Last weekend I went down and covered the Outer Banks Triathlon. This was a two day event with two different length triathlons on Saturday and a sprint triathlon on Sunday. Since I was one of several photographers contracted to cover the race we all had different positions to set up and photograph at.
Mine position was covering the cycling portion of the race both days. I set up at the foot of a bridge so I could get the cyclists coming down the final hill. I shot these with my D500 and 200-400 f4. This gave me the length to start photographing them towards the top of the hill so if there was a group I could easily zoom out and have time to capture the whole group.
Another thing I also did was I put the camera on my tripod with Manfrotto 502HD video head. I did this for a few reasons. The first reason was I knew the race was going to be long and I didn't want to wear out my arms over several hours handholding or using a monopod. The second reason was using the video head I could get very smooth pans and tilts to track the cyclists. Since the 502HD also has a counterbalance system I didn't have to lock the tripod head when I let go which gave me the ability to wait for cyclists to come down the hill then grab the camera and start shooting without having to unlock the head. Check out the video to the right to see the movement and counter balance.
Overall it was a good weekend and got a ton of great shots. Here's a couple i got from the triathlon that I liked. Enjoy.
