2017 World Champs AMB designer Robert Conroys picks

We have been speaking to professional photographers to find out exactly how they captured their best imgaes from the recent World Championships in Cairns.

Top snappers Ben Sykes and Dave Acree have run through their selections now our Art Director Robert Conroy is shows us his favourites.

And if you have a real passion for MTB pics, don’t miss your chance to vote in the ‘AMB Photography Awards presented by Shimano’ – where you could win a pair of Shimano ME7 or XC7 shoes just for choosing your prefered image.

Note. I shot every race of the World Championships. The first few races I covered the hill alone, from Friday I was joined by Dave Acree and we split the shooting into two halves of the hill. This is why my shots of the XCO are predominately from the lower sections.

The Scene
Michael Potter. The U23’s race lap one, rodeo drop. I’m sure you all know by now, the course was dry. This made ‘rodeo drop’ my first or second call at the beginning of each race because in the first or second lap the racers were still close enough to ignite this corner. Dust flew and obscured the average look of the corner.

The Settings
Nikon D700, Nikon 70-200 f2.8 Shot notes: 1/800sec at f5.6, focal length 90mm, ISO 400 Cropped.

The Finish
Contrast darkened to highlight those streaks and outline the rider, highlights darkened (to limit white blowout top of berm), whites darkened, blacks darkened, a touch of clarity, a touch of vibrance for extra colour. Dump a little of the colour orange to counter the vibrancy.

The Appeal
The shots of the leaders in this corner are pretty bland, it’s a big open berm with no spectators in the background (they’re all behind you). Just an aggressive lean, bog standard shot.

The rider before Potter, stuffed the corner, dropped a foot and pushed a tonne of dust into the air. Having his upper body clear out of the dust, his face crisp as he rides out of this dust cloud is pure luck. I can’t control the dust movement. His riding position is nice and aggressive and there is a little kick of extra roost from the rear tyre.

I tried to replicate this shot in one of the Elite races but as I said it was pure luck as to how the dust settles.

The Scene
Lap 2 of the U23 Mens. Martin Blum’s is still leading at this point but he would later retire to a mechanical. With only three a handful of major obstacles on the lower slopes, I saw a different angle possibility that highlighted the action and the crowd.

The Settings
Nikon D700, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 Shot notes: 1/1000th sec at f/4.5, iso 800 ( had run up to Caterpillar for a second shot on the first lap and not brought back down. Cropped.

The Finish
highlights, whites and blacks darkened, clarity up, vibrance up. To counter the grain, some noise reduction. Vignetting to help frame the rider in the trees a little better. Mask brush, with exposure pushed to black, to hide photographer who was hiding behind the bush in the left of frame. This was just the gaps he showed up between leaves.

The Appeal
 Martin Blums essentially exited the race next lap and in a story where we only have ten spots approx. for images in the magazine, this probably won’t be seen.

I like the framing of the rider amongst the trees, the ribbon of dust throughout the berm, the body position and the determined look ahead. All framed on a background of spectators.

The Scene
Same corner, same race, same angle, same lap. I wanted to show you just how fast this corner deteriorated inot a dust cloud, this shot of Tasman Nankervis is only about ten riders on from the previous and it’s a near complete white out. The only way I could tell who was coming was by watching the track above me and looking for glimpses of white. (By the way the German national jersey is very similar to ours in a haze.)

The Settings.
Nikon D700, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 Shot notes: 1/1000 sec at f/4.5. shot at 175mm ISO 800

The Finish
Contrast and blacks darkened just a touch. No other adjustments bar cropping and eliminating the elbow of another rider to the right of frame using the spot removal brush.

The Appeal
Same corner a bit more cropped, completely different final image. Bring on the dust.

The Scene
B Roll bandit Jackson Frew just missed out on a spot on the World Champs National team but still made the trip up for support and to fulfil the roll of sweep for the week.

Clearing the track before Junior Women I caught this test shot of Jackson in full attack mode.

The Settings
Nikon D700, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 Shot notes: 1/800sec at f/3.2 at 105mm. ISO 1250

Lighten exposure, darken contrast. lighten shadows and darken the blacks to bring out the edges a little. a touch of vibrancy, noise reduction and vignette.

The Finish
Cropped, exposure lightened, contrast and blacks darkened, shadows lightened. A generous dab of vibrance and a touch of noise reduction.

The Appeal
I only had one day to shoot downhill and that was sunday. One practice and a race session. I set up this shot to accomodate some of the slower riders of the female juniors, to show them over some gnarly roots with the knowledge that any faster riders would amp this up in the way Jackson has.

There are three frames of Jackson, it was a tester shot and it just worked out. The dust cloud behind, the angle of his body, the hundred foot stare, the position of the bike just launching the stump. I would have cropped tighter but the iso makes the grain more noticeable the closer I get.

The Scene
'Ridgeline' during Elite Mens Downhill finals. Having not come up the track all weekend, bar sunday, it was a quick decision to set up angles. It was race runs so riders were observing the old adage, ‘whips for show,corners for dough’ and no one was doing anything special but keep it in a straight line. There were two jumps that really had potential to show more than that, this one was just that little bit longer that riders would have to launch with an aim to be compressed and low for the lander. It was just an added bonus that the riders left a dust trail. Eddie Masters won that competition.

The Settings
Nikon D700, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 Shot notes: 1/1000sec at f/5.6, focal length 110mm, iso 800

The Finish
Contrast darkened. Shadows dumped to bring some light into the black and white of Eddie. Highlights and whites darkened to dull the soil from blowing out. blacks darkened a touch and clarity pushed to really outline the rider but not push the darkness in the leaves too much. Vibrance and a touch of noise reduction. Cropped

The Appeal
Besides the long trailing dust cloud which sets it apart from the other images I have of this angle. It’s Eddies contrast against the clean green background but most importantly it really draws you in.