June 08, 2008
London Smithfield Nocturne 2008
Last night, amateur and pro cyclists gathered for the second annual Smithfield Nocturne - competitive London cycling in the night time!
Early in the evening I watched the folding cyclists, dressed in business gear, as they scurried around the 1km loop that stretched across Smithfield meat market.
The crowd swelled as the pro cyclists began the Elite Criterium at around 8.30pm, a gruelling 1 hour race plus five laps of the circuit. It was exciting stuff, and certainly difficult to pan and shoot to take good photos; the cyclists were speeding past, faster and faster as the race went on - at around 50km/h. And the light kept changing.
These were taken with a compact Canon digital camera on manual settings. Most at ISO 80-200, and panning as the cyclists sped past. Towards the end of the night I upped the ISO to 800-1600.
