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Showing posts with the label velodrome

Derek and Alan do the velodrome

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Yesterday I went to the Olympic Velodrome with Alan and Derek who were booked in for a session on the track. They were lent the bikes by the velodrome and spent around a half hour being taught what to do. The remaining half hour they were let rip. Most of the time they don't look very happy and seem to be breathing through every orifice. I am no sports photographer and had forgotten my camera settings from the last time I came here. I started by using a fairly high speed (1/350) on my Nikon D500 with the  70-300mm DX lens. I then reduced to 1/180 for some panning shots. I was not confidant enough in my abilities to go any lower than that, although the panning shots are much better than the static high speed ones, even if sometimes a little blurry (IMHO). I find auto ISO really useful as it allowed me to set up the camera in manual mode, fix the speed and the aperture and just allow the ISO to vary. It was not that bright in there and most of the pictures were horribly noisy, whi

Track cycling, the National Youth Omnium in Welwyn Garden City

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Jamie, the son of Alan's cousin is a very keen cyclist and was picked to ride in the National Youth Omnium Track Championship for his club, the Discovery Junior Cycling Club from Dundee. They stayed over with us on the Saturday night and on Sunday we all set out for the event at the velodrome in Welwyn Garden City. I am not sure how old this facility is but it could certainly have done with a bit of TLC. A good clean of the toilets and the installation of a lightbulb or two in that facility wouldn't have gone amiss. Jamie did very well. He was cycling in the under 14's but he is only just 13 today and still fairly small compared to some of the boys he was pitched against. Things are just going to get better and better for him. You must forgive me for the number of pictures I am posting. I start with some general views of the stadium and track and then pictures specifically for Jamie. Finally I had great fun experimenting with panning shots and I shall put these at the end