bay to breakers field report

As I settle into my new equipment and my spending spree draws to a close (just got my spare XSi battery and ordered my Flipside 300; only the Hoya HD polarizer not yet in stock), I'd like to wrap up this blogging spurt with a report on how my current camera setup handled my first trip to San Francisco's annual Bay to Breakers 12K Run.

b2b tip #2: high five the fish at the top of the hill

Bay to Breakers is in its 97th consecutive year, making it the longest consecutively-held race in the world. As the name states, the race runs from the Bay (or near it, if you're a frontrunner) to the Breakers of Ocean Beach on the Pacific coast (or near it, if you're too slow or too drunk). It is an extraordinary route, capturing a wide range of scenery from skyscrapers and urine-drenched alleys of SoMa through the yuppie row houses of Hayes Street, the once-hippie-now-homeless Panhandle, and the beautiful Golden Gate Park to the beach. On a typical spring day like last weekend's, the morning starts overcast, but with the clouds quickly burning off, only for runners to encounter an abrupt change of weather as they enter the park, where low-lying clouds, fog, and even drizzle chill the lightly- or not-at-all clad runners.

And naked they are, as well as costumed in every imaginable way, as Bay to Breakers is more than just a race. In fact, the goal for many is not the finish line on the Great Highway, but the mile-long block party on Hayes Street, where body paint, beer bongs, and eclectic music turns the race into yet another San Francisco street fair.

That's just a long way of saying there are several aspects to the race, and as everyone is moving (albeit mostly at a snail's pace), you have to pick and choose what you want to see. This being my first time, and having gotten up late, I didn't choose so much as fell in with the runners, rather than the revelers. That was okay, but it put more demands on my camera gear than what worked at a normal street fair.

b2b tip #1: read your alarm clock manual

In a way, it was like shooting a parade, where the lead marchers are practically sprinting. (The winner, John Korir, averaged 4:37 per mile.) Being late to the course, I had no time to set up before the frontrunners approached. I had an already-slow lens stopped down at full telephoto and the camera at ISO 100, One-Shot AF, and Single-Shot drive mode. All wrong. I quickly learned that my 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS was way too long for most shots in narrow Hayes Street, so I switched to my 17-55mm f/2.8, which also allowed much-needed higher shutter speeds.

As I have more and more emphatically learned over the years, there are many reasons why the standard pro setup for events has long been an f/2.8 standard zoom (24-70mm f/2.8) and f/2.8 short-to-medium telephoto (70-200mm f/2.8 IS) each on their own full-frame camera. The full-frame equivalents of my two zoom lenses (the only lenses I brought) are 27-88mm f/2.8 and 112-480mm f/4-5.6. While I did get some unusually tight 480mm-equivalent shots, and the standard zoom range worked out well, mostly I found the telephoto not wide enough. The telephoto's slow max apertures were also restrictive, not due to shutter speed, but because of insufficiently-narrow depth of field in a crowd. I also experimented with apertures smaller than my 17-55's max f/2.8, but I found in all cases, I would've been better off sticking with f/2.8 (and would've preferred f/2 in many cases). Perhaps because I've had this setup a long time, though, I hardly missed any shots despite having to swap lenses all the time. All-in-all, the lens setup was not ideal, but it did the job.

The camera, though, was almost everything I could've hoped for. I used the Canon Digital Rebel XSi exclusively, not even remembering I had my Fuji F100fd with me as well.

b2b tip #4: watch downhill speed

The XSi's write speed was impressive. At one point shooting people accelerating down off of Hayes Street Hill, I fired off 15 RAW shots in 17 seconds in Single-Shot drive mode without the camera ever pausing. That may not sound all that impressive, but I wasn't trying to stress the system, just shooting at will, and that's a hell of a lot better than my previous Digital Rebel could accomplish. The XSi never slows me down, and that's all I could ask for.

The camera did come up a little short at times in the area of shutter lag, though. While the lag is a reasonable 90ms (down from my original Rebel's 120ms), it still was enough to get in the way of capturing runners passing right next to me. Also, focus, while fast, is still not instantaneous.

This is all a bit moot, though, since I have yet to learn how to properly pan with the action. I tend to aim where I want the shot to be, then squeeze the trigger as the subject flashes through the frame. Not only is this difficult, since there will always be some shutter lag, it also almost guarantees backfocus, as the camera has little chance of locking on a blur streaking across the frame. Indeed, many if not most of my action shots were backfocused, and if it weren't for the fact that my lenses are pretty slow anyway, they would've been a loss.

Bay to Breakers is doubly-challenging for someone trying to shoot the runners along the length of the course. As I already mentioned, the weather changes from minute to minute and block to block, from overcast to sunny to foggy. Worse, the course runs almost entirely due west in the morning. That's great for the runners, because their backs are to the sun the whole time, but sucks for photographers, who are either shooting in dreary overcast conditions are directly into the sun. I normally prefer not to use flash, especially in an event like this where the sense of place is so important to capture, but I'm pretty sure my shots would've been better if I'd used the 430EX this time. (I had it with me, but never remembered to take it out. Besides, it still involves too much trial and error for me to unleash it on total strangers.)

b2b tip #29: pick an easy target

But, in the end, I saved a few interesting shots through the combination of the XSi's tremendous latitude for post-processing and the powerful tools of Lightroom. On thinly-overcast Fell Street the XSi overexposed quite a few shots, and DPP cannot rescue those blown highlights like Lightroom (and ACR) can. In the near-fog of Footstock, the XSi heavily-underexposed faces and that combined with the ubiquitous white background meant the exposure curves went through extreme contortions to get anything remotely resembling proper exposure. Again, Lightroom to the rescue. My 2.0 beta version expires in around 36 hours, and I don't want to buy 1.x with 2.0 around the corner, so I guess I'll just have to make do this summer. Also, I'm still not happy with spending $299 on software. I'm not sure I've spent that much on all the software I've used to date.

And that's it for now. When summer returns (for the third time so far this year?), I'll try to blog about my experiences with the new Hoya HD polarizer, which promises to be the first genuinely-usable polarizer I own. And at a cost far higher than my first two lenses put together, it better be.