Here are my favorite 10 photos from the Nice Triathlon last year, and part of the reason I love France: 
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Very nice photos from Nice.
Thank you for saying so. It was an easy place to photograph. Many beautiful images. The tough part was sorting out just a few.
Very nice from Nice Tom - I love southern France. Hey I’m English (well American with relatives still in Great Britain), and I like France (to visit) that is. French govt - no thanks. Not to fond of ours currently either (and I’m a die hard Republican thank you).
We all have our own issues - the French demanding “respect” for their “culture”. America for “issuing” respect around the globe and so on.
so true.
Tom,
If you don’t mind answering technical questions about your camera instead of your bike as a change, I would be very interested to ask away. I am just getting into to amateur photography and I am reading up about different kinds of hardware. What do you use as your primary camera? Did you do anything clever to get the lighting perfect for the shot of your R2.5 in the hotel room?
Thanks,
Brian
Got back from Nice (well Menton) a few weeks ago. My first trip there and now I’m thinking about retiring to the south of France. Great place to ride and the Med is gorgeous. Could be a hell of a hilly IM if they wanted to be cruel.
Kevin
Nice top, very nice. I love the first one, she looks so quintessentially French.
You have a good eye for pictures as opposed to photos.
J.
Everything you see here was shot with one of two Canon EOS 10D’s I carry loaded with a 1 GB Sandisk Extreme compact flash memory card.
For the R2.5 shot I used a fill flash if I recall correctly, meter reading taken from the center of the scene and the exposure bracketed over about 10 shots to see what I liked the best. It is a combination of natural light and fill flash from a Canon 550EX Speedlight.
When I am going somewhere specifically for photography, which is most places, I carry 2 SLR bodies, three lenses and a Panasonic CF28 armored laptop along with a 550EX speedlight and a Quantum Turbo Z battery system. I made my own voltage converter that works almost everywhere in the world but is definately not “UL Listed”. I also carry a small, pocket, point and shoot digital- usually a Fuji, but I have a few I like.
I am much worse with cameras than I am with bikes. I have a ton of cameras.
I used to shoot film and also used predoiminantly Contax and Canon cameras. I like Canon because of the Image Stabilized Lenses, which several manufacturers now have a version of. Shooting film for almost all of what I do is cost prohibitive and the time delay in seeing your images is too great. I still use film for some studio style portrait photography I do.
All that BS aside, the best photo I ever shot was with an $89 film camera and Fuji Reala 35mm 100ASA film.
Digital cameras enable a new photographer to experiment much more and really hone their composition and technical skills. I think there is a lot to be said for a well made, basic, digital SLR and there are quite a few out there with new ones all the time. The new EOS 20D is leaps and bounds better than my (now outdated) EOS 10D’s.
With the exception of Leica, I am not a fan of hyper-expensive cameras. A camera is a tool, if you have to be careful with it, it is of little use. My cameras take a terrible beating and I’ve destroyed about 5 cameras from water, dust, sand, etc. The best photos are taken in the worst conditions.
Also, new point and shoots have become really nice. For a good travel camera, a point and shoot with a zoom is all you ever need.
Fancy cameras don’t make your photography any better. It boils down to the photographer, how well they know their equipment, how creative they are and how much reading they’ve done about composition, etc, timing and luck.
This is the $89 camera photo, Marathon des Sables, Morocco:
I love this one too, Ambergias Cay near the Hol Chan Marine Reserve in Belize:
And this one from Curacao, Dutch Antilles:
Tom,
Those are great pics my friend. You really have a good eye. Do you have any more pics of the Marathon De Sable. That is definately one on my list to do as an ultrarunner. That and Comrades. Looks awesome. Thanks for the pics.
Your Friend in Alabama,
Craig
Damn Tom - you are the man!
I had no idea that is what you shoot with. I have been researching and trying to get my nerve up to buy a Canon EOS 20D or a Rebel XT. The new EOS-1Ds Mark II are so sweet but makes as much sense for me to buy as a matching pair of tricked out Litespeed’s - too high end for me right now. The funny thing is that I often sell other local photographers work at my art gallery but commercial sales doesn’t cross my mind with my own future work, so that is one justification I can’t use on myself.
I grew up having a darkroom in a corner of the basement and I spent many, many hours and nights shooting around town and developing B&W pre puberty. I left photography for some reason and now I have a whole new technology to learn. I have a very simple, very cheap Kodak point and shoot 4 megapixel camera whos only redeaming quality is a 10x optical zoom. I miss having interchangeable lenses, and every trade review of the Canon EOS 10D has been through the roof.
Thanks for the information and the tips. I have always enjoying seeing what you capture and share. If you ever want to elegantly perserve any of your favorite shots in a custom designed conservation frame drop me a line -you have a friend in that business.
Tom, love the Marathon des Sables shot. Stuck it up as my computer wallpaper for a while. I have been using shots from where Ironman Japan is held for inspiration.
This is the website I am using for inspiration. I think you may appreciate the photography.
http://www.pluto.dti.ne.jp/~ohto/pictures/pictureindex.htm
Btw way best shot I ever took with a camera was some refelected Birch trees in a pond on Isle Royale National Park using a kodak disposable waterproof camera. I am so glad I took that shot because when I returned 1 1/2 years later the trees had died and fallen into the pond. No one else will see what I did except through that picture.
Sheee-it Tom, that is a powerful shot.
I’ve had a lousy day, looking high and low for our cat (missing three nights now), and I needed inspiration to go for a run in the cold and dark.
You just provided it.
That’s awful. i hope you find your cat. Poor thing.