June 19th, 2013

O Me of Little Faith0
neil posted in Photos, bikes, Neil, Sports, 5Dmk2 on March 16th, 2010

I’d left Dave (Zzathras) and Dave (Davefitch) further down the hill and headed upwards through the forest. The pack and head in my backpack making me sweat through the Buffalo that had been cold back in the flat. The juniours were descending already and I had’nt found a worthy spot. I wanted views, distance and perspective. Just to wet my whistle (and rest my legs) I set the head up and made a few exposures of the first juniour riders at an “ok” looking corner. Camera hard against the ground to keep the course tape out of the way, focus locked and panning. I cursed myself for a lazy fool and packed the kit up again to resume climbing to the vantage point I was sure awaited. Why was I wasting my time with this “small fry” stuff, I should be making “epic” pictures somewhere! In hindsight, of course, I much preferred these images to some of the epics I tried to set up. It was too soon I reached the top of the course, empty handed and sweating so I could’nt see through my glasses. There was no epic vantage point. I tried one location slightly further down and got peanuts. Frustrated, I decided to go with the only shot I had in my head. At the very bottom of the course was a well built jump sure to attract spectators. I could light the jumping rider and pull back to include the fans.
When I got there, I discovered fans were thin on the ground, but I was knackered and out of lucozade and haribo. Screw it, I would work the angles and try to find a picture.
The result: Meh. However I’m “inspired” to keep lugging that darn light to other DH races and see if I can do better.

Faces: Meadows Marathon 20100
neil posted in Photos, Sports, 5Dmk2 on March 9th, 2010

The organisers seemed to be happy to see it all come together:

The trouble with the kitchen sink0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, Sports on February 19th, 2009

I contacted Edinburgh University Ladies Basketball team with a view to photographing one of their upcoming games. Basketball has always been one of my favourite sports to shoot and the one that has benefitted most from getting familiar with remote flash techniques. The last time I shot basketball I had a single flash and had to make compromises accordingly. I thought that now I had a bigger aresenal, it would be fun to go back and shoot it the way I’d always wanted to.

This meant hauling the “kitchen sink” loadout of four strobes, stands, batteries and two cameras to the game, setting them up and deciding how I would shoot the game. As I had four strobes and two cameras, I decided to try to shoot both ends of the game. I set up two strobes in a left right front lit combination to create dependable lighting at the other end of the arena. I would shoot that end with the 70-200mm and extender from under the key. On the near end I wanted to get a bit more artistic and had one side light and one long throw backlight from the halfwayline. This would let me shape they players without popping flashes in their faces and I would use the ambient as fill.

This did’nt work. The 5D’s autofocus struggled in the dimly lit gym through the teleconverter and long lens and a 16-35mm was too wide to cover the basket effectively. I eventually swapped to using the 1D on the 70-200mm and forgetting about the other end of the court. A spectator approached me in a timeout and informed me that one of my flashes had been knocked over in the warm-up and had lost its batteries and with all the equipment faff… I was missing pictures. If I had been shooting with a single flash and camera, there would have been no fiddling and I could have diagnosed problems faster. This just goes to show that the more equipment you have, the harder you have to work.

After halftime I decided to nail the near end of the arena with good reliable light and use the 1D’s splendiferous autofocus to pull out peak action shots. I used the same side light and long throw back light, but with another strobe high in the balcony above the camera for fill. This let me get away from the horrid hall lights altogether, immediately producing good images and letting me concentrate on capturing moments. The problem was, with the side and backlight, I had to be very careful of what angles I used to shoot the game, for every flash on the side line there is a cone you can’t shoot into without flare. Next time I’ll think a little flexibility into my setup but keep it simple. Lesson learned.

Peaking0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, Sports, Climbing on August 11th, 2008

Dave Dave tackles Fraser
Fraser Fraser
The weather looked grim for our weekend away. Front after wet front lined up in the atlantic to make camping a misery and climbing impossible. After a colossal faff on the first day we managed to do some trad climbing and bouldering. Early saturday morning looked promising but we all knew the rain was coming. A reconnaisance of the cave we had planned to sleep in was spent being eaten alive by midges and the idea was abandoned. The rain swept in when we met Jamie and Pablo and drove us into the famous Grindelford cafe. A pint of (embarrasing) instant coffee later we checked out the nearby quarry before following a climbing guidebook to some dry limestone. We spent a happy few hours there with epic traverses and battles to climb above head height. Oddly I was happiest with the “look” of the photos I took in this wet dimly lit environment. I used two strobes, both in freezer bags, mosly in line with the sun, just at differing angles. The limestone reflected the beams nicely onto faces but left an “enhanced ambient light” feel to the images. Once sapped we retired for the evening to chip butties, pies and ale.
Jamie on limestone Dry limestone
We woke to the reek of unwashed bodies and wet gear, purified the air by frying bacon and making coffee. After packing camp we hiked several miles to a crag set atop a boggy hill. The wind was intense and time short. I discovered I climb better if there is a photo to be had at the top. Some precarious and brief photos were made before we had to run to meet the car and womenfolk. Many pages of photos here.
 

Lacrosse Scotland0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, Sports on August 3rd, 2008

Tournament pictures up as soon as photobox wakes back up. They’ll be up at:

http://www.photoboxgallery.com/BUSA

A pleasing little flare and other tricks0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, Sports on March 10th, 2008

Andrew Blackie goes crosswise off the big kicker at hillend dry ski slope
A chunk of the Edinburgh Strobists group and I arranged a shoot with Edinburgh University Ski and Snowboard Club’s freestyle team. This meant a small arsenal of equipment to work with and three dedicated snowboarders, plus others who happened to want photographs of themselves jumping. Irony was not in short supply as halfway through the shoot, it began snowing. This allowed the snowboarders to gain speed but meant they were performing their tricks with eyes closed. It was an interesting test for equipment (no reported failures) and techniques. I don’t use a medium length zoom so after some long telephoto shots (like the above) I switched to my wide and could’nt get my flashes out of a reasonable picture. This meant I had to deal with significant flare, however in most cases I feel it enhances the photo rather than ruins it.
My lighting setup was one strobe high on one side of the jump for backlight and fill. Set to half power and 50mm zoom to give a good strong light on the target (ISO 400 f5.6) and another strobe at ground level halfway down the landing aimed upwards on identical settings. This gave a two point front and back light which allowed shadow (and thus depth) on the subject while neatly isolating them. It was designed for a long telephoto shot from the backboard of the landing area, however it worked suprisingly well at other angles too. I used 1/50th of a second for shutter speed to partially expose the ambient, creating more atmosphere and better subject seperation. As a result it allowed flashes triggered by other people into my exposure, generally with pleasing effect such as the flare above. Check out Hong Kong Phooey, Fishsuckeggs, Bassqee, ZZathras, and The Flying Pie’s photostreams for other angles and flash setups on the same action.
There is a youtube video of the meet up here.
Mark Watson goes inverted in snow

Table tennis and mud0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, Sports on February 28th, 2008

Alan serves up for Simon

My round trip of sports union clubs happened on the SU presidents own this week. I was rewarded with the enthusiasm of two players (including the aforementioned president) who were happy to play the same shot again and again. Always a little quicker than my flash would recycle! I was using ceiling bounce on manual mode to trigger a SB800 slave. I used the slave to backlight and highlight while my bounce flash filled the world with soft but dull light. It did the job but revealled far too much of a rather dull background.

Working with lighting has changed how I view a “perfect” exposure and made me think more dramatically about my use of light. Even with available light I’m interested in pushing the boundaries a bit, unless its for news print. News print has the unfortunate consequence of printing shadows and darker sections like mud. Have a look at David Alan Harvey’s images sometime, indisputably good but their low key low light charm would be lost entirely if printed on newspaper. One thing I have learned to do is think about the medium of publication as I’m shooting. This does go against the advice “shoot only for yourself” that aims to prevent a “rut” developing, but it is still something to take into consideration. My current strategy is to shoot “bankers” meaning “in the bank” images before moving on to the fun stuff. I think it was Chris Johns who said “If every single one of your images is perfectly in focus and perfectly exposed, you’re not pushing yourself”. Meantime, enjoy the shots here.

Simon Messenger SU President

My weekly sports post, more Busa knockouts action0
neil posted in Neil, Sports on February 20th, 2008

Men’s volleyball action in St Leonards gym. The knockouts action comes thick and fast, I had to be at a volleyball game 45mins after the volleyball started. The complicating factor is both sports are best shot with an off camera strobe (maybe someday I’ll find a sport in a gym with actual light…..but I’d probably still light it just on general principles) and it takes time to break down and haul ass to the next fixture. So, I did’nt. I ran from St Leonards to the Pleasance late at night with camera gear on my back clutching a dark pole that glowed ominously. Everything held together suprisingly well and I was set up in time for the third quarter of the netball. There were about a billion lines on the court floor so I had to ask which were the lines for volleyball. The girls looked at the sweating beardy man in a smartwool hat “You mean netball right?” Yeah…..

If at first you don’t succeed…0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, Sports on February 10th, 2008

Use pocketwizards! My Canon ST-E2 stopped triggering (or the flash stopped firing) so the above was shot with my trusty SB800 triggered by radio. It was nice to have another try at nailing the “goalkeeper surrounded by backlit droplets” shot. I’m becoming a big fan of swimming and waterpolo as sports to shoot. The action is big, dramatic and when its really kicking, your subject is surrounded by a halo of wonderful intricate shapes of splashed water. When frozen, it looks like abstract sculpted ice
The Edinburgh University Swimming and Waterpolo club had is anniversary competition this saturday combining swimming races and waterpolo games pitting old members against the current crop. More photos here.

Almost!0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, Sports on January 24th, 2008

Shooting the Scottish Universities league qualifier, Edinburgh vs St Andrews. First half the Sports Union’s video camera was taped to the top of my 70-200mm. Second half was trained tight on Edinburgh goalie. The aim was to merge stills and video so that the video would roll but freeze to the image I made of the keeper in action. A Canon strobe was snooted and placed left of the goal to cross light the water, set to over expose one stop.

Edinburgh Uni goalie stopping rare St Andrews shot

I did’nt QUITE get it. It should be good enough for a proof of concept though. More here.

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