Sportrait

Portrait: por-trait [pawr-trit, -treyt, pohr-]
–noun
1. a likeness of a person, esp. of the face, as a painting, drawing, or photograph: a gallery of family portraits.
2. a verbal picture or description, usually of a person: a biography that provides a fascinating portrait of an 18th-century rogue.

Sport: [spawrt, spohrt]
–noun
1. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
2. a particular form of this, esp. in the out of doors.
3. diversion; recreation; pleasant pastime.

Sportrait: [spawr-trit]
-noun
1. a photograph of a person engaged is a sporting activity, usually a photograph of a person's face.

Strobed Remote Camera

Today I had the chance to do something I normally would not do. I strobed my remote camera.

Normally, I would be shooting with one camera and triggering the remote camera and strobes via a Pocket Wizard mounted on my hand-held camera. With this set-up the remote camera fires 1/2000th of a second after the strobes so, this requires me to set the remote camera manually to available light. But, today I did not shoot with my hand-held camera so, I was able to try shooting in relay mode with the Pocket Wizards. To do this a total of 3 remotes are needed. (In my case 6 because 4 are attached to strobes). What i did was the strobes are set to channel 1 (they are mounted in the ceiling so are not able to be changed.) And the PW mounted to the remote camera was attached to the hot shoe and a cable attached to the camera's remote was set to channel 4. The PW used to fire the remote camera was also set to channel 4.

In relay mode the remote camera fires ~1/2000th of a second later and the PW attached to the camera's hotshoe will than relay a signal via the next higher channel (channel 1 in this case). Now the remote camera and strobes will fire simultaneously to capture a strobed image.

To strobe both the hand-held camera and the remote camera this would require a total of 8 strobes and 10 Pocket Wizards. But, the remote camera would still be firing ~1/2000 of second later but, now all the images would be strobed.

Semi-Pro Hockey

Tonight at the Danbury Ice Arena in Danbury, CT the Aces (13-2-1-0) defeated the Danbury Mad Hatters (6-6-0-1) 4-2. The Aces were outshot for just the second time this season, but remained undefeated in that situation. Danbury struck first in this hard-fought battle, when Mike O'Sullivan found Igor Karlov in front of the net for his 7th goal of the season, less than two minutes into the first. Jesse Felten evened the score at 1-1 with his 5th of the season, late in the first, and the Aces never looked back.

Chris Holmes scored for the 9th time this year on an assist from Mike Christensen midway through the second period. Later in the period Christensen struck again, leading James Brannigan to his 20th goal of the year, giving Brooklyn the 3-1 advantage. Christensen had an assist on all four Brooklyn goals in the game. Goalie Eddie Neville remained hot, stopping 35-of-37 Danbury shots on goal, improving his league leading save percentage. A late goal by Danbury's Dan Hickman would not be enough, and Brooklyn held on for the 4-2 win.

Shooting high - Looking down

Today my goal was to mount my remote camera above the 35 second clock. I was running late due to this mornings weather. (It's been snowing most of the week-end here) When I need to set up my camera anywhere above the rim I need to get to the arena at least 2 hours prior to tip-off. Well I got there only 1 hour prior to the beginning of the game. So, I needed to set up my camera and make all my adjustments on a different backboard.

Being this was the first time I was setting up the remote above the shot clock I needed some extra time to make sure everything was properly set and all adjustments were made correctly. After having the remote all set I checked with the refs and the opposing teams head coach to see if there were any final objections. Everything was good to go.

VMI informed me that their team would be heading back into the locker room 35 minutes prior to tip-off for approximately 10 minutes. This would give me plenty of time to drop the net set-up the ladder and secure the camera, and make any final adjustments needed.

With the remote set to a limited field of view I don't expect many shots. But, the shots I do expect to get should be outstanding. I was not proved wrong for today's game.

In all I got 9 images with the remote camera. As I mentioned to Army's SID, I would be happy with 5-10 shots from this view. The camera was mounted with a 15mm lens. Which covers the entire 3 point area. I think my setup for next time might call for a 20mm lens. This way I would not need to crop the images as much.

In all I am quite happy with the results I have been getting from all the different angles I have been able to get using the remote set-up.

Holiday Lights Shooting

I've been doing some driving around to try and find some holiday light to get the LensBaby another go around. I hope it is not the case all over the country but there does not seem to be to many holiday lights up this year.

I drove through this one town near me knowing that they tend to have some nice lights up. I found a few. and Main Street was decorated quite nicely. But, again not to many lights in and around town.

But anyways, This shot was taken with my new LensBaby Composer with the ZonePlate optic. I think it gives off a sort of mystic look to it. Hopefully before the holidays come and go I will be able to find some real nice lights to share.

First time shooting @ MSG

Finally had the chance to shoot at Madison Square Garden. That's right I made it to MSG!!!

Three years ago West Point started a tournament to honor Maggie Dixon. In 2005, just 11 days before the 2005-2006 season, Dixon was hired as the women's basketball coach of the United States Military Academy. In her first year, they surprised the college basketball world by going 20-11 and winning the Patriot League conference tournament; she took them to 2006 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament as a 15 seed, where they lost to the University of Tennessee, 102-54. It was the first March Madness tournament appearance for any Army basketball team.

Her brother was Jamie Dixon, the head men's basketball coach of the University of Pittsburgh. In 2006, the Dixons became the first brother-sister pair to take teams to the NCAA basketball tournaments the same year, as Jamie's Pittsburgh Panthers also made the 2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. Her brother lost in the second round to Bradley.

Just weeks after her appearance in the tournament, on April 5, 2006, Dixon was hospitalized at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, after collapsing and suffering what her brother described as an "arrhythmic episode to her heart." Dixon died the next night at the age of only 28, a little over a month shy of her 29th birthday. An autopsy revealed that Dixon had an enlarged heart and had a problem with a heart valve.

Dixon was buried at the West Point Cemetery, an honor usually reserved only for high ranking officials.

On November 12, 2006 West Point held the 1st Annual Maggie Dixon Classic, a basketball mini-tournament in Dixon's honor. It featured two games, a men's and women's game. In the men's game Jamie Dixon's Pitt Panthers defeated Western Michigan and in the women's game the Army women's team lost to Ohio State. The games were televised by ESPNU.

In the 2007-2008 season the Classic moved to Madison Square Garden and featured the University of Pittsburgh women's team against Duke University and Army and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights

Another college added to our local line-up

CSI: Photo would like to welcome Mercy College to it's line-up of local colleges. Since the conception of CSI: Photo we are pleased to have shot for over 15 colleges competing at all levels of NCAA competition.

CSI: Photo has shot events which include the 2007 & 2008 Army/Navy football game, 2008 NCAA Regional Hockey Tournament, 2008 Patriot League ¼ finals (basketball) and the 2008 NE-10 Conference Volleyball Championships.

As CSI: Photo continues to expand it presents in the Hudson Valley, as well as, Northern New Jersey and Southwestern Connecticut we strive to be committed to cutting edge sports photography.

To learn how CSI: Photo can assist your university's sports media department please feel free to visit our web-site.

Students, parents, family and friends can view and purchase game images HERE. A percentage of the sales goes back to the university (this is for colleges and university's that are regular members of the CSI: Photo family)

We will be scheduling our spring sports as soon as schedules permit.

Photographing the Army/Navy Game

It was my second time being on the field for the Army/Navy game. As one would expect this is a pretty fun time. It is also a pretty crazy event to be shooting.

The weather forecast for Saturday initially called for snow. But closer to Saturday it changed. It turned out to be a pretty nice day. Didn't get above 40 but at least it didn't snow.

My day started out at 6:30 waking up at a friends house I stayed at in southern Jersey. They only live about 30 minutes outside of Philly. It was good to get to see them. I have not seen them in quite some time. We had a nice dinner on Friday night and a few cocktails and did some catching up.

7:30 I hit the road. My first stop was to the Alumni breakfast for some pictures. and a little breakfast. You can't go to a Army/Navy game with-out experiencing all that goes on there. The sprint band played and the cheerleaders came out to get everyone riled up for the game.

Kick off was at 12 o'clock so at 10:30 I was headed for the stadium. I knew the security was going to be a little tighter than normal due to the fact President Bush would be attending the game. He came on to the field and walked around the field shaking hands as he went. It was a media frenzy LOL.



I pretty much knew that Army would have a tough time with Navy this year after being on the field for many of their games this year.
After awhile and not to many chances to get "good" pictures of Army I decided to take some images of the fans and other things going on around the stadium.

I was planning on staying in Philly through Sunday but after dinner It started to snow and was suppose to snow most of the night. So I hit the road and headed for home. It snowed all the way home. I was shot after what turned out to be a four hour drive in the snow. But after it was all said and done it was a good weekend. I was able to get a few shots in and around Pilly for my artsy portfolio, see some friends and and shoot my last football game of the season.

Now it's time to focus fully on Basketball and Hockey. Next Sunday I will be shooting at Madison Square Garden for the Maggie Dixon Classic. It will be my first time shooting at the garden. I will be shooting the first game for Army. Then be watching UCONN vs. Penn State. That should be a great game to watch.

Drive on a country road

I took a drive on a country road today in search of some new HDR images. Heading out with only My Canon 20D with my Lensbaby Composer and my tripod. It's nice not lugging around a ton of camera gear for a change. This to me is like hunting to my friends this time of year. But, I don't have to get up at an un-Godly hour and douse myself in animal waste. Instead I grab an beverage of choice (today it was a Pepsi). Jump in my car and wonder around. (Glad the gas prices are still dropping). I headed to Kent Falls in Western Connecticut. Normally this is a summer trip. But, it was a fairly nice day with a good cloud mix for HDR's.

In total I took about 100 images and was able to come up with four really nice HDR's.

This image is 15 images combined in Photomatix. Starting with an exposure of 1/40th of a sec all the way to 1/1000th. After the image was merged in Photomatix, I played a little bit in LightRoom. When I do HDR's this way, I normally view some pre-sets I have and when I find one I like I will start to tweak it till I get it just right (well, at least to my liking).

If you'd like to view more of my artistic work drop by my website at CSI-photo.net

LensBaby HDR's

I had a few minutes to work on an image I took yesterday. After a few attempts with the new LensBaby Composer I am starting to get a feel for what might make for some good HDR's using the new lens. I have tried some images in the city but, I think with the sence of motion and the blur factor of the LensBaby this might be a little to much to blend in to an HDR. I am really liking this lens for landscape images with the way it softly blurs to the sides. I took this image with the f/4.0 aperture ring. And it really has a nice sweet spot. I also used a 0.6 wide angle adapter for this image. I will be doing some more images very soon.

To learn more about the LensBaby visit www.lensbaby.com

Tutorial on the Backboard Remote Camera

As promised I am posting how I set-up my backboard camera set-up. This set-up normally takes about 20 minutes to get all set and ready. A few things to look at is 1) how easy do the backboard lower. They can be lowered either electronically or manually. I prefer the manually lowered net. Because they are fast and easy. Sometimes with the electronic ones you might have to wait for someone from facilities to be available and your set-up then becomes up to someone elses time.

Here is all the equipment I use to get the camera hung.
1) Manfrotto Super Clamp.
1) Manfrotto Magic Friction Arm (The friction arm is the better of Manfrotto's two arms)
1) Manfrotto Camera mounting plate
1) Camera (I use the Canon XTi)
1) Fresh Battery in camera
1 Large capacity card (sometimes you just can't get to the camera to change cards.)
2) Pocket Wizards (there are cheaper remotes out there but, the PW's are far more reliable)
2) Camera cable (to connect the camera to the PW's)
Safety Cables (you wouldn't want you equipment to fall on someone!!)
Karabiner clips (good to have a few to assist in attaching your safety cables)

As you can see here I have anything that might cause a distraction to the players covered with gaffers tape. You should always have some gaffers tape handy. Also, prior to mounting you camera you want to pre-focus it just beyond the rim and tape down the lens.
Notice the split rings on the camera. I'll get to those in a minute.


Here I use some black cloth to reduce the reflection off the glass. With out the cloth you will tend to get a reflection of the baseline and anything behind the net in your images.



As you can see in this image the camera is secured to the backboard with the super clamp with the magic arm in between. Notice the safety cable securing all you equipment. I have a cable going through the super clamp and one attached to the camera. Also 1 cable is passing through the lanyard for the Pocket Wizard. To attach the camera to the safety cable I have split rings attached where the camera strap would normally go.

Here is another view from the side.






Here is a view from the front with the net lowered. Don't forget before your raise the net you want to make sure you have fresh batteries in everything, format your card, make sure your settings are correct, and most importantly.... Turn everything on. It's a lesson you only learn once.

With any luck you can start getting images that no one else is thinking about.

Backboard camera set-up

Last night I went to set up the backboard camera and was not able to do so. So in order to have the league's permission I must submit some images of the set-up. So tonight I will be shooting another game were I will be setting up the backboard cam. I will be taking some pretty extensive images of my set-up to submit to the league.

I was however able to mount the camera in a pretty good location anyway. This might be a better way to go with the remote camera. I am able to relocate the camera between halves. And I was able to get some good images.

But I will be posting some images of my set-up for those of you that are interested, check back here tomorrow night. I'll have a few images up with some discription of how to go about setting this up.