downsizing...

Another quickie post, on a theme I've followed before.

Below are two D3S bodies, with Nikon Speedlights (OK, flashguns!) attached. One has my SB900 attached, the other the SB700.

D3S plus SB900, left, and D3S plus SB 700.

Notice a difference?

The SB900 is a huge piece of equipment. I'm not the first to suggest that it unbalances even the big, weighty D3 and D4 pro bodies.

Nikon's SB700, as you can see, is significantly smaller. It's not actually that much lighter, but it has such a more compact, lower profile that it feels tiny in comparison. Even the big camera bodies feel much more wieldy with it attached compared to its bigger brother.

There are a few differences;
the SB700 can't take an external power pack (I've stopped using these anyway because of the already fast recycle time of the newer flashes)
SB700 can't run mixed manual/TTL remote flashes, though it can at least act as a master/commander.

And it's about 1/2 stop less powerful.  Yep, ONLY about 1/2 stop.

As an on-camera unit, this one makes far more sense, most of the time, than the SB900.

And it's usefully cheaper, too.

Minimalist Marvel...

Downsizing isn't always bad...

My 3+ year-old MacBook has finally been replaced.

It's been my work machine for that time. Although I have a "works PC", it is a PC, is slow, minimally specc'ed and pretty much unused and unloved. I must be mad using my own kit but at least I do have stuff that does the required business. Happy photographer = creative photographer, I've found...

The old machine wasn't cutting edge when I bought it in April 2009. A 2Ghz dual-core processor, 160gb hard drive and 2gb of RAM, in the then-new aluminium unibody. I upgraded the RAM to the max 4gb via crucial.co.uk and it was used for editing, captioning, transmitting and pretty much everything else after that. Using Photo Mechanic and Lightroom 2, then latterly Aperture 3, it did everything I needed as a press photographer. Reliably, too, day after day.

If I shot JPEG.

As I began to swap to raw shooting around 18 months ago, it became clear that it was, if not struggling, then at least working very hard on these big files. I evolved a way of working that eased the pressure a bit (import JPEGs, select from these, use that selection to import just those raws) but knew that when the AppleCare expired I'd have to think about a replacement.

I had to wait a bit, as the rumour'ed new MacBook Pro and Air models took a while longer to arrive than I'd hoped, but they turned up in mid-June. Decisions, decisions...

It took me several weeks of checking, thinking and visits to Apple Stores. I'd read other photographers' very positive reviews and opinions of older versions of the Air and the new versions were more powerful. Was the screen big enough? Did I need to have a bigger hard drive? Apple had also launched the first MacBook  Pro with Retina display, and that was tempting for a while.  But I finally chose the smallest. 

Here's my new 11.6" MacBook Air.

MacBook Air 11.6". Dwarfed by the 27" iMac sitting some way behind it.

More after the break...

Apple: some love...

(Not strictly photography related, this...)

Let's get one thing straight from the outset; Apple (the makers of computer and IT hardware and software) are not perfect.

No human endeavour is. And the computing industry is no exception. In fact, you could argue that it can never be, as too many disparate parts - particularly on the software side - are jammed together and expected to work.

For example, I got caught out briefly when the Aperture 3.4 update was released. As many found, once  the update was applied, Aperture simply crashed on launch. As this was the copy on my MacBook Air,  the daily machine, I spent an hour's cursing at 6.00 in the morning trashing and reinstalling the programme, then reapplying the update. It did work after that and I additionally discovered how to use the Remote Disc facility on the iMac! Apple did correct that error within the day. There have been other niggles, too.

So not perfect.

But they do make a far better fist of things than many. Because they are a HARDWARE company as well as a software one, sometimes their innovations, or new adaptions of existing technology, have caught the public's imagination in a way that those others can only dream about. And sometimes it's just looking at what's available and trying a redesign.

Here's what I'm working up to:

The Apple Earphones...

Headphone Heaven. Four different sets of earphones that I've tried recently.

Now, I'm no audiophile. I like my music, such as it is, though, and I do like to be able to listen in privacy and comfort.

In the image above are, bottom left, the Apple Ear Buds. These have come with just about every iPod and iPhone since they first appeared.

My problem is, although they sound OK, they don't stay in my ears! This shape is typical of most earpieces, so they all do it.

Just above them are the Apple In-Ear headphones. At £60, these aren't cheap. They do sound good, and block out more outside noise.

...But like most of this breed, I find them uncomfortable for any length of time. And they still don't stay in my ears well!

Above those are a recent purchase, the Sennheiser on-ear headphones. These sound good, can be worn comfortably by me for ages and stay put. But they aren't very convenient to carry because of their bulk and, let's face it, they're not very discreet, either.

Then the iPhone 5 was launched. And it seems I'm not the only one who has the same issue with ear-bud and in-ear headphones. Apple looked at the design and came up with the new Ear Pod. That's them, on the right.

These sound good (really pretty good, actually!). They stay in place. I can wear them for extended periods of time. They are more discreet.

And best of all, they're £25.

A redesign of an common idea. A unique shape
and one that I can actually, finally, wear for long
periods of time. Oh, and £25.

Two Towers...

A quickie post. This to illustrate why press photographers often say we aren't specialists; we have to be able to get something from anything. It might not be great, but it will pretty much always be useable...

The brief here was to photograph two blocks of luxury flats, built on St Mary's Island, Chatham. One is still empty, despite being completed for some years now...

From the list, the newsdesk had already decided the shot needed to be after dark to show the lights on in one, the other dark.

1) Look at time it will be done (earlier jobs on list) - will miss twilight and sky colour, which means it could be a dark building against a dark sky. Grrrr...
2) Check forecast. Aha, yes!! Cloudy evening forecast! It's not quite the same, but I'll be grateful for light pollution today, as there's a good chance the clouds will be lit up by the town lights below.
3) Find a location. Not too difficult, the buildings can be seen in their entirety from St Mary's Island proper, looking back into the mainland.
4) Arrive at gone 7.30pm. It's cold. Grab coat, torch, tripod and kit.
5) Set up, right by the water's edge, Camera D3S, lens 24-70 f2.8. ISO set to 400, aperture to f5.6. Focus camera, turn focusing off.
6) Stand and look at scene and camera settings, say "Meh! Start at 10 seconds..."
7) Set self-timer on camera (to minimise vibration) and press the button.
8) Watch image pop up on LCD screen. Smile to self. Pretty close from the outset...

Anything else was just adjusting the shutter speed/aperture combination to give slightly darker or lighter images choices, plus upright and view versions.

St Mary's Island Apartments.
Enough light reflecting back from the clouds to see the buildings on their own, yet also see that one is lit, the other
not. And all surrounded by the lights of Chatham Maritime.
Nikon D3S, 24-70 f2.8 AFS, 15 seconds, f7.1, ISO 400. Tripod. With a mix of lights,
I let the Auto White Balance do its thing and decided I rather liked what it had made of the scene...

More GLOWing boxing...

Here's a further small selection of images from the boxing tournament at the Glow Arena at the Bluewater shopping complex, held on 13th October.

Technically, as I've noted already, the TV lights made things a bit easier than the amateur tournaments I've done up til now. These are often in very gloomy school sports halls with the ISO jammed against the upper reaches of even a D3. Here at Glow, with the TV lights, ISOs were a slightly more sensible 2500/3200, which is well within the capability of the D3S bodies I have now. Exposure was 1/640th at f4 on the 24-70, for just a little helpful depth of field. I also used my 70-200, but this lens, truth be told, is a little darker than the nominal f2.8, so I used f3.5 and the higher of the ISO settings.

White balance was also fairly simple, though I still tweaked the raw files for skin tone. A couple of quick snaps of my hand suggested the Tungsten preset, with a little extra warming (A2?) dialled in. This gave me reasonable Jpegs out of camera, though a fully-custom white balance is the way to go if shooting 'peg exclusively.

The AF setting was Continuous, with a point set which is off-centre, and used this way from previous experience. I'm not sure if this is the way the boxing "regulars' work, but it's what seems to do for me. What you do is keep the off-centre point over the boxer on that side, assuming they are broadly parallel to you, and let the camera do it's thing.  9 or 21 Point selection was active here. I might try the 3D option at the next amateur bout and see how that will work. But for now I stuck with what I was familiar with and knew did work OK.

I'm still not sure I rate Pro boxing very much. It's not a sport I seek out on TV, for example. The much longer bouts of the main events, 12 rounds, seemed to drag and just give shot after shot that looked, well, the same. Although I had over 2300 images by the end of the evening, I found I was shooting much more sparingly by the final headline fight. Amateur boxing, with its head-guards, short bouts and less "cuddling" between boxers (less blood, too...) seems much more interesting to me. It doesn't attract the big bucks, of course...

Right. Enough techie stuff. The pictures...

Lenny Daws, left, fights Ville Piispanen for the vacant EU Super Lightweight Championship.
D3S, 24-70 at 32mm. The wider shots looked nice, with the lights putting the ring brighter than the
rest of the hall. School sports hall lighting just can't do this, so I don't shoot the very wide images there.

More after the break...

The GLOW of boxing...

A quickie post...

The Bluewater shopping centre in Kent hosted a series of boxing matches on Saturday 13th October, in the complex's new Glow Arena. The event was headlined and topped off by James DeGale's defence of his EBU Super Middleweight title and so I took up my ringside position for the evening, and tried to remember how to shoot the sport.

I've only shot amateur boxing until now, in gloomy school sports halls, so this televised event meant that there was actually some decent lighting...

Here's a picture from a fight earlier in the evening, with local boxer Adam Dinsdale, from Hoo, up against Ibrar Riyaz.

Adam Dinsdale, right, from Hoo, Kent, on his way to beating Ibrar Riyaz in this lightweight bout.
Nikon D3S, 1/640th @ f4,  24-70 f2.8AFS at 70mm, 2500ISO.

More pics to follow in a few days.

Summer of Sport, Pt 2...

Or, " You shall go to the Olympics..!"

OK, I confess to being something of an Olympo-sceptic on the build-up to London 2012.

Various ministers trying to claim the event was under-budget, the seemingly totalitarian powers granted to LOCOG, the enforcement of Olympic branding restrictions to a stupid degree (Little Chef's Olympic Breakfast, available for many years, for heaven's sake!), latterly even the abject failure of private company G4S to understand what it needed to do to fulfil it's contracted security commitments...

I thought the Torch Relay around the UK was over-egged, but sitting on the back of the media bus showed me that plenty of people were really looking forward to the event, and my mood began to shift.

Then there was Danny Boyle's truly wonderful opening ceremony, Jacques Rogge's very generous opening speech, the Queen and 007 "parachuting" into the show and suddenly it was clear the bulls**t had stopped and London 2012 was going to be fantastic. Even the weather, pretty dire through spring and summer, largely cooperated!

And the medals started to come. Women's events are the biggest growth area of sport and  fittingly it was the Team GB women who put the first ones on the board, with Lizzie Armitstead's cycling silver and Becky Adlington's swimming bronze. Then rowers Heather Stanning and Helen Glover won the coxless pairs for the first GB gold. The men stepped up, and Team GB ended in third place in the medal table, remarkable for a tiny island with a (still) relatively small population.

Then it was the turn of the Paralympians to take the stage.

And here, I actually got to see some London 2012 action, when I hadn't been expecting to do so...

More after the break.

Tuesday free practice, D3S plus 300 f2,8 and TC14EII (=420mm), pretty much the combination used for most of
my time, unless it was a close-in shot or obviously a wide angle view.

Summer of Sport, Pt. 1

Every year, there is an event called the British Transplant Games, where those who have undergone transplant surgery take part in sporting events as a celebration of the life that's been given to them by medicine.

This year, with London 2012 hitting the headlines and keying the nation up for sport, Medway hosted the transplant games based around Medway Park in Gillingham, slotted in between the Olympics and the Paralympics at the end of August.

It would be wrong to say that this was high calibre competition, even if many were willing to approach the games seriously. Indeed, many were still clearly unwell from their traumas. It was probably best described as a Hospitals' Sports Day.

But as I said, when you think that many of those taking part owed their lives to the transplant they had undergone, then it was a great celebration of new life.

Sadly, the biggest disappointment was a near-complete lack of interest on behalf of the national media. On the two days I was there, there was no sign of any other photographer except me, and the games' own...

Maisie Danher, 7, in the Children's Obstacle Race.
Nikon D3S, 300mm f2.8 + TC14EII (= 420mm), 1/500th f4.0, 8000 ISO.
Thank heavens for D3S. Medway Park is not *cough* the brightest of venues, though at least the lights are
"simple" for colour temperature. Who thought painting the walls lurid "hospital green"
(thanks, T, for that description!) was a good idea, though...?

MAGICAL MYSTERY TORCH...

July 20th, 2012, and the Olympic Torch relay leaves Maidstone for the Medway Towns, bright and early for 07.50hrs in Gillingham.

Logistically, I understand this all was a nightmare to sort out, with much of the final detail being confirmed only as the day was going on. The paper had committed itself to a magazine-style special, to be on sale on Saturday morning, which meant a 2.00pm deadline that afternoon for the last day in Kent. Which sounds OK until you understand that the photographers were often also having to taxi colleagues as they leapfrogged from area to area, before then getting down to taking more pictures.

My own brief, evolving throughout the week, was as follows: at 07.50hrs, the torch would begin it's formal relay from Canterbury Street, Gillingham and I would be strapped to the media bus, running ahead of the bearers, from here until the relay left the towns on Gravesend Road, Strood at 09.34hrs. Then I would be picked up (by varying people until that morning!), ferried into Gravesend where I would be in the crowd as it passed, then meet a reporter to head to Brands Hatch together. At Brands Hatch there would be a photocall involving a Paralympic cyclist and a representative from the British Superbike Championship, racing there over the weekend. This was timed for 11.16hrs.

Now, as you can see, I was a long way away from my car, which worried me on two counts; one, that I was in the hands of others for transport from Strood to Gravesend to Brands and then finally back to my car at Gillingham, and two, I would have to decide, well beforehand, what I was carrying with me, as I would have to carry it with me...

On Boley Hill, Rochester, and probably one of my favourite images from the day.
Check out her expression...  D3S, 24-70 f2.8 at 60mm'ish, 1/800th f5.6, ISO 320.

More after the break...

Faces...

Don't forget the people.

It's men and women who race cars and bikes; they are the ones who give the machine heart and speed. Anything else is simply design and manufacture, no matter how fine.

Luciano Bacheta (GBR), FIA Formula 2 Championship 2012. The points leader
signing autographs at Brands Hatch, Kent, on Sunday 15th July. He seemed a
little awkward, looking around him as though he was uncomfortable to
be there.  And he is only 22, after all. I wasn't in his face here, either, when he
made eye contact - it was worth standing 15 feet away waiting for gaps in the crowd
surrounding the drivers just for the defocussed background.
 Nikon D3S, 300mm f2.8VR plus 1.4x converter (= 420mm),
1/200th @ f4.5, ISO160.