At 18.16km long, the Salamiou Special Stage was a mix of 64% tarmac and 36% gravel. It winds down from the village of Salamiou into the Xeros river valley near Panagia tou Sindi, before climbing back up the other side of the valley, passing through Pentalia to end near Agia Marina.
On my recce I came to the conclusion the best place to be was where the stage crosses the Xeros river bed on a causeway. I’ve been there before, but this time the cars were heading east to west rather than their normal west to east.
Its fun getting down into the river valley in that it’s a bit of a test for the 4x4 capabilities of the Navara, but nothing too challenging (or damaging!)
The action was great to watch, the highlight being a sharp right hand bend on gravel as the cars came off the river causeway. A bank on the inside of the bend just added to the action.
In a break with tradition, I shot mostly using a wide angle lens. Traditionally rally photography is the province of a long telephoto. But I was so close to the action the wide angle gave a sense of the place as well as the action.
The only thing to watch when shooting fast action with a wide angle lens is you need a very fast shutter speed to stop the action. When you think about it, in relative terms the car is travelling a long way across the frame in a short period of time, so you need (ideally much) more than 1/1,000th sec to stop things. Good job it was a bright sunny day…
Check out the pictures at IRC Cyprus Rally 2011 - SS3 Salamiou or watch the video below.
