A sequence of photos - "The Lost Helmet"...
posted by Gameshots, 11/10/2008 01:11:00 AM
I put a picture in an upcoming Gallery from the Arkansas game that showed Jordin Lindsey with his helmet in hand. By the way, the referee is catching the football, it isn't a magic stunt. Previously, in the game, Kenny McKinley had also lost his helmet on a play. Surely you have wondered how this happens. A football helmet has not one but two straps securing the chin strap to the helmet. This will be a sequence of eleven (11) photos that I shot during one play (in less than two seconds time). The photos illustrate what happened on one particular play but obviously there can be other reasons for a helmet to come lose and go bouncing across the field.
Since I was dealing with the shadows on the field, my camera settings had been changing throughout the day. At the time of these photos, and on this particular camera I was shooting at 1/664th of a second with an ISO of 400. The f/stop varied from f/5 to f4.6. Remember, the camera (a Canon 1D Mark 3) is capable of ten frames per second (depending on other variables that we won't go into at this time).
These pictures were also shot with my newest lens. It is the latest Canon EF200mm f/2L, IS USM lens with some utterly amazing ability to capture action shots, especially in low light. But that's a whole different story that we will save for a later time.
I find it truly amazing when you split a football play into ten or twenty pictures. Incredible detail in Hi-resolution. Often when I am watching the replays of a game on television I am still surprised that the plays only take a few seconds of high-speed action and then they are over. It is really interesting to see the photographers checking their digital cameras after a play, in essence doing the famous 'further review of the play' to their own satisfaction (with no delay of game!).
But there has been discussion on the Insider Forum lately around a series of photographs breaking down a play, in this case, Mike Davis's touchdown run (a play or two after the 'helmet photos' that I will be showing in this blog). So today when I was going through my Arkansas game pictures putting together my next gallery I noticed these pictures that illustrated at least one way that a player lost his helmet while in the midst of doing battle (trying to tackle Mike Davis).
Of these eleven pictures, only picture number 2 is included in my galleries as we try to NOT show too many rapid sequence shots but make ourselves try to decide which shot would capture the essence of the play and tell a story. Truthfully, it can be a difficult call to make when there are so many to choose from and the pictures can vary ever so slightly.
Hopefully, you will find this interesting as well. Also, I did not crop the pictures as tightly as I normally would as several people were enjoying studying the linemen handling their blocking assignments.
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How can this happen?
I put a picture in an upcoming Gallery from the Arkansas game that showed Jordin Lindsey with his helmet in hand. By the way, the referee is catching the football, it isn't a magic stunt. Previously, in the game, Kenny McKinley had also lost his helmet on a play. Surely you have wondered how this happens. A football helmet has not one but two straps securing the chin strap to the helmet. This will be a sequence of eleven (11) photos that I shot during one play (in less than two seconds time). The photos illustrate what happened on one particular play but obviously there can be other reasons for a helmet to come lose and go bouncing across the field.
Since I was dealing with the shadows on the field, my camera settings had been changing throughout the day. At the time of these photos, and on this particular camera I was shooting at 1/664th of a second with an ISO of 400. The f/stop varied from f/5 to f4.6. Remember, the camera (a Canon 1D Mark 3) is capable of ten frames per second (depending on other variables that we won't go into at this time).
These pictures were also shot with my newest lens. It is the latest Canon EF200mm f/2L, IS USM lens with some utterly amazing ability to capture action shots, especially in low light. But that's a whole different story that we will save for a later time.
I find it truly amazing when you split a football play into ten or twenty pictures. Incredible detail in Hi-resolution. Often when I am watching the replays of a game on television I am still surprised that the plays only take a few seconds of high-speed action and then they are over. It is really interesting to see the photographers checking their digital cameras after a play, in essence doing the famous 'further review of the play' to their own satisfaction (with no delay of game!).
But there has been discussion on the Insider Forum lately around a series of photographs breaking down a play, in this case, Mike Davis's touchdown run (a play or two after the 'helmet photos' that I will be showing in this blog). So today when I was going through my Arkansas game pictures putting together my next gallery I noticed these pictures that illustrated at least one way that a player lost his helmet while in the midst of doing battle (trying to tackle Mike Davis).
Of these eleven pictures, only picture number 2 is included in my galleries as we try to NOT show too many rapid sequence shots but make ourselves try to decide which shot would capture the essence of the play and tell a story. Truthfully, it can be a difficult call to make when there are so many to choose from and the pictures can vary ever so slightly.
Hopefully, you will find this interesting as well. Also, I did not crop the pictures as tightly as I normally would as several people were enjoying studying the linemen handling their blocking assignments.
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 @.