Tuesday News Quickies
Sep. 16
5:44 am
Howdy, folks. First, a few answers from questions posted about yesterday’s FSU sidelines shoot.
- I shot in Aperture priority because I knew I wanted to shoot “wide open” all day. I had plenty of light, so shutter speed wasn’t really an issue—the challenge was white balance. When a play started in the sun, the white balance looked great, but as soon as a running back or receiver would wind up in the shade, everything turned blue.
- As for renting a lens; I wish I had time to rent the 200-400mm f/4 (my favorite all-around sports lens) from LensProToGo.com, but I only found out on Thursday night that I’d be shooting on Saturday, and leaving my house at 7:00 am Saturday, so no time to have one overnighted. I’m probably going to have to break down and just buy a 200-400mm, but they are just darn pricey (around $5,000. Yeeeeoch!).
- I had the question, “Besides white balance, what else would you have done to those shots?” I would have made sure that the players faces where well lit, so you could better see their expressions (I would either use Fill Light or a Screen layer and a Layer Mask). I also probably would have done some dodging and burning, and some spot sharpening as well. Not on every shot—only the best of the bunch.
- As for tracking the action: I just switched my D3 from Single to Continuous focus (the switch is right below the lens itself on the front of the camera), which I always do for any moving subject. Works great for tracking sports. I also set the camera to the 51-point focus mode (though I normally leave it at 21 point for day-to-day stuff).
- Here’s another question from yesterday; “…could you recommend a tripod head that lets you switch from horizontal to vertical FAST in a situation like this [shooting sports]?” When you use large lenses, they usually have a collar around them, which attaches to the monopod, which lets you instantly rotate your camera and lens by just loosening a knob. It’s ideal for sports shooting.
- Lastly, my FSU shooting buddy Mike Olivella posted a very detailed comment yesterday about how to get credentials to shoot a college game. Go check the comments from yesterday post for Mike’s insights. Absolutely invaluable (thanks Mike!). Also, check out Mike’s sports shooting portfolio here.
Hope that answers some of those questions. Now, onto some news quickies:
- Photoshop World instructor David Ziser did an interview with Donny Hoyle (the guy behind the popular “You Suck at Photoshop” series on YouTube.com. Take a quick moment and check out what David found out. (Here’s the link to it on David’s “Digital Pro Talk” blog).
- If you read German, check out my interview/tips article in the online version of the popular German magazine Spiegel, called Spiegel Online by clicking right here.
- My congratulations go out to Susan Hayre Thelwell (who I was lucky enough to have as my lab teaching assistant during my Santa Fe workshop last year), as she won an “Honorable Mention” in the Blurb.com photo book competition, for her photo book, “Mitchell’s Lot.” She’s a terrific photographer (and just a wonderful person), and if you’ve got a minute to take a look at some really great photography, click right here to see some of her beautiful images from the book. Way to go Susan!!!!
- When I did my “Top Five List for Everyting” list earlier this year (link), in one of the categories I listed my top five photographers I’d love to take a workshop from, and they included Jay Maisel, Karen Kuhen, Nevada Weir, Michael Greco, and Lou Manna. Well, one of my readers sent me this link to an article along those lines that absolutely made my day (here’s the link).
That’s it for today, folks. Have a kick-butt day! 
Re: why aperture priority? Many sports shooters stick with shutter priority, setting a speed fast enough to freeze the action. But Scott has the right idea.
It’s counterintuitive, but if you want to shoot at the fastest possible shutter speed for the available light, aperture priority is your choice.
Open the aperture all the way. Now the camera will constantly set the shutter speed to the fastest for the light.
If you’re not happy with the shallow depth of field of wide open, stop down to, say, f/5.6 or whatever. The camera will find the fastest shutter speed for that light and depth of field.
The beauty of this method is that often end up at a faster shutter speed than if you’d gone with shutter priority and chosen a compromise speed like 1/500.
Hey Scott, I guess you left my name of your top five list since we have been out shooting together a few times. I think Jeff Revell is one of the most encouraging instructors I’ve had while out shooting. He always says the right thing to make you feel better about what your trying to photograph. Especially when we were in Boston
Hey the shot of the guy getting tackled yesterday was awesome. He really got pounded. Great shots overall.
take care,
mike meyer
In relation to the rotating question:
If you aren’t using a lens with a rotating bracket, or it’s not very smooth - you should look here:
http://www.justritebracket.com
He makes absolutely wonderful flash brackets, but you can take the ‘rotator’ off via the quick release plate and attach it to a monopod or tripod. Very smooth and very fast to switch orientations.
This also works great when you want to to portrait orientation shots from a tripod and you need stability, like long exposures and such. It keeps the center of gravity above the tripod head, instead of it ‘hanging’ over to the side.
If you don’t want the whole bracket, I believe you would just want the ‘Rotating Platform’. But just email him with what you are looking for, and he’ll help you out. He is a great guy who designs and manufactures these things himself.
Also, on the lens rental front, you may want to look at:
http://www.borrowlenses.com/
There prices are a bit cheaper, and I’ve had great experience with there service. YMMV of course.
Hey Scott, as always great posting.
Give http://www.borrowlenses.com a try, if available you can have it shipped overnight like I did and it turned out awesome. Check out the blog on my link for a review.
Best.
Looks like the Guys form Spiegel Online just copied the text out of one of your books.
If I may chime in with another high quality, good service lens and equipment rental company I would recomment LensRentals.com
They have helped me in tough situations more times than I’d like to be in…
Richard
Hey Scott
It was very nice to read your interview with the Spiegel.
I usually buy the English Version of your books though, because I don’t like the way they translate your jokes
Viele Grüße aus Deutschland und alles Gute,
Chris
Hey Scott,
Two things. First, David’s interview was with Troy Hitch who plays the character Donnie Hoyle on You Suck at Photoshop. I listened to the interview last week and Donnie never makes an appearance, although it is an interesting interview none the less.
Second, I am going to jump on the dog pile for http://www.borrowlenses.com. They are fantastic and provide great Customer Service. I actually went with them when Glass and Gear couldn’t deliver on an order I had with them. I rented a 1DsMIII, a 40D, an Epson p-5000 and some lenses from them and it was a great experience. Maybe Larry Becker could negotiate something with them?
Hey Scott,
read you “Spiegel” article. Great tips, but is it copy and paste…it says ‘I told you in chapter 3 already…’? Never mind
Hey, and Stephany Cross isn’t doing the news anymore, is she? (http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/tech/0,1518,577144-5,00.html)
Anyway, love you tips and your blog posts. Are you coming to Germany some time for teaching?
Bye,
Felix
I’m going to have to second your list! More specifically though when you do get that workshop with Michael can I tag along (LOL). You know Iowa is a nice place to meet in the middle. All joking aside great info!
Hi Scott,
it is amazing to read something in “Spiegel” from you. I’m really a big fan of your work and the NAPP Folks. But I think, I’ll stay with the english versions of your books and your websites… there is more original Scott inside . Your blog, the Strobist, and sometimes Joe McNally are my everyday “must haves”. Now that my girlfriend is studying at the same University with me, we’ll find more time for sharing your knowledge. Amazing!
Hope you’ ll find the time… man you must be busy all day long with all the stuff going on… … to visit us someday in Germany… when you visit my little gallery on deviantart… hope you can see, that we’ve learned a lot from you… and Matt K. with his Lightroom Killertips… lessons, too
Hope you’ ll have that great sucess in Germany, too.
P.S. spent that 5000 bugs on that lens… your community loves to see the results…
Take care and all the best for you and your family
Best regards
Sebi
Scott, couldn’t resist coming back to your blog after our shoot Saturday.
Adding my 2 cents to some of the comments on sports photography, I almost always shoot with the following settings:
1) Aperture Priority - I stop the lens down to f2.8 and leave it there unless a specific shot requires depth of field.
2) ISO at 200 on bright, sunny days; ISO at 400 on days that are cloudy; ISO at 1600 or higher for night games or indoor sports, checking to make sure that the resulting shutter speed is close to 1/500th or better at f2.8.
3) Auto White Balance - any given sports setting, whether it’s a football field, a basketball court or any other facility is going to have a variety of lighting conditions which affect the white balance. Because of the varying lighting conditions inherent to a given setting, if you manually set your white balance with a card, rest assured that some of your photos will look fine but many will be off. Auto White Balance does a good job of compensating on the fly, and whatever minor corrections necessary can be performed in processing the images in Photoshop after the shoot.
4) Highest fps setting on the camera body.
5) Continuous auto-focus (the “C” setting on Nikons) with the 51-point focus mode so the camera can track whoever I initially focus on.
6) Image Quality on RAW & JPEG Fine - this is strictly personal as many friends I shoot with only use the Fine JPEG setting. If you’re firing off boatloads of frames in sequence, or if you have limited memory cards, you may not be able to use the RAW setting along with JPEG Fine. I usually fire off bursts of 4-6 frames at a time and have never overburdened the buffer. By having both RAW and JPEG’s on the card, I can clean up the JPEG files quickly in Photoshop (skipping the RAW conversion process) and turn those in to FSU in 300 dpi - 9X14 image size. If there is a need for larger files (for posters or for my personal prints), I work with the RAW files.
7) Biggest memory cards possible in the card slot(s) - I use an 8GB card and a 4GB card in my D3 simultaneously, with the 4 GB card serving as the overflow card. I use a 4GB card in my D300 and the same in my D2X. I keep extra 4GB and 2GB cards handy just in case I fill a card, which happens every now and then.
I hope I covered everything of importance.
Last but not least, I realize that lenses such as a 400mm f2.8 AF lens costs as much as a decent used car (~$8,000), a 300mm f2.8 runs around $5,000, etc. and thus are out of most people’s reach. I see many recommendations for lens rental sites. Let me toss out an alternative to buying new lenses or renting them - http://www.keh.com. KEH is a huge used camera/lens business out of Atlanta, GA. Their prices are incredibly affordable for what you get and their equipment is backed by very reasonable return policies in the event something doesn’t work. They are amazingly conservative in rating their equipment (e.g., New, Like New, Like New Minus, Excellent Plus, Excellent, Bargain & Ugly) and they go through every piece of equipment with a fine tooth comb to make sure it is in good working order. I have purchased many, many camera bodies and lenses from KEH, including many that were rated “Bargain”. You would think these items had been subjected to minimal, caring use (Scott, the 300mm I loaned you was a “Bargain” lens from KEH, and for those who would like to see its condition, go back to Scott’s blog post from yesterday and look at the photo of Scott with his camera - that’s the 300mm KEH rated “Bargain”). To give you an example of pricing, my 400mm f2.8 AF lens cost me $3,700, a far cry from almost 8 grand.
Hi Scott!
Nice Pictures and thanks for the details on how you took them.
BTW: I just watched the show a minute ago and i was shocked seeing Matt picking on you all the time!
Keep up the good work!
Mirko
Scott,
your shots are very good, I shoot sports mostly ice hockey and well its really hard, You do such a fantastic job, and your blogs posts help me improve my photos, such as the one today, where you explain what u would have done differently, its such a help,
have a great day, and thank you for you all your hard work on the blog
brett bouwer
cudenver, Photo major
A few questions -
On a D3/700, is there any noticeable quality difference between ISO 200 and 800 (or even 1600?). So if you want a fast shutter would you constrain the ISO to be at that level or above? (At what ISO does the D300 start degrading?)
Would the extra reach of the 1.5x crop factor on a D300 be worthwhile in this situation?
Rather than the 200-400mm f/4 why not the 70-200mm f/2.8 with the 1.7 (or 2.0) teleconverter. I’ll bet you’ve got those in your gear bag
Just wondering … I’m starting to think about what gear I want to save up for to catch the birds.
Thanks for the answer about the monopod head/tripod collar!
Mau
It was great seeing Matt give you some grief on Photoshop User TV today. (2d edition) LOL
You see, you reap what you sow…
All these times you’ve picked on Matt and now he turns around and picks on you!
In the mortal words of Rodney King “Can’t we just all get along!!!”
BTW doesn’t Scriv wear headphones so that he can hear (uhm not hear?) that the Microphones aren’t turned on? Test, one, two….
Hi Scott,
I don’t yet own a D3 but aspire to do so, actual hands on use may answer my question for me, but why did you use HSC for more reach, rather than cropping later in Lightroom or Photoshop? Is it just the desire to get it right in camera and save time later, or is there more too it than that?
Thanks in anticipation, love your blog,
Richard.
Hey Scott,
Not related to your blog and I know you are a part of the dark side (Nikon) :p. But I hope you mention something about the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II on your next post. Here is the link http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/index.html
Geez, The one time you tell someone that their shot is going to suck and they never let you forget it.
Scott,
Recently you shot the college football game and used a 1.4 teleconverter with your Nikon camera and lens. Could you give more insight into how it worked for you and any drawbacks that there with it. My local camera store strongly discourages using one.
Does NAPP have any clothing for sale with the NAPP logo?
On a closing note I enjoy the photoshopusertv program. It is entertaining and very informative. If the guys didn’t like and respect you they wouldn’t pick on you. And it is obvious they like and respect you a lot.
I must say that the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 is definitely a sweet lens. I only wish that Canon would have a simular offering (but I am certain my wife would think otherwise - $$$). It truly is a mark against the Canon EF-lens lineup. The Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L is just too slow for most of the sports I shoot (Indoor Track, Tennis and Hockey). Another reason why we are seeing more Nikon on the sidelines of sporting events.