My Strobe Setup

A quick diagram of how I have been setting up my strobes. As the budget allows, I hope to be able to add a couple of more in a effort to cover the whole court.

Freezing Action at 1/300 of a Second (or even 1/250).

This photo was taken at ISO 320, Shutter speed of 1/250 and with an f-stop of 3.5. How did I freeze the action with a slow shutter of 1/250?

One word.  Strobes.  Or in the case of this image, 2 Alienbee 800s and 1 Canon 580exII on camera.  

I shoot with a Canon 1dmkIII and it has a maximum shutter synch speed of 1/300. This is the fastest shutter speed I can use with a flash. Faster shutter speeds will result in a progressively larger and larger black band on the edge of the image. This is the portion of the image that did not get exposed by the flash. It's a bit complicated and not necessary in this discussion.

So, how can I freeze action at 1/300 if this is the maximum shutter speed I can use. Well, you have to think of it like this. The shutter speed won't be your true shutter speed, but rather, your flash duration becomes the shutter speed.

Here's how I do it. I set up my camera to the f-stop I want to use. Say I am using my 70-200 2.8 IS lens. Sure, I could shoot at 2.8, but then it leaves me a very small depth of field of focus and thus, little room for focusing errors. If I can stop my f-stop down to f 4 or so, I can get more of the player in focus and a bit more leeway in the event my focus is not exact. So, now I have my shutter speed of 1/300 and my f stop of 4, that leaves only ISO to set.

In this example, I will start with ISO 640. So, what I do is take a picture of the players warming up and see what I get with ISO 640, 1/300 and f 4. If I can see players or the court, I dial down the ISO until all I can see is a very, very faint image or completely black image. Oh, I should say that this is all done with the flash turned off, or your trigger turned off.

Once I get a black or nearly black frame, I'll turn my flash (or trigger on) and fire a few images. My goal here is to get a properly exposed image by adjusting the power of the flash. I can do this by turning the flash power up or by going direct instead of bouncing flash.

Since we know that without the flash, I am getting a completely underexposed image, we can be assured that the only light hitting the sensor is from the flash. The neat thing about this is that the flash only fires for a very brief moment. For example, with my AlienBee 800 Strobe, it has a flash duration of about 1/1100 of a second at full power. This is plenty fast enough to stop most action. So, by using my AB800 at full power, the light source flashing on and off at 1/1100 of a second becomes the shutter speed because during the rest of the time the shutter is open, no light is effectively hitting it.

In the next article, I will go into some more detail on my flash/strobe setup.  

Why Strobe?

Most high school gyms and nearly all middle school gyms have terrible lighting. Why? A couple of reasons immediately come to mind.

1. Most gyms don't have an adequate amount of lighting for photographing high speed sports. They are dim. Sometimes you can't even get ISO 6400 and 1/500 @ 2.0. This is not good.

2. Most gyms use lights that cycle through slightly different colors and in addition, may cycle in intensity. Now, say your gym has 30 lights. Each of them are doing their own thing. This is not good for photographers. We prefer lights of constant color and output.

The above shot is typical for a high school gym. I was able to get is0 3200, at f2 and 1/500. I think anything slower than 1/500 is just to slow for high school basketball. Slower, and you start getting lots of motion blur. This is unacceptable.

You can see that my f-stop was already very big at f2 and my ISO was at 3200. You can see that these settings are at the limits or nearly at the limits of my equipment, the Canon 135 2.0 and MK3. Sure, I could go to ISO 6400, but that's about it. I could go to the 85 1.8 lens, but these additional settings won't get me much more headroom. So, my choices are: a. be happy with above image or b. bring my own light and strive for better. I chose "b."

Strobes increase the amount of light and are of constant temperature. If you have enough strobe power, they are capable of completely overpowering the ambient lighting in a gym. This is good for several reasons. Overpowering the house lighting helps eliminate your problems with white balance. This power is also going to be the key in allowing you to freeze the action with a shutter speed of 1/300 or even 1/250. Amazing but true. Tune in next time for more about freezing action at 1/300 of a second.

Some Basketball Strobe Work

I have been experimenting with Alienbee Strobes at basketball games lately. Over the next few posts, I'll share what I have been doing, including my setups, and share my results.

First the results.

I think these look pretty good.

SEC Football--Learning the ropes

I recently got to shoot a Division I college football game between two Southeastern Conference (SEC) teams. For those of you not familiar with SEC football, I will only say that it is as close to NFL football as you can get without actually paying the players. The SEC has some of the best teams in the country (currently 3 of the top 10 in the BCS rankings are SEC teams) and more than a few of these young men will go on to play on Sundays.

I was fortunate enough to get a media pass to shoot the game between Mississippi State University Bulldogs and the University of Tennessee Volunteers at Neyland Stadium. I've covered some "big" high school football games, but this is clearly several levels up from that. So, here are some tips I gleaned from the shooting the game.

First, you need access. In my case, I was given a red media pass attached to some elastic string and hung that around my neck. You get the pass from the media company you are representing. Next, you find the media entrance at the stadium. In this case, I had a friend who had done it before guide me to the right gate. After going through the gate, we walked to the media room. When I went into the media room, I was given a giant red sticker to wrap around my leg in exchange for the paper and elastic tag hanging from my neck. I did not know where to wear the sticker at first, but then in big black letters, the sticker was printed with instructions stating the sticker should be wrapped around your lower leg. How about that. Simple instructions. I peeled the backing and wrapped.

The media room is where all of the photographers and reporters hang out. Want to know why they hang out there? They serve free food. No, it's not 4-star cuisine, but it was tasty and filling. I had hamburger steak, baked potato, salad and carrot cake. Next, they have several large screen Hi-Def TVs on the walls so you can check out the other games going on around the country. Lastly, they have lots of high-speed internet connections so the news guys can kill some time browsing the 'net while the more serious types start uploading some stories. Me, I just ate and watched everyone else, trying to blend.

After finishing up dinner, we proceeded to the field to catch some pre-game warmups. Most of the serious photogs stayed behind to browse the 'net some more or get seconds, but for rookies like me, it was straight to the field. Here, I grabbed a few shots of the players goofing around and stretching out, even before they put their pads on. Some were having a good time and others had their ipods turned up loud and were starting to focus on the work ahead. After getting a few frames, I realized I was just enjoying being there and there really was not a lot of stuff going on that was worth shooting. So, I just walked around and took the atmosphere in so that I would not soon forget it.

As game time approached, the old photo and media guys starting coming out and getting their pre-game images. The nice thing about this time is a lot of the guys have their helmets off for awhile and you can get their mugs without the helmet bars hiding them.

Just like in high school football, the entire field is surrounded by a dotted line. All media should stay behind this line or risk punishment from one of the numerous security folks, or more embarrisingly, from another photog whose sight lines you just blocked. Being my first time and all, I obeyed the dotted line as if it were the Berlin Wall and did not attempt any illegal crossings. Other than that though, you pretty much have free access all over the field and can stake out your bit of pitch to shoot from. I moved around all night long, following the action. Wear comfortable shoes and clothes if you are going this route.

Apparently the dotted line does not have the same limitations to the TV media, especially the sound guys with the parabolic mikes, who are probably the same ones who cut in line in the grocery store or steal your parking space. I wished I had a small dart gun to move those guys a bit.

Normally, I shoot with a 300 2.8 and put it on a monopod. I left the pod at home for this game figuring it would help me move faster and I think I was a bit more agile without it and able to move through some of the sideline crowds faster. Being my first game, I had enough adrenaline flowing that I did not need the pod's assistance.

Soon enough it was half-time and since I knew someone on the UT Pride of the Southland Marching Band, I stayed out to shoot a bit of their performance. After getting a few images of my buddie's daughter, I headed to the media room again. Guess what? More food (chicken fingers and hotdogs and more carrot cake) and drinks and goofing off with a very few serious reporters and photogs uploading stories and photos. I saw one guy from US Presswire uploading some images after tweaking them in Aperture. Not that I was spying or anything, but just checking out how the working pros did it.

After downing a few fingers, it was back to the field to catch the players coming back out and warming-up again. Unfortunately, before I knew it, the game was over and I was heading back out of the stadium. I decided not to stick around for the post-game press conference, but had I stayed for it, it would have been held in the media room, which also had a small theater for these conferences.

The stadium lighting was of course very good. I probably should learn how to do a cusotm white balance, but until then, I'll just fix my images in post. This game started before sun down and I was initially shooting in AV (Aperture Priority) mode, shooting at 2.8 with an ISO to get my shutter speed up to about 1/1000 or so. After the sun went down, I probably could have switched to manual mode as the lighting was pretty even throughout the stadium and sometimes the visitor white uniforms through off my exposure. By the end of the first quarter, I was at ISO 2500 and getting 1/800 to about 1/1000 pretty consistantly.

Most of the serious shooters have at least 2 bodies going at once, one with a 300 2. 8 or a 400 2.8 and the other with a wider angle lens, maybe a 70-200 or some with even a 16-40 or so. I did not have a good second body, so just swapped out my 300 for my 70-200. I don't think I missed much by having only one body, but I can see that if your job depended on it, I'd have the second body by knee and ready to bring up for action (I spent most of the game shooting from my kees) instead.

All in all, I think I did pretty well image wise and kinda thought that all of those HS games made me a better shooter and the nice lighting at this level could really spoil you.

Stealing

In keeping with the whole "cheating" theme, I "stole' an idea from a fellow over at Fred Miranda.com. He turned me onto to a photoshop plug-in and said it was jump-starting some action sales. Some folks won't like the look, but I think it is pretty cool. Here are a couple of variations of the tool in action.


If it can jump start some sales, I am all in. Oh, the plug-in can be found here. It's from the folks over at LucisArt.

Oh, here is the original image that the above variations came from:

Cheating A Bit

Ok, so you need/want to get some good shots of all the players on a team, but we all know that all the players don't always play and those that do play may not see any action and if they do see some action, you might not get it any shots of them. What to do? Cheat-- a bit.

Get to the game a early and get images of the pre-game practice or warmp-ups. You can almost be assured all the players will be doing something and its a great chance to get everyone covered. Especially those requests we all get from parents. "Hey Photo Guy, get a shot of #44 tonight!" Well, maybe #44 is the second string long snapper.

Baseball: What, maybe 20 kids on a team. With 9 kids on the field at a time it is obvious that not all will see game time or action if they are on the field.

Here is something I strive for in these type of situations.


Here you can see the player, good eye contact and its not blatantly obvious that this is during warm-ups. For baseball, as really all sports, try to make sure you have clean background. Make sure somebody in the background, fan or player, is not watching some other activity, for this might be a clue that the game has not yet started. For baseball, sometimes the games balls are sparkling white and the practice ones are dirty, very dirty. Try to minimize that if possible.

Another reason to cheat. Lighting. At the high school football games around here, it's almost dark by kick-off and later in the season, it will be dark at kick-off. Yet, just before game time, the lighting can be really nice. So, why not make some images with the good lighting. Now, with the image below, there is no defender in sight, so either the coverage got really blown, or this guy is smoking fast. Notice in the background, I've got some fans feet. In this case, you can't see much of them and can't really tell they are not watching the "action" on the field.

Also, I don't think it is all that terrible to get images of the warm-ups and it is blatantly obvious that it is warm-ups as that can be part of the game too.

How often can you get a clean image of a center in football. With my luck, his head is down and he is trying not to get creamed by the nose guard. Either that or the side judge or back judge has their rear end between me and the center.

Also, one last reason to cheat. Sometimes the kids are a bit looser before the game starts and you can catch them smiling, or maybe better yet, with their game face on.

Either way, you might have better access to the kids before a game starts and therefore, a chance to get in nice and tight on their handsome mugs.