I've been behind the 8-ball with work! On my way out, I noticed that the Google videos seem to look better than YouTube, so I'm trying a post to see what the Google upload looks like. I hope to write more in the next couple days!
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Thursday, November 9, 2006
HVX200 Sports: College Basketball
Look Out!!
Terrapins fans watch Maryland Terrapins guard DJ Strawberry head for a crash landing as he hustles to retrieve the ball that he slapped from the possession of Vermont Catamounts guard Jason Green in the first half of the College Hoops Classic men's college basketball in College Park Wed., Nov. 8, 2006.
I guess this is my first "official game," shooting with this HVX200. And please, read below, for a statement that I may post in my main page.
A day after staying at work late, and I was still a little groggy because of lack of sleep. Honestly, I feel the effects of some clinical depression, which makes it somewhat tough to keep up the enthusiasm. But Chuck made me feel so good when he told me that I'd be covering a Maryland Terrapins men's basketball game in College Park. It was a preseason against the Vermont Catamounts (I always think about amber maple syrup when I think about Vermont) which was supposed to benefit "Coaches vs Cancer." After shooting my first job (a quick portrait of a high school football player), I drove through the mist and afternoon rush hour traffic from Lake Clifton-Eastern to the basketball arena, with a Nikon 300mm lens in tow, intending to shoot some stills.
But something in my mind made me switch to the HVX200, while I gathered my gear from the back of the car. A shooter from the Washington Post walked with me, asking about the elections and how things are at work. Still carrying my 2 still cameras as backup, I parked my gear in the photo room, set up my laptop, and went to the court to take some test shots of a consolation game going on.
The lights are a little dark for shooting high speed shutter, so I wound up cranking the gain all the way to -12db. "Gain" is a term that makes a camera more sensitive to lower light situations. It forces the scene to brighten inside the camera, but the drawback is that the image quality degrades. But I had tried some gain-up before, and figured that I would give it a whirl, which allowed me to crank up the shutter speed to 1/500th second - fast enough to stop moving action without much motion blur. An Associated Press shooter scoffed as he saw the digital camcorder in my hand. A freelance photographer sitting beside me shook his head. "You'll never get me to shoot with one of those," he glared. "I'd retire before using that."
I had once thought the same. I never knew that the profession would go so digital. I didn't think it would happen so many years before I considered even imagining this time. Back in the mid-1990's, we had a staff shooter named Perry who was issued a Canon XL-1 digital camcorder. Our boss Jim gave him the task of shooting video for the web, a task that newspapers hardly gave a thought. But suddenly, after a short period, the effort was scrubbed. Just to think what inroads might have been made, had we continued.... Perry was so far ahead of the curve, but the curve is now here. And I'm catching grief or stares from the still shooters as well as the TV videographers. How ironic that I'm in the middle, and what I'm doing is merging the two mediums together. I just sat quietly, adjusting my butt to the hard floor, while the game continued, trying to shoot while manually focusing the lens, anticipating plays on the court.
The far basket? The HVX showed it was 121 feet to the net. Midcourt, about 60 feet. The near hoop, 19.1 feet, all shown in the lower right corner of my digital viewfinder. Missing the first basket since I was shooting horizontally, I began flipping the camera to a vertical position. Soon, I was getting into a groove, shooting the Terps attempting a defensive trap at the far basket, capturing the hustle after trying to steal the ball at mid-court, and leaping to slam dunk on the near side.
It's quite a change after learning to anticipate and squeeze the trigger of a still camera. And the process of extracting a movie file, dragging the file for a moment in Quicktime, copying the frame (Apple C) and pasting the image (Apple V) in Photoshop adds several more steps than simply dropping images from a digital card and editing them. Adding to the ingredients would be saving the first images as raw files, then using Photo Mechanic to add captions on them, then opening the files again in Photoshop to prepare them for transmission. Yesiree, it makes for more work. Will that change? Perhaps if someone comes up with some kind of program to automatically work out the steps. Or maybe create a "droplet," which can be programmed to automatically do certain steps for the user.
But the automatic steps can happen only within Photoshop, and can't be flopped over to, say, Quicktime. If I had to work on a short deadline, I doubt if I'd be ready to do all the steps, unless I know every file's contents in order to zero in on a moment.
As I wound up my shoot in the first half, I stopped at the other end of the court to shoot a little of coach Gary Williams. At first, I had thought about shooting some still frames with the Nikon but abandoned the idea, since such a decision would be the same as not trusting your effort. A rather bull-headed way of looking at it, but hey: The game action was captured all right on the HVX200, do you think?
Do I seem like some kind of plant to sell people into purchasing this camera? Perhaps some might wonder, but I'm simply writing about what I'm shooting with. The equipment has been issued through where I work, and nothing is donated. None of the gear has been sold to us at some kind of discount that I know of, unless it's volume discount. And I'm not being paid to write anything here.
Terrapins fans watch Maryland Terrapins guard DJ Strawberry head for a crash landing as he hustles to retrieve the ball that he slapped from the possession of Vermont Catamounts guard Jason Green in the first half of the College Hoops Classic men's college basketball in College Park Wed., Nov. 8, 2006.
I guess this is my first "official game," shooting with this HVX200. And please, read below, for a statement that I may post in my main page.
A day after staying at work late, and I was still a little groggy because of lack of sleep. Honestly, I feel the effects of some clinical depression, which makes it somewhat tough to keep up the enthusiasm. But Chuck made me feel so good when he told me that I'd be covering a Maryland Terrapins men's basketball game in College Park. It was a preseason against the Vermont Catamounts (I always think about amber maple syrup when I think about Vermont) which was supposed to benefit "Coaches vs Cancer." After shooting my first job (a quick portrait of a high school football player), I drove through the mist and afternoon rush hour traffic from Lake Clifton-Eastern to the basketball arena, with a Nikon 300mm lens in tow, intending to shoot some stills.
But something in my mind made me switch to the HVX200, while I gathered my gear from the back of the car. A shooter from the Washington Post walked with me, asking about the elections and how things are at work. Still carrying my 2 still cameras as backup, I parked my gear in the photo room, set up my laptop, and went to the court to take some test shots of a consolation game going on.
The lights are a little dark for shooting high speed shutter, so I wound up cranking the gain all the way to -12db. "Gain" is a term that makes a camera more sensitive to lower light situations. It forces the scene to brighten inside the camera, but the drawback is that the image quality degrades. But I had tried some gain-up before, and figured that I would give it a whirl, which allowed me to crank up the shutter speed to 1/500th second - fast enough to stop moving action without much motion blur. An Associated Press shooter scoffed as he saw the digital camcorder in my hand. A freelance photographer sitting beside me shook his head. "You'll never get me to shoot with one of those," he glared. "I'd retire before using that."
I had once thought the same. I never knew that the profession would go so digital. I didn't think it would happen so many years before I considered even imagining this time. Back in the mid-1990's, we had a staff shooter named Perry who was issued a Canon XL-1 digital camcorder. Our boss Jim gave him the task of shooting video for the web, a task that newspapers hardly gave a thought. But suddenly, after a short period, the effort was scrubbed. Just to think what inroads might have been made, had we continued.... Perry was so far ahead of the curve, but the curve is now here. And I'm catching grief or stares from the still shooters as well as the TV videographers. How ironic that I'm in the middle, and what I'm doing is merging the two mediums together. I just sat quietly, adjusting my butt to the hard floor, while the game continued, trying to shoot while manually focusing the lens, anticipating plays on the court.
The far basket? The HVX showed it was 121 feet to the net. Midcourt, about 60 feet. The near hoop, 19.1 feet, all shown in the lower right corner of my digital viewfinder. Missing the first basket since I was shooting horizontally, I began flipping the camera to a vertical position. Soon, I was getting into a groove, shooting the Terps attempting a defensive trap at the far basket, capturing the hustle after trying to steal the ball at mid-court, and leaping to slam dunk on the near side.
It's quite a change after learning to anticipate and squeeze the trigger of a still camera. And the process of extracting a movie file, dragging the file for a moment in Quicktime, copying the frame (Apple C) and pasting the image (Apple V) in Photoshop adds several more steps than simply dropping images from a digital card and editing them. Adding to the ingredients would be saving the first images as raw files, then using Photo Mechanic to add captions on them, then opening the files again in Photoshop to prepare them for transmission. Yesiree, it makes for more work. Will that change? Perhaps if someone comes up with some kind of program to automatically work out the steps. Or maybe create a "droplet," which can be programmed to automatically do certain steps for the user.
But the automatic steps can happen only within Photoshop, and can't be flopped over to, say, Quicktime. If I had to work on a short deadline, I doubt if I'd be ready to do all the steps, unless I know every file's contents in order to zero in on a moment.
As I wound up my shoot in the first half, I stopped at the other end of the court to shoot a little of coach Gary Williams. At first, I had thought about shooting some still frames with the Nikon but abandoned the idea, since such a decision would be the same as not trusting your effort. A rather bull-headed way of looking at it, but hey: The game action was captured all right on the HVX200, do you think?
Do I seem like some kind of plant to sell people into purchasing this camera? Perhaps some might wonder, but I'm simply writing about what I'm shooting with. The equipment has been issued through where I work, and nothing is donated. None of the gear has been sold to us at some kind of discount that I know of, unless it's volume discount. And I'm not being paid to write anything here.
Friday, October 13, 2006
HVX200 Sports: Volleyball; Nikon D2H: Floor Lighting
You know how hard it is to shoot volleyball with a video camera?
Not that hard.
Do you know how hard it is shooting video of volleyball in order to try getting a still frame?
Really hard.
Why? One BIG reason: The lack of proper lighting inside high school gyms. Your most important tool is light, and if you have something properly lit, it only depends on your skill and the right moment to get a good shot. Take that vital tool from your box, and you're bound to struggle.
My latest challenge was shooting HD video of a sporting event to get some still images for daily use. The game started at 5:30, and I only had 8 minutes of high def footage to shoot, since I'm still using the 2-4 gig P2 cards. So there's no way to shoot constantly; I had to shoot small clips, depending on my instinct to get some nice shots.
But, the light. Oh, the light. Direct overhead lights yielded only 1/120th second at f/ 1.7, and I had cranked up some gain to 6 decibles. A recipe for disaster? Only if you are clueless with how to use your equipment. But I sure pushed my luck, in any case. I had thought for cranking gain up to (I think it's) 12 db, but I figured that one frame per 30 fps would work. The problem is that you're shooting people who are moving all over the place. So many of what might have made good still shots with a 35mm camera couldn't work with a camcorder shooting at such a slow shutter speed.
I moved all about, shooting different angles, hoping I could find the right spot to capture some footage. Near the end of the shoot is when you wind up finding the "sweet spot," which was behind the last player sitting on the bench, aiming back at the net. I only saw the spot as I turned to watch the action after giving up, and I saw faces of players from both sides, trying to dink the ball on each other's side. Doh! I had less than 1 minute of space remaining, and less than an hour before my next shoot, so I pulled the plug and figured that I should have one image.
The editors back at the office had other plans: "We need one for color and one inside," Steve said, and I opened Quicktime and Final Cut Pro to check each file for a couple good shots. Fortunately, Photoshop and Final Cut are back in working order. There was no squeezing of images, like a couple weeks ago, and I didn't figure out what was done to remedy the situation. All I know is that the widescreen pasting was back.
I found nice "jubo" (the cool way of saying, "celebration," or "jubilation") but didn't have any deejay (my own term for dejection, but no one understands it) and a couple good frames that I copied and pasted onto the Photoshop file. All shot in 1920x1080.... but my camera shot the footage without the digital interlacing, and I was surprised to see no jaggies. I think my camera was set at 30p, and it helped me as well.
This weekend, we're shooting the Ravens at home against the Carolina Panthers, but I won't be able to shoot video, since they've banned those contraptions on-field at game time.
Here's also a shot of a coach. The size that Photoshop suggests for the original size of the Quicktime image is 1920x1080 @ 72dpi. I saved this at 200dpi, and it can be seen here, I hope in its original size. I optimized the size for web use, however. Just peruse the set in Flickr, with shots saved at 72dpi and 200dpi so you can see what they look like, opened in full size.
I also wanted to add some information about floor bounce lighting with the Nikon D2H (you can do this with any camera with a flash you can aim at the floor), from a shoot I did this day as well.
Take a lookie at the image of Dad and daughter, taken with my D2H at this Halloween shop on York Road in Timonium (made me excited about having fun this holiday, too!):
I simply used one flash, the SB-800, but even an undedicated flash will do, like a Vivitar 285. I simply turned the camera upside down so that the flash head will point onto the floor! If the head of yours can move about, just aim the puppy straight down at the ground, but make certain that the color of the floor is white or grey, or close to it. Otherwise you may get some weird color changes.... but don't scare from shooting anyway if you have an orange floor; that may yield some interesting colors as well! Since you're shooting digital, simply make color adjustments as you test the balance of the colors against whatever is in your subject field.
Notice, the lights behind the pair are the standard incandescent (tungsten) lights. If you're so particular that you want true white balance with all things, well, place a warming filter over the flash that will make the output similar to a tungsten light, and change your white balance on the camera to tungsten (the little lightbulb). I like the warmth behind the people, so I kept my flash output daylight balanced, while shooting with the overcast setting on the camera.
Bang out a frame of the light source to make sure that the lights don't over-expose in the frame. They should remain very saturated (another reason I stuck with the warm lamp glow, since a darkened light bulb won't show saturation, but grey if it's white-balanced). The image was shot at 1/60th @ f 4, so I switched the flash output to 1/8th power, since it would stay consistent. Using TTL or auto settings tend to give light outputs that are inconsistent, and with a dark background, I didn't want to waste time. Aiming the flash head slightly behind will keep the top of the flash from throwing any direct light onto the subjects, which make the lighting on their faces quite harsh. If your flash head can't rotate and turn backwards, grab a piece of cardboard and some rubber bands or something to hold it on your flash head and leave it pointing straight down.
If you and your subjects have time, play with the direction and zoom function on the flash head, so you can remember what settings please you (and your subject). I like my zoom feature placed about 50mm to 85mm, but you may like the wider setting. To me, the zoom will allow for more directional yet soft lighting.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Nikon D2H Sports: The Hit The Size of The Earthquake
"You're gonna tank on game day," Rob told me as I entered the office last Thursday. The comment caught me off guard. "I'm only saying that because I have to do something to get you off track" for the Sunday game against Tampa Bay for the opening game of the Ravens' 2006 season.
I didn't even want to be there. I hate humidity, despise afternoon rains, and hate regions where there's never a chance of snow. Tampa was my last choice for travel, but one city I was told to make reservations for.
Making the most out of the situation, I discovered a neat place to stay - the Mainsail Suites on Eisenhower (right next to the airport) - which resembled a gated condominium comunity instead of a hotel. Complete with a full kitchen, I made a fresh romaine salad with blue cheese dressing and cooked pasta with italian sausage and vodka cream sauce. Check out tripadvisor.com; I wrote a full review with 12 photos!
Rob suggested that I move to his end zone if ever the Ravens threatened to score, but my favorite position is staying in back of the end zone. I figure, the team's goal is scoring, so why not move to a position where the players will head straight for me?
As the Ravens threatened to score, I was concerned since they drove for the far end zone. With this being perhaps the Ravens' first score, the prudent thing was to cover the opposite side from wherever Rob was. I tried calling him during a break in the action, as Baltimore's ball was on the 20 yard line. Rob didn't answer, so I left a message and scanned the shooters for him. Everyone wore an orange security vest, so I couldn't locate him. So I set up tent at the goal line, figuring that he'd be on the opposite side, where the Bucs' team was.
Two plays later, Jamal Lewis barrels past the Bucs defenders, running right past me for the team's first score. As I headed back to the far end zone, I realized that Rob was just 10 feet away, and shot the same play. "What are you doing on my side?" he asked. Well, I had forgotten that I was told to shoot from the Bucs' side! "That's my picture," he said, "and you have to stay on your side." I couldn't tell whether he was joking or not.
I asked another photographer about it, who said that I should send my best stuff and let the editor decide. We're supposed to send our best images for the readers, forsaking our personal feelings.
By halftime, I had shot every big play that the Ravens were involved in. I sweated like a pig (even forgetting my sunblock), but at least my camera was hotter than I was. I could only liken my luck to the 5.8 earthquake that hit the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, right before game time. Rob and I met inside the photographer's room where he downloaded his pictures from the first half. I told him that I wouldn't try sending until after the game, so he could send his Jamal score first.
By the middle of the third quarter, I couldn't believe it. Interceptions, runbacks, scores, sacks... I nailed everything. By that point, Tampa was threatening to score, so I stayed against the back of the end zone, waiting for a pass in front of me. A quick pass from Chris Simms to Michael Pittman, and I squeezed the trigger. Barely a frame shot, when **SMACK!!** The crowd groaned as Pittman got hammered backwards and airborne, flattened by Ray Lewis at the 1-yard line. Ray flexed his guns as the bowl of 60,000 buzzed in awe, reacting to The Hit as some guy asked me, "Did you get that?" I didn't know. I knew I flinched as Ray-Ray speared Pittman, and I felt my focus ring move as The Hit was landed.
For a minute, I didn't even want to look. But I had to. Looking at the preview screen, it seemed sharp, but that's on a 2-inch LCD screen. I found shade and zoomed in the detail. The elbow, the ball, the feet: they all looked sharp enough. So I showed the guy beside me. We couldn't help ourselves, busting our guts about the play. I haven't shot something that spontaneous in football in a long time. The Hit capped a good afternoon.
People have been posting comments in websites about The Hit all day, and it's been rerun in 3 different angles at full speed on ESPN. The Hit even made top honors in "Monday Night Countdown." But when I got home, I saw that the shot didn't even run. An editor told me when I returned that The Hit would run Tuesday, so perhaps it'll see the light of day, after all. It gets rough when you have a really good shoot, yet your stuff doesn't run, or run well. When you do well, don't you want people to see what you've created? A shooter's work is about image. It's displaying your vision, your creation, your talent, your pride.
When it can't be seen, part of you isn't seen as well, and it hurts. Perhaps that's why we aren't ever fully satisfied. If you don't care when your best stuff doesn't get shown, what does that say about your drive? Your passion? Your desire? Someone told me that I shouldn't complain. That the layout of the photos looked well. But I didn't argue with him, because he is waiting for his chance to retire. Maybe the day when I don't care is when I'll look for my way to hang 'em up, too.
I didn't even want to be there. I hate humidity, despise afternoon rains, and hate regions where there's never a chance of snow. Tampa was my last choice for travel, but one city I was told to make reservations for.
Making the most out of the situation, I discovered a neat place to stay - the Mainsail Suites on Eisenhower (right next to the airport) - which resembled a gated condominium comunity instead of a hotel. Complete with a full kitchen, I made a fresh romaine salad with blue cheese dressing and cooked pasta with italian sausage and vodka cream sauce. Check out tripadvisor.com; I wrote a full review with 12 photos!
Rob suggested that I move to his end zone if ever the Ravens threatened to score, but my favorite position is staying in back of the end zone. I figure, the team's goal is scoring, so why not move to a position where the players will head straight for me?
As the Ravens threatened to score, I was concerned since they drove for the far end zone. With this being perhaps the Ravens' first score, the prudent thing was to cover the opposite side from wherever Rob was. I tried calling him during a break in the action, as Baltimore's ball was on the 20 yard line. Rob didn't answer, so I left a message and scanned the shooters for him. Everyone wore an orange security vest, so I couldn't locate him. So I set up tent at the goal line, figuring that he'd be on the opposite side, where the Bucs' team was.
Two plays later, Jamal Lewis barrels past the Bucs defenders, running right past me for the team's first score. As I headed back to the far end zone, I realized that Rob was just 10 feet away, and shot the same play. "What are you doing on my side?" he asked. Well, I had forgotten that I was told to shoot from the Bucs' side! "That's my picture," he said, "and you have to stay on your side." I couldn't tell whether he was joking or not.
I asked another photographer about it, who said that I should send my best stuff and let the editor decide. We're supposed to send our best images for the readers, forsaking our personal feelings.
By halftime, I had shot every big play that the Ravens were involved in. I sweated like a pig (even forgetting my sunblock), but at least my camera was hotter than I was. I could only liken my luck to the 5.8 earthquake that hit the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, right before game time. Rob and I met inside the photographer's room where he downloaded his pictures from the first half. I told him that I wouldn't try sending until after the game, so he could send his Jamal score first.
By the middle of the third quarter, I couldn't believe it. Interceptions, runbacks, scores, sacks... I nailed everything. By that point, Tampa was threatening to score, so I stayed against the back of the end zone, waiting for a pass in front of me. A quick pass from Chris Simms to Michael Pittman, and I squeezed the trigger. Barely a frame shot, when **SMACK!!** The crowd groaned as Pittman got hammered backwards and airborne, flattened by Ray Lewis at the 1-yard line. Ray flexed his guns as the bowl of 60,000 buzzed in awe, reacting to The Hit as some guy asked me, "Did you get that?" I didn't know. I knew I flinched as Ray-Ray speared Pittman, and I felt my focus ring move as The Hit was landed.
For a minute, I didn't even want to look. But I had to. Looking at the preview screen, it seemed sharp, but that's on a 2-inch LCD screen. I found shade and zoomed in the detail. The elbow, the ball, the feet: they all looked sharp enough. So I showed the guy beside me. We couldn't help ourselves, busting our guts about the play. I haven't shot something that spontaneous in football in a long time. The Hit capped a good afternoon.
People have been posting comments in websites about The Hit all day, and it's been rerun in 3 different angles at full speed on ESPN. The Hit even made top honors in "Monday Night Countdown." But when I got home, I saw that the shot didn't even run. An editor told me when I returned that The Hit would run Tuesday, so perhaps it'll see the light of day, after all. It gets rough when you have a really good shoot, yet your stuff doesn't run, or run well. When you do well, don't you want people to see what you've created? A shooter's work is about image. It's displaying your vision, your creation, your talent, your pride.
When it can't be seen, part of you isn't seen as well, and it hurts. Perhaps that's why we aren't ever fully satisfied. If you don't care when your best stuff doesn't get shown, what does that say about your drive? Your passion? Your desire? Someone told me that I shouldn't complain. That the layout of the photos looked well. But I didn't argue with him, because he is waiting for his chance to retire. Maybe the day when I don't care is when I'll look for my way to hang 'em up, too.
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