Sometimes my photographic plans just have to be thrown out the window and Plan B put into place. That’s what happened recently.

I’ve been renting and testing a telephoto lens (Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D VR) for a week. After getting shut out by clouds three nights in a row trying to get moon rise images I decided to photograph water birds at sunrise along the shores of Lake Mary.

I should have checked the weekend event calendar. The Mountain Man Triathlon event was taking place at the lake. So, instead of shooting birds, I chose to shoot swimmers and bikers (I skipped the runners).

Having not given a lot of thought to shooting athletes, I found myself just winging it with no obvious good locations or setup. Well, that’s what happens when you fall back to Plan B but didn’t actually have a Plan B.

It turns out this lens is a bit slow on the auto-focus speed. That means many of the photos missed sharp focus as the riders were moving fast. Swimmers? Not a problem.

Here are some images of swimmers and bikers from the Mountain Man Triathlon held in Lake Mary near Flagstaff on July 9, 2017.