It's the idea...

Double manuals along the ridge
Originally uploaded by Big.Col

Some people have been asking me about this photo since it appeared over on IBC. How much has the image been post-processed? What camera, lens and settings?

It's good to get some interest in my photo, so part 1 is the technically exact answer and part 2 is the real answer:-)

Part 1
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Well, there's no shopping on this image at all and it was taken using a Nikon D300 and Tokina 11-16mm lens.

Details: 11mm, F/5.6, 1/800sec, ISO 200. Continuous focus mode/ dynamic-area/ 51-points /3D-tracking/ Ch-6fps.

Setup: Manual mode. Initially thought 1/1000th but wanted to make sure the riders were exposed enough so dropped to 1/800th instead to let in more ambient. Blew the sky out a bit but my priority was the foreground action.

Part 2
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Although the above details are perhaps technically interesting, they aren't what really made the photo. For me there were three points that all came together, and from reading other photography threads/ websites/ books then I think they're rarely given the importance they deserve:

1) You have to have TALENTED riders to make good pictures. Helps a lot if they're well known, if not famous. No brainer. With talent comes the spectacular action, which, pretty much most of the time they can do on request. "Can you just jump off this?" "Can you just tilt left more when you're in the air" "Can you just rob the fecking bank?" Get the idea?

2) When you know that said talented riders are going to be on the same mountain then the next thing you got to have is IDEAS. I knew that Harald & Max would be there direct from talents-ville-arizona. I knew they loved pulling summit ridge manuals. So the idea for twin manuals was hatched on the way down in the car speaking to Max. Harald liked the idea too, which kind of helped.

3) Lastly, it's LUCK (which is great because it sounds like one of my favorite words). It's not that difficult to bring 1 & 2 together but then you have to be in the right place at the right time. It's easy to predict good late afternoon light in Chiemgau during October, however, the quality of the cloud inversion really came as a surprise.

Once I had all the above three then as soon as I saw the trail off the summit then I knew we had the spot. "Hey Guys, can you just manual along this?" I dialed in the above camera settings and a minute later they rode it and I got the shot.

The camera settings are minor details, it's the creative idea, the riders and a touch of luck that makes the photo.