A Couple of Grabs From The Thater Crit

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I had to go into the Binghamton for something anyway - drop off a dead phone that needs to go in for replacement, and pick up a couple of Monster drinks that I had accidently left in the fridge from earlier in the week.  That was, of course, the most important reason for going there ....  <grin>

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The Chris Thater bike races were also happening downtown.  I used to race bikes in a former incarnation of myself - a skinnier me.  I stopped doing that though quite a few years ago - it's very hard and I'm very lazy.  I was lazy back then too, but I had pain in the ass teammates who would drag me out and "make me" go riding / training.  I'm glad I did though - they were all a bunch of good guys.  So anyway - I knew the races were happening so I grabbed a camera and a couple of lenses and decided to take them with me.

The weather sucked.  This made me even more happy that I was no longer riding...  I used to hate racing in the rain.  I spent the better part of an afternoon at A.O. Fox Memorial Hospital up in Oneonta, N.Y. one time as a result of racing in the rain.  I only stuck around for a little while as, again, the weather was not all that great, and I wanted to get back home to get my gear ready for my current favorite sport - the WNYOA Harescrambles races up near Norwich tomorrow at Thunder Ridge.

So -- here are a couple of grabs from the race action that I did stick around to see, and there is a small gallery of 40-some-odd keepers there too - the link to those is here.

This chick is supposed to be some kind of badass from what my friend Mike told me.  I guess she did the womens version of the Tour De France earlier this year and has won a boatload of big races.  The race always calls up all of the top contenders and introduces them to the crowd. | Click the photo to view it larger

The Pro Womens field about to start | Click to photo to view it larger

So thats what you use black & white for

<grin>  When all else fails and a bad pic just can't really be made into anything half decent what does one do?  Convert it to b&w and give it a "reportage look", or make it look like something from a newspaper story.

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Readers digest - we had our little quarterly meeting today at the Binghamton Corporate office.  A number of us went out to lunch at a little bar / diner that is within walking distance from the office and I, naturally, had a camera with me.

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If I didn't shoot sports as much as I do, I'm almost thinking that I'd ditch my big ole' Nikons in favor of this wonderful little Fuji that I recently picked up.  The thing is so small and light in weight by comparison to the Nikons that it isn't funny.  The lenses are crazy nice and the sensor in the thing, while only being a crop sensor, is pretty damned amazing.  The camera definitely has it's quirks, and definitely has some short comings when compared to the far more mature Nikons - but for the most part I really dig it.

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All of the images here are hand held, the color one in particular being a 1/2 second exposure, iso 250 @f/2.8 with the fuji 14mm lens.  All were with that lens.  All of the b&w's were 1/5th of a second at iso 4000 (!) @f/8

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It's a fun little camera.  :)