Open North American Championship sled dog race

[Øivind Tøien]

Last weekend Open North American Championship sled dog race presented another opportunity for my D500 and the 300mm f/4 PF. I came back with 1215 frames (ouch) and 65% of the battery left. It was a mix of short and long burst. This body is hopeless as it results in way too many potential keepers that has to be chosen from.   Unfortunately light was pretty flat.

This race is very different from Yukon Quest and Iditarod that I have shown before here. It is a sprint race only about 20 miles long with short sessions over 3 days. The dog's build are thereafter, on average much more slender and short haired.

Here is the winning team of the Canadian champion Blaine Streeper, winning the race for the sixth time.
#1



The strange posture above is due to helping the dogs pushing off very hard. Here every second counts.
#2



His wife, Lina Streeper took second place.
#3



Dogs love to run.
#4



The fierce appearance is thermoregulation, not agression.
#5



A tight race.
#6



#7



#8



#9



#10



#11



Post race.
#12



#13



Some of the dog trucks are rather big, this one belonging the the Canadian champions. (Captured post race the day before during my scouting).
#14

[Bent Hjarbo]

Øjvind, Øivind, you did again, fantastic series, I like the posture in #11.
Yes the D500 is a beast regarding image capture. One have often too many pictures 
Do you have any problems regarding the exposure? I also do shooting in snow, xc skiing, and often get underexposed images, due the the white snow, had to dial in +1 to get correct exposure.

[Øivind Tøien]

Thanks for the enthusiastic comment, Bent. Yes I thought the posture in 11 was special. The 10 frames per second is a great help to catch such moments. Regarding the many pictures, on the bright side going though them and selecting the best one is more like watching video and freeze it at the right moment.

Yes, under low contrast conditions on snow D500 tend to overexpose underexpose and had to have +1 exposure compensation dialed in on most of these. Seems that the Nikon matrix metering algorithms do not recognize the background as snow, and is more average oriented than some of the consumer bodies.

On top of this, I struggle with evaluating exposure/brightness of frames in CNX-D - the black background often makes it hard to tell and adjustments might end up on the low side once images get presented on a white page. The neutral gray in CNX2 and ViewNX2 was a much better reference.

[armando_m]

Outstanding series

#5 what coordination among the dogs to have the same expression

#7 incredibly long tongues

[CS]

Oivind. I love post #12!
Not, mind you,  that there's anything wrong with the others..........

[Øivind Tøien]

Carl, I also find those two pairs of eyes adorable. I would guess that they are siblings from the same litter.

Thanks for the kind comment Armando. It looks like some dogs are able to synchronize their breaths. Those long tongues look pretty fragile, but are essential for the thermoregulation, moving in and out bringing along saliva that evaporates and cools the hightly vascularised tissue. Some dogs get covered with saliva on their chin.