This is another shot from my trip taking in some of the Tour de France stages in northern France. This was Stage 2 from St Lo to Cherbourg. After his win the previous day Mark Cavendish was wearing the Yellow Jersey. Supported by his teammates from Dimension Data in this shot he was near the front of the Peloton on a 4th Category Climb. The rider in front of him is Edvald Boasson Hagen the Norwegian Champion also of Dimension Data. The shot was taken on the Cote de Montpinchon a short climb 52 kilometres into the Stage. A dismal morning with drizzle interspersed with heavier rain. Made do with a plastic bag over the camera with a hole for the lens, should have brought my camera rain cover.

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20mm zoom at 10mm. Settings were f9 for maximum depth of field and ISO of 1000 to get a fast shutter speed of 1600th second to freeze the fast moving cyclists in the dim light.

A lot of edits were carried out. The original image was quite dim. I used the original RAW file to create 2 additional exposures for a false HDR. Further adjustments were made using Topaz Clarity for more detail and Topaz DeNoise plus adjustment layers for Vibrance and Saturation. Various Brightness Contrast adjustment layers with layer masks were added to selectively brighten areas of the picture especially to brighten the cyclists while leaving the sky dark and menacing.