Early bird gets the proverbial worm, or in this case, the opportunity to capture an exciting 10km race hosted by the good folks at Dempsters. This is an annual event that happens at Ashbridges Bay.

A few key take-aways:

Ronin-SC gimbal works quite well in this literal run-and-gun scenario. However, while zoomed-in using the 24-70mm on the Nikon Z6, it proved challenging, but necessary in order to frame up properly in key one-take moments such as runners starting the race or crossing the finish line.
ND filter saved my life! Without it, I would have had to fumble around with my aperture / ISO a lot and would lead to missed shots. All I had to do was dial in the right exposure using my on-screen histogram to nail my exposures. It was a cloudy day that had peeks of sun, and at times, full sun.
Didn’t shoot any slow motion on this one. Didn’t deem it necessary to be honest, as I had plenty of coverage and b-roll to work with. I see a lot of slow motion b-roll nowadays that tends to drag on and on. Effective when the scene / action calls for it (sports, food, dancing) but a race is meant to be fast paced, so it was a creative decision and technical decision not to shoot any 120fps or 60fps slow motion. Furthermore, a trick I picked up with slowing down 24fps footage via “Optical Flow” have served me well when I want to stretch out the clip in post
One camera on video for this one. It was enough. Pre-production and shot-list helps.
Interviews were not time-slotted, and talent was not briefed (since they didn’t know who was going to win the race). But lesson learned - next time we need to dedicate a coordinator to wrangle the winners, time slot the talent, and tell the DJ to turn the music down.