Devil's Thumb Ranch Photos - Tabernash, Colorado

                                                   “X Shot” Information

                                        Camera - Canon- EOS Mark III

                                        ISO - 400

                                        Lens - Canon- 500 mm

                                        F/stop - 11

                                        Shutter - 1/500 sec

  My friend Dennis Schroeder and I left at 6 am for Devil’s Thumb Ranch, the location for this years Governor’s Cup Nordic Ski Race. The ranch is a year-round resort on 5,000 acres.The race didn’t start until noon but we wanted to get a close-in parking spot and also there was another race in the morning called Rachel’s Stomp, for kids. This race would give us an idea of the course and what lenses might work best. After the kids race we went back to my jeep for lunch and to get ready for the big race. I felt the race course was huge and some of it was not visible to the viewing public with out a long hike. Shooting the morning race with a wide angle and a 70-200 zoom, my images were to loose. I decided to change over to just using my 500 mm lens on a mono pod for the next race. By positioning my self at a spot near the start of the race, three different shoots were there for the grabbing, without moving to much. One of these became the “X Shot”. Noticing the skiers would go away from me after the start and then double back towards my direction, gave the opportunity to stack up the two rows of participants. Two things had to be done to make sure the shot worked, first the shutter speed had to be at least 1/500 of second to stop the the action of the skiers and the F/Stop had to be large enough to get both lines of people in focus. I set my camera with the needed exposure for that shot and used it for all three shots. This way no quick changes had to be made during the early minuets of the race.  For the next 90 minutes we moved around shooting what we could and then got out of there, not wanting to get stuck in Saturday skier traffic on eastbound I-70. There is a photographer saying “ you can live or die by your chose of lens”. This time I picked the correct piece of glass and made some nice shots.

                “X Shot” Location Information

1. Drive time from Denver is about 90 Minutes.

2. Get off I-70 at the Empire/hwy. 40 exit.

    Follow 40 through the town of Winter Park.

    Turn right on CR 83, just before the town of Tabernash

    Follow 83 to Devil’s Thumb Ranch

3. Their web page -  http://www.devilsthumbranch.com 

4. Shutter speed 1/500 second is considered the 

    slowest you can use and still stop the action. 

    Slower shutters could be used depending of the

    speed of the action.

   

                                                    Ken Papaleo

                                             Colorado Photography

                   All photographs for sale, contact e-mail address below.

                               kenpapaleo@highcountrycoloring.com