Category Archives: Learning

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.

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.

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.

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.

A portrait with three speedlites

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Here’s a portrait I just shot.

I used the Canon 1D Mark IV with a 580 EX II flash on the camera, used only to drive three 430 EX II flashes using remote e-TTL. This is easier than ever: with the right knowledge and tools it takes mere seconds to arrange.

So here’s how I did it.

I used a 50mm prime lens (meaning 65mm effective focal length) with the camera on manual, 100 ISO, f/5.6 at 1/125th second.

The lights were:

  • One 430 speedlite, the key light, is on camera left one foot away from the subject and is mounted on a cheap light stand. It is equipped with a new Honl Traveller 8 softbox.
  • The second, the accent light, also on a light stand, is one foot behind the subject, is aimed forward at her, and has a Honl 1/4″ grid fitted.
  • The third flash, aimed at the wall, is mounted on its little plastic light stand and has a green Honl gel fitted to its speed strap in order to add a splash of colour to the background.
  • I set an 8:1 A:B ratio to stop the accent lights from becoming too bright (the key light was A). I also used – 1/3 stop Flash Exposure Compensation, since the initial frame showed the face a bit bright.

That setup was:

Simple and effective. And if I say so myself, I think the green gelled background accent was an inspired choice.

Today, with small flashes and modifiers, using TTL, you can do professional studio work in no time.

Setting up a sunny morning

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That is, creating one with studio lights.

This is one of the things Joseph Marranca and I taught our students at the Advanced Lighting workshop we held in Mono, Ontario this past weekend.

Start with a normal day. Lit by available light, that looks like this when you expose for a proper background:

Not much foreground, of course. That is why we add studio lights. The trick is which ones, and how.

One goes outside, aimed at the model through a grid, and is equipped with a CTO (colour temperature orange) gel. That makes the day look like a sunny morning.

Then we add another studio light, indoors, on camera right, with an umbrella.

So now we have:

Which when done gives us one of those “Folgers moments”:

(On Sunday May 23rd, Joseph and I are doing another workshop in Mono, this time a one-day one, which builds on the light practiced in the previous workshop.)

The importance of being saturated

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…as in colour. Today:

I took this picture yesterday and it shows a few things:

  • Lower the background’s brightness = increase its saturation
  • To add excitement, add a splash of colour!
  • In particular, add red to the green and blue you find in nature
  • Dramatic lighting = contrasty lighting

Five speedlites were used in the production of this picture. Four on the sides and one behind me. they were fired via pocketwizards.

In any shoot, the worst thing a photographer can encounter is bright light.

Why?

Here’s why. Think along.

  • The available (ambient) light will be fill light.
  • That, and the fact we want these saturated colours, means it will have to be darker (say, two stops darker) than the main, flash light.
  • That means the flash light has to overpower it (by, say, two stops).
  • That means the flash has to be two stops brighter than the sun.

That’s why we call this “nuking the sun”.

For which we needed five flashes, four on the sides and one behind the camera. Firing at full power, mostly.

(That much because ambient is controlled by ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Shutter speed cannot go beyond 1/200th second (or whatever your synch speed is).  ISO is low already. So aperture is the only way to affect the background.  But Aperture also affects flash exposure so for each stop you close the aperture you need to double flash power.)

Last chance

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There’s still some space left on the weekend workshop Joseph Marranca and I are arranging this weekend in beautiful Mono, Ontario, an hour north of Toronto: but you need to be quick.

Two days of intense learning about lighting: we will teach you studio lights as well as small flashes; one as well as many; traditional portrait lighting as well as edgy lighting like this:

If interested, go here right now and sign up online while you can. You’ll go home with some portfolio pictures.

And for the rest of you, I shall post some pictures after the weeknd.

Landing

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At this point, ladies and gentlemen, please ensure that your trays are stowed and your seats are in the upright position. Please ensure that all your luggage is securely stowed: heavier items underneath the seat in front of you, lighter items in the overhead bins bla blabla  bla shifted in flight blablabla

I have a point in telling this and showing this picture of my friend James arriving in Toronto last Saturday night. Coming up tomorrow: for those of you with a stabilised (VR/IS) lens with TWO positions, what is the difference? When do you you which one? More on that tomorrow.

Now first I go take a few pictures of old Montréal, if I have the energy and my knee holds out and it does not start raining.