Here are my picks from the downhill nationals which were held here on
Saturday.
http://www.bluemoon.net.nz/photo/printsdb/galleries/view.php?g=29
The photos really don't capture the sheer difficulty of this part of
the track: I have enormous respect for anyone with the balls to take
this on.
As you can see, people could either ride the vertical drop or take
the jump at high speed. Most of the junior guys took a slightly
easier route which isn't pictured. The drop is about 4 metres by my
guess. You can tell the junior guys as they don't have the same
level of body armour. The trees are wrapped to protect the trees,
not the riders. And Frank thought the streets were dangerous ;)
These came from neg film so the colours are all wrong. The dirt is
actually quite yellow but I really couldn't be bothered screwing
around trying to make it look right.
Gear was a Z-1p with FA100mm f/2.8 Macro, 43mm limited and FA*200mm f/
2.8. Most of the time I alternated between the macro and the 43mm as
the 200 was a bit long. In retrospect I should have bought a DSLR
and the FA* 28-70 f/2.8 zoom. Pity I have to eat instead.
The crash pic was the last frame on the roll so when I tried to get a
photo of him sliding along the ground in a huge cloud of dust,
nothing happened :( Just one of many incredible opportunities that I
missed for various reasons...
IIRC it was the guy in #259 who slid into the spectators about one
second after I took his photo :)
My favourite from the day is the first one, although I'd like to crop
the bit of tree off the left.
Cheers,
- Dave
