Motor Drive and Nikon FE2 and Le Tour !!

Mr Bump

Mr Bump

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Ok so coming to Yorkshire soon is the Le Tour and I am a massive tour fan !

So I am going back in time to try and take some tour pics with film and starting to make plans.

My thoughts are the FE2 as it has aperture priority and probably my recent 105mm F2.5 to give me some distance which will also allow me some DOF at say F4.

To do this I will need a motor drive, I also plan on shooting in B and W probably 400/800 for as much speed as possible.
The FE2 will do up to 4000/1.

Anybody any experience in this to offer please.
 
Looking about it seems the MD-12 is probably the most suitable Motor Drive?
 
http://www.mir.SPAM/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/nikonfeseries/fefmshared/index.htm

:)
 
MD-12. Lots of clean examples go frequently on eBay.

The MD-11 also works with the FE2 but the MD-12 was an improvement on it and the price difference is usually miniscule, if any.
 
Well Paul I'm not sure what pics you are going to take but IMO......If you have a steady hand 1/500 sec is fast enough for a 100mm lens for scenery etc but if you want to catch bees\birds in flight (flapping wings are the problem) etc then use as much speed as possible.
 
Thanks Ken
Wow MD-12's are cheap

3.5 FPS that should do that is a whole film in 10 seconds that will probably do me.

I think the Ilford Delta 3200 might be the one to go for.
I understand it is best shot at 800?
 
I'd push ISO400 film if you wanted to have results at ISO800. Burning through Delta 3200 with a motor drive is also going to get expensive quickly!
 
get on fleabay and buy some of the old press films the 800 or 1600 asa color would be ace for that
 
excalibur2 said:
Well Paul I'm not sure what pics you are going to take but IMO......If you have a steady hand 1/500 sec is fast enough for a 100mm lens for scenery etc but if you want to catch bees\birds in flight (flapping wings are the problem) etc then use as much speed as possible.
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Brian I am going to try and get a round of front on type shots, now they will be coming along at 20mph ish so I imagine.

I will be doing some practice soon with some dry runs with no film in maybe on slow traffic and then a few Agfa films.
Also I would like to get some into the bunch shots as they pass but I think the 105mm could be too long for that.
 
freecom2 said:
I'd push ISO400 film if you wanted to have results at ISO800. Burning through Delta 3200 with a motor drive is also going to get expensive quickly!
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It wont be cheap but I am only budgeting for 4x roles I think.
What 400 film do you think would be best to push?
 
HP5+ pushes quite nicely.
Tri-X does too but I have no first hand experience of it.
 
robhooley167 said:
HP5+ pushes quite nicely.
Tri-X does too but I have no first hand experience of it.
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Yeah thinking about it the light should be sunny.
It is after all Yorkshire in July :-)
 
I have picked up a couple of MD-12's off of ebay for around £5 each. Both advertised as broken, One had nothing wrong with it & had just got itself out of sync. All it needed was a screwdriver to short the pins & it was back working The other just needed the battery contacts cleaning.

I am not sure if I would use a shutter speed in the 1000th's photographing cyclists unless I was hemmed in by the crowd with no room to move. with a 105mm lens, 1/250th & panning to follow the cyclist should allow you to keep the cyclist sharp but blur the background giving a sense of movement. Saying that, even at a higher shutter speed the bokeh of the 105mm F2.5 should make the background blur out of focus nicely. It is a cracking lens.
 
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Tri-X pushed to 800 or 1000 ASA in D76 was a classic press photographer's combination back in the day. I've used it, and preferred the results to pushing HP5, but that was a long time ago and there may be better alternatives now.
 
@DNH I am wondering if the 105mm will be to long for the side shots...

hummmm food for thought.
 
Sorry guys forgot to add I wont be home developing it will go to Peak Imaging for that.

So will be looking to shoot at near box speed or about.
 
Mr Bump said:
@DNH I am wondering if the 105mm will be to long for the side shots...

hummmm food for thought.
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It might be, but I guess you won't know until the day & you decide where you are shooting from. What other lenses do you have in your arsenal? Depending on how close you are to the action a 50mm or even a wide angle could be handy?
 
@DNH I have a 50mm F1.4, 50mm F1,8, 28mm F2.8 and the 105mm F2.5
 
Mr Bump said:
@DNH I have a 50mm F1.4, 50mm F1,8, 28mm F2.8 and the 105mm F2.5
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Take them all & I don't think that you can go wrong ;)

Do you have any lens hoods for the 50 & 28? It might be worth thinking of getting them as it might be sunny in July & they will help the contrast depending where the sun is. You can find Chinese knock offs of the HN-2 & HN-3 for peanuts on ebay & they are just as good as the Nikon originals.
 
I've taken photographs of professional road races a couple of times (Tour of Britain round Westminster and the 2012 Olympics road race in Richmond) , so I have a few suggestions that might be of some use.

Although I mainly shoot B&W, (and Tri-X in D76/ID11 at 800 ASA is great) I think all those multi-coloured jerseys merit a colour film if you can find one fast enough. I used some expired Fuji Press 800 and found it rather grainy, so others might be able to suggest something better. I think you will need 800 ASA to give yourself some margin for dull conditions. You will definitely need the motordrive and unless the bunch has split, or it's a street circuit with laps, a second camera with another motordrive, as you aren't going to get time to reload.

Unless they are going uphill, then the cyclists are going to be travelling at a lot more than 20mph! If you can, get there early, plonk yourself on a corner and defend your position with elbows and random swings of the camera. If you are leaning on a barrier do not let anyone squeeze in front, not even kids, as their parents then try to join them. I shot this at the London Olympics on a corner in Richmond



This was taken with a Canon 135mm at 1/1000th, you can see the grain even at this magnification. The cyclists were still really shifting even coming round the sharp corner; the best thing to do is to pick a spot on the road and prefocus on it. When the bunch arrives just press the button and hope that 10 or 20% of your shots will be OK. These cyclists were leading the bunch, when Wiggins and Cavendish came round the corner my motordrive jammed, if you were watching on TV you might well have heard my expletives.

The Nikon MD12 is pretty solid and as others have commented, surprisingly cheap. Good luck with the whole venture, just don't step out in road and knock Sir Bradley off his bike!
 
@NickT cheers some great tips there, I am hoping to look at the route and try and get a spot a bit away from the crowds out on the road as I know what you mean about crowds and barriers. I will also hopefully be doing both days so two spots, my other camera is an FM2n so I could buy 2x motor drives and take that :-)

but in all seriousness I think I am just going to machine gun a few rolls as you say focused on a spot and see what comes.
 
Mr Bump said:
Ok so coming to Yorkshire soon is the Le Tour and I am a massive tour fan !

So I am going back in time to try and take some tour pics with film and starting to make plans.

My thoughts are the FE2 as it has aperture priority and probably my recent 105mm F2.5 to give me some distance which will also allow me some DOF at say F4.

To do this I will need a motor drive, I also plan on shooting in B and W probably 400/800 for as much speed as possible.
The FE2 will do up to 4000/1.

Anybody any experience in this to offer please.
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Paul,

Looking at the schedule you will get two chances to shot on stage one Leeds to Harrogate and stage two York to Sheffield, I do not think you would want to go down to Cambridge for stage three to London. On the first two stages although there are gradients they are by no means in the Alps league, If I were you I would make sure I pick the most difficult as flat stretches will have the peloton passed you in a matter of seconds and I do not believe there will be many if any breakaway groups this early in the tour,it would mean that you would taking into account reloading time have only one roll to shot make it 36 exposures and make them all count.

There is an opportunity to cover more on the 3rd of July at the team presentations at Leeds Arena and here you may need a longer telephoto lens as you may not be so close as on the road.

Good luck and looking forward to the results.

PS. As cycling is so colourful I would shot 400Asa colour pushed to 800Asa if needed,you can always convert to B&W,but,not the other way around.
 
@medwaygreen My thoughts exactly I am within easy reach of Leeds and York on the train, both my wife and I are planning both days.

I would like to try and do Holme Moss but seeing as the roads will be closed it could be tough getting in and out.
 
I would pick up some Portra 400 as its so flexible regarding exposure (even with normal developing [no push] you can expose it at 800 or 1600 with very little increase in grain or contrast) and it is very fine grained for an ISO 400 film. If you do want to go with B&W though, in contrary to what most would suggest I would go with T-Max 400 as it requires no pushing in the dev for exposing at 800, and it is less grainy in comparison to Tri-X.
 
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+1 for Portra 400 and T-Max 400. Kodak is producing some of the cleanest, most pushable film emulsions ever made - pushed Tri-X gives a very characteristic look, but is isn't clean grain-wise.
 
there's estimated timings for the route here

stage 1 - http://letour.yorkshire.com/documents/tdf/timings/TDF2014TimetableStage1.pdf

stage 2 - http://letour.yorkshire.com/documents/tdf/timings/TDF2014TimetableStage2.pdf

be prepared - if you're intending to get onto any of the bigger climbs, you could well need to camp out the night before - roads will be a complete nightmare - I'm hoping to get up there, but it'll probably be a drive to within 25 miles or so of somewhere, then get the bike out and try and get to the parcours that way...
 
TheBigYin said:
there's estimated timings for the route here

stage 1 - http://letour.yorkshire.com/documents/tdf/timings/TDF2014TimetableStage1.pdf

stage 2 - http://letour.yorkshire.com/documents/tdf/timings/TDF2014TimetableStage2.pdf

be prepared - if you're intending to get onto any of the bigger climbs, you could well need to camp out the night before - roads will be a complete nightmare - I'm hoping to get up there, but it'll probably be a drive to within 25 miles or so of somewhere, then get the bike out and try and get to the parcours that way...
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Yeah I agree I think the big climbs wont happen for me, I think I will look at the route and aim to get train in and then walk a little out of town to where there are better opportunites.
 
@freecom2 Remember tho I dont home develop so for me that extra box speed is all I ill get.
 
Mr Bump said:
@freecom2 Remember tho I dont home develop so for me that extra box speed is all I ill get.
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It'll survive a one stop push without any change during the developing process - it is a colour C-41 film after all, and a very good one at that.
 
humm just checked and the 800 price on amazon looks like a no go the film is cheap but the guy wants scary postage like its coming from venus.
 
You honestly don't need to push the 400 at all, just expose at 800 or even 1600 and have it developed normally (which also saves you the £1.25 that Peak will charge for pushing). The resulting negs will show hardly any increase in grain or contrast. Its probably the closest to multi ISO film that we'll ever get considering that you can safely overexpose it up to 2.5 - 3 stops as well.

The 400 also benefits over the 800 by having the newer film technology developed for Kodak's Vision3 motion picture film, and they have yet to upgrade the 800 like they have the 400 and 160 (I don't think they'll bother now)
 
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I agree @s162216 I think I will just stick with a good 400 colour and BW
 
Well today project machine gun the crap out of Bradley Wiggins took another step forward with tha addition of an MD-12 Motor drive.

£14.50p delivered from E-bay, a bit beat up but fully working where it all counts :-)

8x Duracels Blimey !!!

fitted and working to my Tour camera an old FE2 , just need to load an Agfa Vista and do some practice maybe on some cars in a 30mph zone.



 
Nice. 3.5 FPS of rather loud wey hey!
 
That does look the business, you should get some great shots of Sean Kelly, Greg LeMond and Robert Millar with that kit.
 
RaglanSurf said:
That does look the business, you should get some great shots of Sean Kelly, Greg LeMond and Robert Millar with that kit.
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ha ha greg lamond if only ya cheeky fecker :-)
 
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