Author Archives: Michael Willems

And another few sports tips

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Since I just got back from shooting a junior Lacrosse game, here’s another few quick tips.

And they do not apply just to Lacrosse!

  • As said yesterday: look for action and emotion.
  • If you are shooting through Plexiglas, shoot straight through it and get close to it. You may need to bend down to minimize reflections from behind you.
  • Bring a soft cloth to clean that Plexiglas.
  • Avoid shooting from the penalty box in pro games of hockey and lacrosse. In junior games you may be able to get away with it without getting hit by projectiles. Safety first, though…
  • Bring bottled water and a snack.
  • Indoors, shoot manual. Tonight I shot at 1600 ISO, f/2.8, 1/320th second. Pretty typical values for an arena.
  • And as also said yesterday: shoot a lot. It took me 400+ shots to get enough good ones: I aim to submit 6-10 images.

Here’s one I like:

Quick sports checklist

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Inspired by yesterday’s Rugby game and tomorrow’s Lacrosse game, both of which I shot/will shoot for newspapers, here’s a little checklist for the 1D Mark IV and similar cameras for sports like this:

What to bring:

  • Camera
  • Backup camera
  • Spare batteries
  • Spare memory cards
  • Rain protection
  • Pens, notepad/paper
  • Business cards
  • Assignment sheet (so you can prove you are official)
  • Mobile phone

Camera setup:

  • Continuous drive shutter
  • AI Servo/AF-C mode
  • One focus spot
  • For these sports, custom function III-4 set to “1”, AF Tracking priority (so that a player who comes in front does not quickly cause focus to shift)
  • On my 70-200 2.8L IS lens, IS on, but set to position 2 (that means, suitable for panning). If your IS/VR lens has only “on” and “off”, select “off”.
  • Record all images to both cards (the “1”-series cameras have this option for extra safety)
  • Size you want

As for exposure, the need is for fast shutter speeds. 1/320th or faster.

While there are several ways to achieve that, I do it as follows:

  • Outdoors, I use aperture mode wide open (f/2.8) and ISO as needed, say 200 ISO, to get super fast shutter speeds. Outdoors I can often get settings like 200 ISO, 1/4000, f2.8; or 200 ISO, 1/2000, f4.
  • Indoors I generally use manual mode after metering and checking histograms. I am not afraid to go to 1600 ISO to get to fast-enough shutter speeds. Inside I can often use settings like 1600 ISO, 1/400, f2.8.
  • I could also use manual and enable auto-ISO, but I have not used auto ISO in an important assignment. I like to set my own.

Positions are sports-specific: more later. But a golden rule: follow the ball; follow the action; follow emotion. In that order!

One more tip: shoot the jersey numbers and the roster, so you can write the right cutlines. I was not happy that rugby players do not have the numbers on the front of their Jerseys.

And one last tip: shoot a lot. A “keeper ratio” of one in 10 to one in 30 is not unusual in sports. And with digital, it’s free.

I hope that helps all you budding sports photographers.

Exiftool, a great exif tool

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A tip for y’all today. If you take digital pictures, get Exiftool.

Exiftool is a free utility by Phil Harvey that allows you to see (and even alter, but seeing is the main thing) the entire range of EXIF data embedded in your image.  Not just what your camera maker wants you to see – no: everything. Hundreds of fields, like the exact zoom setting of your lens. The focus spot you used. Much, much more.

ExifTool is a command line utility and it’s free, from here (link).

(Additional tip: open a command line (terminal) window, type “exiftool” and a space, then drag the image you want to know about  from your desktop into that command line window.  This avoids the need totype long complex filenames.)

Shooting Rugby

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I have never shot Rugby before, so I thought I would enjoy this morning’s newspaper shoot, a high school rugby game. And I did.

Here’s a shot. Of course it is one that I did not send to the newspaper, since I only just shot this and the paper is not out yet, and it is bad practice to trump your own customers. Click for larger:

For Rugby I used the 70-200 2.8IS L lens on the Canon 1D Mark IV.

I set the camera to continuous focus (“AI Servo”) and used a custom setting to give preference to tracking, not to refocusing on objects that appear in between. I used one focus point, with expansion to surrounding point.

The camera produced many sharp shots – most of them by far, so I was more than impressed with this first sports shoot with the Mark IV.

But my main learning was about the sport itself. Here’s what I learned:

  1. The sidelines are a great place to be.
  2. The sun needs to be behind the photographer on a bright day – and pay attention to where it falls onto the subjects (face is better than back of head!)
  3. 70-200 is a great lens for this sport
  4. Get action shots. There’s not much action in a school game – in that sense it is like football or cricket: periods of boredom with the odd burst of action.
  5. Get emotion.
  6. Get colours.
  7. Use fast shutter speeds (I used 200 ISO with the camera in aperture mode and set to f/2.8 mostly – leading to 1/3000th second shutter speeds).
  8. Get the action while you can – 15 minutes times two with only occasional action is no guarantee of a shot/

Oh, and the team in the red jerseys won by a 10-0 margin, so you can see why the others were very determined to stop that ball.

That was quick

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I am impressed. Remember I mentioned Inkpress and how well they reacted to the warped paper?

Well, less than two days later, a box with lots of new paper just arrived via FedEx. Now that’s service!

And I am back to printing. And I note the new boxes have cardboard under and on top of the paper, and the paper is entirely flat, so I should have no more issues. Well done, Inkpress!

Three-Dee in flatland

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Photographs are like flatland. There are just two dimensions. No depth.

That is why the pictures you take of the Grand Canyon or Cologne Cathedral look so boring when you see them at home. When you are on location, your brain gets clues from your stereoscopic vision, and from you moving, and even from sound. In a picture, all of those are missing.

The solution: use relative size. When a close object is really close, it looks large, and the background looks smaller. It is this that tells your brain that there is depth in the picture.

Like here, on the Golan Heights:

Every time something jumps out of the picture, it was taken like this:

  1. With a wide angle lens (say, 10-20mm on a crop camera; 16-35mm on a full-frame camera),
  2. With the photographer very close to the close object (in this case the barrel).

Another example:

As you see, this also distorts angles, which can give a pleasing dramatic effect.

And one more:

So if you want depth, zoom out and get close.

Let's start printing.

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Printing is more important than ever. We can now make great photos and print them professionally at home, impressing everyone. And we should! Printing is the way to really enjoy your photography.

But it is, or can seem like, a kind of black magic – an art almost as much as a science. Perhaps because of that, I was asked recently to talk about my print workflow. And since I just spent the entire last two days printing 13×19 prints, this seems a good time to start.

“Start” is the word: this will be several posts – not one.

And what I want to start with is the distinction of pigment inkjet printers (such as the Canon 9500) versus the more common dye inkjet prints (like the Canon 9000).

Dye printers:

  • Are common and affordable.
  • Can print to any paper.
  • Have ink that bonds with the paper.
  • Produce very bright colours.

Pigment printers:

  • Are more costly.
  • Can only use certain papers.
  • Deposit their ink on the paper instead of bonding with it.
  • Produce prints that dry a bit more quickly.
  • Most importantly, tend to produce prints that last. 200-300 years is common, while dye prints often last just 20-30 years.

I use a Pigment printer (the Canon 9500). This means I am restricted with regard to the paper I can use. I use Canon papers and other Hahnemülle papers (the ones that say “Pigment” on the box). These are not as bright as other papers (off-white), but for a good reason: they last and stay the same way. I would rather have a slightly yellowish paper that will be the same for centuries than a bright white print whose ink and paper will both fade in more decades.

This is not a law. Some dyes wortk very well and are long-lasting. So do your research. But you will find that today, pigment printers are a great option if you want prints that last, while dye printers offer affordable impressiveness for today.

I know – I am simplifying. So do your research and decide what to do. Google is your friend.

Service Done Right

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Yesterday’s post was about Canon’s new CPS (Canon Professional Services) program that apparently decreases service level, introduces a lot of red tape, and at the same time changes the cost from $0 to $250. I may be mistaken, but I do not think so, and Canon has not replied to my email about this.

So let me also share an example of a company that does service right.

I have a pigment printer, not dye (namely the Canon 9500). That means I need to select paper carefully (not all papers can be used with a dye printer – in fact few can. Read the box to make sure). I use Canon papers made by Hahnemülle, and I use Inkpress Pro papers from www.inkpresspaper.com – in particular Inkpress Pro Silky, which I really like. My standard paper!

But the last two boxes I bought contained only warped paper. Obviously a storage problem with the retailer, or perhaps old paper. In any case, this ruined half my prints: they touch printer rollers and smudge ink all over.

I went to the web site at www.inkpresspaper.com and filled in a simple form. Minutes later, a VP from Inkpress emailed me this:

How many sheets was it? Please provide us with your address- we will send you a replacement asap.

Now that is service done right. Not only does it help me with my immediate issue (I only print large, and 13×19″ paper costs a few dollars!) but it ensures that I will remain a customer, and that I say nice things about Inkpress and their paper.

I cannot understand why every vendor does not understand this, but I do, and Inkpress does as well.

A quick product shot

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Today, I am sharing a quick product shot.

Here’s the shot, of my “nifty fifty”, a 50mm f/1.4 lens:

And here’s how I shot it:

  • I used a Canon 5D camera on manual at 100 ISO, f/4 and 1/125th second.
  • The lens was on a table with a white sheet of Bristol Board underneath.
  • The background was an improvised white background (I used a reflector).
  • I used a 430EX flash with a Honl grid, diagonally above the lens, as the main light. The grid causes the dropoff from the centre.
  • I used a 430EX flash with a Honl blue gel and a Speed Gobo to illuminate the background.
  • I used e-TTL to fire the flashes, from my 7D’s pop-up flash (the 7D will support this, like Nikon cameras. On other Canon cameras I need to use a 580 EX flash on the camera to drive the remote flashes).
  • I set a flash ratio of 8:1 a:b, where A was the main flash and B was the product flash.

All of which looked like this:

Simple. It only took a few minutes to set up, which is good since I was tired.

One tip: when shooting this type of product clean it well using a soft brush, or else you will spend hours in Photoshop or Lightroom aftereard, cleaning dust.