It was a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon…and I was asleep. However, I agreed to meet a mate, Chris at Haldon Woods near Exeter for a little freeride, downhill and photography. I got there just before 1 in the afternoon and it was a glorious day. The ground was dry and the trees kept most of the heat off us. I hadn’t ridden all winter, but despite this I wanted to get out on my steed and get the adrenaline rush that I needed. I also wanted a few more biking shots to help pad out my photography portfolio.
These are 4 of the best shots from the day out of the 180 that were taken. This was the ideal time to try out my new Canon Speedlite 580 EX MkII. Unfortunately because it was so dark in the woods (especially for an f/4-5.6 lens!), the flash wanted to blow out everything to white so I had to change it to manual power, as stopping it down didn’t seem to work. It would have been useful to have a sto-fen, but I haven’t yet bothered to buy one. However, the difficult light and my changing of position allowed me to really experiment with the 580s settings, including high-speed sync, rear curtain and stroboptic. I also got a chance to process them with the (not-so) new Lightroom 2 and garnish them with my new(ly designed) initials!
I managed to borrow a wide-angle lens for the day, as I knew I’d need to catch as much as I could from as close as possible. The Sigma 10-20mm, although cheap compared to some lenses of the same focal length handled a treat and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cheap(ish) wide-angle.
All-in-all it was a fantastic day and we got to meet a wealth of like-minded people and have a good old thrash at some classic singletrack. I <3 Haldon!
Haldon Woods 1
Canon EOS 40D
Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC
10mm for 1/160 @ f/4, ISO 1250
Haldon Woods 2
Canon EOS 40D
Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC
10mm for 1/100 @ f/4, ISO 1000
Haldon Woods 3
Canon EOS 40D
Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC
10mm for 1/160 @ f/4, ISO 640
Haldon Woods 4
Canon EOS 40D
Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC
10mm for 1/250 @ f/4, ISO 800