IMSA
IRONMAN SOUTH AFRICA
PHOTOGRAPHED BY CHRIS HITCHCOCK
APRIL 2014
THIS YEAR THE ONLY IRONMAN ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT CELEBRATED ITS 10TH ANNIVERSARY
SUNDAY 6 APRIL 2014 SAW 2400 ATHLETES AND OVER 80 000 SPECTATORS BLOW OUT THE CANDLES AND CELEBRATE THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF IRONMAN SOUTH AFRICA IN NELSON MANDELA BAY xtremedia.co.za
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INTO THE FRAY Athletes start the 3.8km swim
THE SHOT Everyone thinks I am so lucky to be able to
shoot from helicopters. OK, the ride is fun (great fun actually), but the shooting is actually not that easy. For starters, the doors have been removed, which means that all of the air that the chopper is beating into submission is hammering down on me and my camera. No matter how short the lens I am using, it is still getting pushed around with the same force that is keeping the chopper in the air. All the while I am trying to keep the camera steady for the shot. The chopper is also trying to vibrate all of your fillings out, so it requires high shutter speeds, which means shooting at f4 or f2.8, so immediately the other problem with choppers comes into play. They don’t fly level no matter what you may think, and depth of field is a lottery. The answer. Up the ISO to up the aperture to f7.1 and machine gun the camera, which I normally never do. Doing this, 1 of the 30 shots you just took must be a good one. (I am lucky to fly in choppers though) Canon EOS 5D3 24-105 f4 L lens / ISO320 f7.1 1/1600s
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CHARGE
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Onto the bike THE SHOT
There is a saying in photography, that if the shot looks bad, get closer. A fisheye lens lets you do just that, but it does add some distortion. This was taken at about 500mm from the athlete, Pedro Gomes of Portugal. Any closer than this and I would be bordering on being an intrusion on the rider. Canon 5D3, 15mm Sigma Fisheye, Canon 600RT flash ISO200 f3.2 1/800s
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“ It’s easier being close up and being able to use a flash as the flash helps freeze the rider”
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BLUR
Out of transition THE SHOT For me, panning is the most difficult shot, with the
highest failure rate, and so I practise it over and over again. It’s easier being close up and being able to use a flash as the flash helps freeze the rider. The trick is that you have to make some major changes to your camera settings to get this right and you have to make them quickly. There is absolutely no time to be thinking of what to do. Muscle and brain memory have to kick in. Shooting this at f13 and ISO100 allowed me to get the shutter speed really low, and using second curtain flash helped define the rider. The flash was working overtime with the aperture at f13, but ETTL kept things reasonably in line. Canon 5D3, Canon 17-40mm F4 L lens @ 17mm, Canon 600RT flash ISO100 1/40s f13.
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LOCAL
INTEREST Get on yer bike
THE SHOT When I took this I was on the back of a
motorbike, rushing to catch the leaders who were at least 20 minutes up the road. As we were riding I was changing camera settings to what I knew would work to blur the road, yet keep the rider sharp. It’s all about making the shot dynamic and depicting movement. Having the mosque in the background was a bit of old fashioned luck, and I only knew it was there when I processed the image later in the day. Rider Vicenco Castellÿ of Spain was the subject. Canon 5D3, Canon 17-40mm F4 L lens @ 32mm, Canon 600RT flash ISO50 1/100s f9
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“ This planning meant that I knew exactly what to expect, what lens to have on the camera, and where to stand. I shot this at f7.1 to get the background view in focus�
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NEW ROUTE The gorgeous scenery of Port Elizabeth THE SHOT Off the bike and back on my feet, I wanted to high-
light the beauty of the new bike route. I’d done 2 recces before the race. Once on Google Earth, going backwards on the route so I would know what the view would look like with the riders coming towards me, and then a physical look the day before the race. This planning meant that I knew exactly what to expect, what lens to have on the camera, and where to stand. I shot this at f7.1 to get the background view in focus. Canon 5D3, Canon 17-40mm F4 L lens @ 17mm, Canon 600RT flash ISO250 1/800s f7.1
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SUN FLARE The joys of fisheye lenses THE SHOT If there is one thing you can guarantee to get in your shot on
a sunny day when using a fisheye lens, it is either the blazing sun, or your own shadow. Because of the 180 degree scope of the lens one or the other is inevitable. I’ll go for the sun every time if possible, but it does mean some compromises with camera settings and makes the use of flash in daytime non-negotiable if you want to have any detail other than the silhouette of the rider. Canon 5D3, 15mm Sigma Fisheye, Canon 600RT flash ISO160 f4.5 1/2500s Exposure compensation of -1.3 stops
“ If there is one thing you can guarantee to get in your shot on a sunny day when using a fisheye lens, it is either the blazing sun, or your own shadow. ”
Despite the Bay’s weather conditions, Nils Frommhold managed to lead the majority of the race and win the IRONMAN South Africa 2014 title. “It looked easy, but it wasn’t,” said Frommhold. He went on to say that the atmosphere generated by the crowds along Marine Drive was amazing. Frommhold began to tire along the final stretch of the run and thought of walking for some time but when he saw South African Kyle Buckingham coming along behind him, he chose to push on.
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ROLLING
HILLS
“ This shot was taken using the new Tamron 150 – 600mm lens.”
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Leg breakers THE SHOT Danish Pro Karina Ottosen was remarkably fresh, and seemed quite happy to be riding
the local hills. This shot was taken using the new Tamron 150 – 600mm lens. For some reason this lens focuses much better on my older Canon 5D rather than the newer and more expensive 5D3 which just hunts around and gets all blurry on me. It’s issues like this that make it essential to know the idiosyncrasies of your equipment. For 3 weeks before IRONMAN I was out shooting various sport events like motor racing just to get a feel for what the lens can do and how it behaves when I am under stress. I don’t need surprises on race day when the client expects top images. Canon 5D Tamron 150-600mm lens @ 600mm ISO 400 f6.3 1/1250s
In the female category, Simone Brandli, swept up the title of IRONMAN South Africa 2014, sang a different tune as she believed that the race was difficult but she felt that the effort put into her training had paid off. Her plan was to run her own race and treat the race as another day of training. “It was like racing at home,” Brandli said. This win validates Brandli as a formidable contender and a force to be reckoned with.
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S CHOPPER “ Everyone thinks I am so lucky to be able to shoot from helicopters. OK, the ride is fun (great fun actually), but the shooting is actually not that easy”
Lucky me
THE SHOT Everyone thinks I am so lucky to be able to shoot from helicopters. OK,
the ride is fun (great fun actually), but the shooting is actually not that easy. For starters, the doors have been removed, which means that all of the air that the chopper is beating into submission is hammering down on me and my camera. No matter how short the lens I am using, it is still getting pushed around with the same force that is keeping the chopper in the air. All the while I am trying to keep the camera steady for the shot. The chopper is also trying to vibrate all of your fillings out, so it requires high shutter speeds, which means shooting at f4 or f2.8, so immediately the other problem with choppers comes into play. They don’t fly level no matter what you may think, and depth of field is a lottery. The answer. Up the ISO to up the aperture to f7.1 and machine gun the camera, which I normally never do. Doing this, 1 of the 30 shots you just took must be a good one. (I am lucky to fly in choppers though) Canon EOS 5D3 24-105 f4 L lens. ISO320 f7.1 1/1600s
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“ I shot this with my very long Tamron 150 – 600mm lens to try and get the compressed depth of field”
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SIDEWAYS Curving roads
THE SHOT I need the chopper to fly sideways and low for this shot.
It’s a compromise between what you can convince the pilot is a good thing to do, and him telling you no. We are lucky in Port Elizabeth that the pilots are really good, but err on the side of caution and are not afraid to offer safer alternatives to our insane requests. (They won’t hang a skid in the surf for some strange reason, no matter how good the shot would be) Despite knowing it would be a major undertaking to stop the rotor wash buffeting the camera everywhere, I shot this with my very long Tamron 150 – 600mm lens to try and get the compressed depth of field. Did I mention that if you want to change lenses in a chopper you can’t. You need to take all of the lenses you want to use, ready attached to a camera body that is strapped to you. Nothing can be loose. Imagine a rogue lens getting under the pilots controls. Canon EOS 5D3 Tamron 150-600mm lens @ 300mm ISO400 f5.6 1/2500s
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“ If there is one thing you can be sure of about the crowds at IRONMAN South Africa, it is that they are patriotic”
PATRIOTIC Proudly SA THE SHOT If there is one thing you can be sure of about the
crowds at IRONMAN South Africa, it is that they are patriotic. In fact they will adopt foreign athletes, and make them temporary South Africans just so that they can cheer them. This shot was taken while waiting for the finishers to arrive. I always look in the crowds for the unexpected and the ‘context’ shots. This is one that I saw straight away. Canon 5D Tamron 150-600mm lens @ 225mm ISO160 f5.6 1/1000s
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“ This was a really difficult shot because Kyle was in the deep shadow of the bridge just above him�
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KYLE Local is lekker
THE SHOTA highly emotional local hero, Kyle Buckingham, comes down the finishing
chute to take second overall. This was a really difficult shot because Kyle was in the deep shadow of the bridge just above him, and exposing for him would have blown everything out and overexposed the shot. The solution was to go down the middle road with exposure, and because I shoot in RAW, pull out the shadow detail in post process. Canon 5D Tamron 150-600mm lens @ 225mm ISO160 f5.6 1/1000s
Top 5 Men: 1. Nils Frommhold (GER) 2. Kyle Buckingham (SA) 3. Faris Al-Sultan (GER) 4. Bas Diederen (NED) 5. Matt Trautman (SA)
Top 5 Women: 1. Simone Brandli (SUI) 2. Lucy Gossage (UK) 3. Jodie Swallow (UK) 4. Jessie Donavan (USA) 5. Astrid Ganzow (GER)
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ECSTACY
Local Hero
THE SHOT I’m lucky that as I shoot for IRONMAN, I am able to
sit down the finishing chute and take photos from the ‘wrong side’. That’s how I managed to get this shot of Kyle Buckingham soaking up the adoration of the crowds. The emotion while this was happening was raw, and the noise of the crowds deafening. I love my job. Canon 5D Tamron 150-600mm lens @ 200mm ISO160 f5.6 1/1600s
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DURACELL
BUNNY High 5
THE SHOT Second placed Lucy Gossage of the UK (known as the Duracell Bunny
because of her high energy levels), came toward the finish line high fiving the crowd. Ducking own below their hand level meant that I was able to capture the moment and the action. This wasn’t a lucky move though. I’d seen with the men who had finished earlier how they were doing the same thing and so I positioned myself ‘just so’ to get the shot. I will concede that the chopper up there is lucky coincidence. Because the spectators hands were so close to me I wasn’t able to use flash as it would overexpose them, so I pulled out the detail on Lucy’s face in post process from the RAW file. Canon 5D3, 15mm Sigma Fisheye. ISO125 f8 1/500s Exposure compensation of -1.3 stops
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