Basketball and Football...
posted by Gameshots, 10/31/2008 12:54:00 PM
First, a few words on Basketball before getting back to Football coverage. Beginning the 21st through the 23rd of October, David Cloninger and I were in Birmingham, Alabama covering the 2009 Hoops Basketball Tipoff for the Southeastern Conference Media Days. It was a great event as all of the SEC Men's and Women's teams were represented by their coaches and a couple of players from each of the school's basketball teams. For the writers, it was a great time to meet one-on-one with all of the coaches and athletes, and get their stories and answers to whatever questions were pertinent. From a photographer's perspective, it was an excellent opportunity to get candid photos of the various coaches and athletes.
Here is a link to one of David Cloninger's stories from Birmingham (I will be discussing part of this story in the blog). Usually this is PREMIUM content but the article is now FREE so you can now reference it. As always, there were a variety of points of emphasis or rule changes discussed. The easiest was the movement of the 3-point line to 20 feet, 9 inches and, in my opinion, the most difficult was the discussion regarding Technical fouls and the new Class A and Class B classifications. This is all covered in Dave's story.
A LINK to David's 'Media Days Notebook, Day 1':
Media Day Story
The restraining line and the restraining box...
As David mentioned, The SEC Supervisor of Officials, Gerald Boudreaux, stated that one area that has drawn a lot of comment is the restraining line or the restraining box. This is NOT a new rule; the rule just states that there should be six(6) feet from the end line to the end of the court.
That is a no zone area; non-playing personnel should not be in that area. As David said, "How that affects Colonial Life Arena is how much room there will be between the first row of seats and the court. Normally, that area has been reserved for photographers and/or the cheerleading/dance team." This will be something to watch for and see how it is handled in Columbia as well as across the country. Speaking from experience, usually every square foot of space is used on these end lines with network and local television cameras, action photographers, and at Carolina the Dance Team is on one end line and on the opposite end line are the cheerleaders and Cocky. This emphasis on clearing the area is for a good reason, safety. However, although it won't change anything regarding this emphasis, but it is not an unusual occurrence to see a player end up in the front row of seats, down an aisle, or leaping a table along the sideline. Who can't remember seeing this happen at games?
So there will be a new floor to play on at the Colonial Life Arena, and who knows what other changes will be evident! There is definitely excitement as the tipoff is much anticipated by team and fans alike.
Two weeks from today is the first game. The Jacksonville State Gamecocks come to town.
On to football...
Now a few tips on photography as it relates to shooting football. It seems like there is always much discussion each week around the kickoff time for the upcoming game. Day or night makes little difference, photographers adjust.
Sunset Saturday is 6:34PM, so it'll be a 'night game' for the entire game (kickoff at 7:05PM) . With night games, there are advantages and disadvantages when it comes to setting up the cameras for good picture taking. The disadvantage is that for an afternoon game a photographer has to be aware that the light is constantly varying and when a different camera is used you have to be aware of what the light was when you last shot with it. That sounds simple but when you are caught up in the action, you have to remember to be ready and monitor the changes. Even 'white balance' may vary during the course of a afternoon ballgame and may need to be adjusted.
The main advantage when shooting a night football game is that once you have the settings where you want to have them, the light does not change much for the entire game. You may or may not have noticed at Williams-Brice Stadium that there are more lights in the Press Box bank of lights than on the opposite side of the field. This translates on the field to your ability to generally be able to shoot with a lower ISO, a faster shutter speed, or a higher f- stop, when you are on the brighter side of the field. And vice versa on the side of the stadium that is darker.
Your goal is to find the best balance of the three key factors (ISO, Aperture, Shutter speed). With today's new high quality cameras, the digital noise has been greatly reduced when using the higher ISO settings. There are different theories on what f-stop to use but I try to avoid f2.8 if I can get by with f3.2. Why? Just that little bit of difference on giving you slightly more depth of field can be very useful as you can often get a more meaningful action shot. The key factor is shutter speed. The minimum is generally is considered to be 500th of a second. Both CJ and I shoot with Image Stabilization lenses and use monopods to help give us the sharp clear images desired and I have had good fortune (luck?) shooting some night action at 400th of a second shutter speed. The Canon Image Stabilizer uses sensors to detect motion and generate a corrective signal to reduce blur caused by camera movement. An image-stabilizing lens group along the optical axis is shifted in response to the detected motion, providing effective cancellation of unwanted lens movement and vibration.
Depth of field is fun to experiment with as different situations provide nice opportunities. If you are shooting something fairly stable (or non-moving) such as the offense in the 'set' position you could drop your shutter speed to 1/200 or 1/250 and gain substantial amounts of the picture that are in focus (depth of field). If you are shooting a receiver running a pass route into your corner of the endzone, you better have AT LEAST 1/500 shutter speed or you'll be rewarded/penalized with a blurry picture.
ISO settings can be a discussion in itself. I've found that I can experience relatively low noise as high as ISO3200 or ISO6400 (or am able to reduce noise sufficiently with post-edit software). However, I suggest that you use your camera and take a variety of test shots at EACH ISO setting so that you can actually know beforehand what will result. If I am shooting in daylight conditions, I prefer an ISO or 250 to 320, although I could go as low as ISO of 50. Situations will often dictate how your camera will be setup but you know prior to shooting the expected result.
Okay, I don't want to lose you, nor bore you, so that'll be all of the 'technical information' shared in this blog. Not to worry, we'll include much more in future blogs.
This week, the Tennessee Volunteers...
Hey, the State Fair is gone. Parking is back to normal. This week the South Carolina Gamecocks will welcome the Tennessee Volunteers to Williams-Brice Stadium Saturday. The game will be nationally televised by ESPN2. The weather forecast currently appears to be cool but NOT COLD. For me, it will certainly be good to be back shooting football after a week off.
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
SEC Basketball Media Days...
First, a few words on Basketball before getting back to Football coverage. Beginning the 21st through the 23rd of October, David Cloninger and I were in Birmingham, Alabama covering the 2009 Hoops Basketball Tipoff for the Southeastern Conference Media Days. It was a great event as all of the SEC Men's and Women's teams were represented by their coaches and a couple of players from each of the school's basketball teams. For the writers, it was a great time to meet one-on-one with all of the coaches and athletes, and get their stories and answers to whatever questions were pertinent. From a photographer's perspective, it was an excellent opportunity to get candid photos of the various coaches and athletes.
Here is a link to one of David Cloninger's stories from Birmingham (I will be discussing part of this story in the blog). Usually this is PREMIUM content but the article is now FREE so you can now reference it. As always, there were a variety of points of emphasis or rule changes discussed. The easiest was the movement of the 3-point line to 20 feet, 9 inches and, in my opinion, the most difficult was the discussion regarding Technical fouls and the new Class A and Class B classifications. This is all covered in Dave's story.
A LINK to David's 'Media Days Notebook, Day 1':
Media Day Story
The restraining line and the restraining box...
As David mentioned, The SEC Supervisor of Officials, Gerald Boudreaux, stated that one area that has drawn a lot of comment is the restraining line or the restraining box. This is NOT a new rule; the rule just states that there should be six(6) feet from the end line to the end of the court.
That is a no zone area; non-playing personnel should not be in that area. As David said, "How that affects Colonial Life Arena is how much room there will be between the first row of seats and the court. Normally, that area has been reserved for photographers and/or the cheerleading/dance team." This will be something to watch for and see how it is handled in Columbia as well as across the country. Speaking from experience, usually every square foot of space is used on these end lines with network and local television cameras, action photographers, and at Carolina the Dance Team is on one end line and on the opposite end line are the cheerleaders and Cocky. This emphasis on clearing the area is for a good reason, safety. However, although it won't change anything regarding this emphasis, but it is not an unusual occurrence to see a player end up in the front row of seats, down an aisle, or leaping a table along the sideline. Who can't remember seeing this happen at games?
So there will be a new floor to play on at the Colonial Life Arena, and who knows what other changes will be evident! There is definitely excitement as the tipoff is much anticipated by team and fans alike.
Two weeks from today is the first game. The Jacksonville State Gamecocks come to town.
On to football...
Now a few tips on photography as it relates to shooting football. It seems like there is always much discussion each week around the kickoff time for the upcoming game. Day or night makes little difference, photographers adjust.
Sunset Saturday is 6:34PM, so it'll be a 'night game' for the entire game (kickoff at 7:05PM) . With night games, there are advantages and disadvantages when it comes to setting up the cameras for good picture taking. The disadvantage is that for an afternoon game a photographer has to be aware that the light is constantly varying and when a different camera is used you have to be aware of what the light was when you last shot with it. That sounds simple but when you are caught up in the action, you have to remember to be ready and monitor the changes. Even 'white balance' may vary during the course of a afternoon ballgame and may need to be adjusted.
The main advantage when shooting a night football game is that once you have the settings where you want to have them, the light does not change much for the entire game. You may or may not have noticed at Williams-Brice Stadium that there are more lights in the Press Box bank of lights than on the opposite side of the field. This translates on the field to your ability to generally be able to shoot with a lower ISO, a faster shutter speed, or a higher f- stop, when you are on the brighter side of the field. And vice versa on the side of the stadium that is darker.
Your goal is to find the best balance of the three key factors (ISO, Aperture, Shutter speed). With today's new high quality cameras, the digital noise has been greatly reduced when using the higher ISO settings. There are different theories on what f-stop to use but I try to avoid f2.8 if I can get by with f3.2. Why? Just that little bit of difference on giving you slightly more depth of field can be very useful as you can often get a more meaningful action shot. The key factor is shutter speed. The minimum is generally is considered to be 500th of a second. Both CJ and I shoot with Image Stabilization lenses and use monopods to help give us the sharp clear images desired and I have had good fortune (luck?) shooting some night action at 400th of a second shutter speed. The Canon Image Stabilizer uses sensors to detect motion and generate a corrective signal to reduce blur caused by camera movement. An image-stabilizing lens group along the optical axis is shifted in response to the detected motion, providing effective cancellation of unwanted lens movement and vibration.
Depth of field is fun to experiment with as different situations provide nice opportunities. If you are shooting something fairly stable (or non-moving) such as the offense in the 'set' position you could drop your shutter speed to 1/200 or 1/250 and gain substantial amounts of the picture that are in focus (depth of field). If you are shooting a receiver running a pass route into your corner of the endzone, you better have AT LEAST 1/500 shutter speed or you'll be rewarded/penalized with a blurry picture.
ISO settings can be a discussion in itself. I've found that I can experience relatively low noise as high as ISO3200 or ISO6400 (or am able to reduce noise sufficiently with post-edit software). However, I suggest that you use your camera and take a variety of test shots at EACH ISO setting so that you can actually know beforehand what will result. If I am shooting in daylight conditions, I prefer an ISO or 250 to 320, although I could go as low as ISO of 50. Situations will often dictate how your camera will be setup but you know prior to shooting the expected result.
Okay, I don't want to lose you, nor bore you, so that'll be all of the 'technical information' shared in this blog. Not to worry, we'll include much more in future blogs.
This week, the Tennessee Volunteers...
Hey, the State Fair is gone. Parking is back to normal. This week the South Carolina Gamecocks will welcome the Tennessee Volunteers to Williams-Brice Stadium Saturday. The game will be nationally televised by ESPN2. The weather forecast currently appears to be cool but NOT COLD. For me, it will certainly be good to be back shooting football after a week off.
Link to this entry - Discuss this entry - Return to Blog Home
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Paul Collins. Paul has been a GamecockCentral photographer since 2005, with a focus on Gamecock football, men's basketball and baseball. He may be reached by email at paul(at)gamecockcentral.com. Replace (at) with @.