With no plans yesterday, when Mike (that's him below) called and woke me up (who gets up before 10 on a Saturday, now really), and said that Kate's sister was playing lacrosse, well of course we had to go shoot it.
With a quick stop for some long lens lovin' from Paul at LensProToGo for a 200-400 VR, we headed up to New Hampshire for the game (plus, who doesn't love 60-degree days in the winter?)
Toward the end of the game I got into playing around with slow shutter speeds and got some cool blur shots.
The day started with some half-pipe action before we set up shop for some portraits during the awards ceremony. After that, it was back up the hill for some high flying shots off the big ramp (photo below from our remote camera).
I will also add this - those foot warmer things? Yeah, total bs, don't work, don't waste your money. That and I need much better boots for next year.
Also, I'd be remiss not to thank Loon's Jordan Yanni for totally hooking us up - dude you made our day sooooo much easier - thanks again. For a full gallery from Saturday's Main Event you can click here.
What do you get when you have five awesome photographers and their families over for brunch? Apparently 1,400 photos in 3-hours! And yes, it's as ridiculous as it sounds.
Let me start at the beginning. I just picked up a cable that allows my camera to be fired remotely, so that got me thinking. Brunch? One-button wireless camera triggering? Photographers plus kids? This has mayhem potential written all over it. In other words - this has to happen.
So yesterday morning when Shyla, British Rob, those MKD kids, 4/5 of the Feds clan and Team Yu rolled into my house, I set up my camera in the TV room and let rip. And I mean, really let rip - Emmie and Layla couldn't push the trigger button fast enough!
Also, because I couldn't resist, but am just getting into the photos now, here's one of my favorites from Saturday's Main Event Series season finale at Loon.
I never do this, but I was just too excited about some shots from the remote camera from today's Main Event that I wanted to share an image. The photo below is straight out of the camera, a "digital negative", if you will.
For those of you who follow my Twitter stream, you know I spent the day up at Loon Mountain shooting the Main Event season finale with Mark.
The below shot was taken with Mark's D300, my fisheye lens, my memory card, Pocketwizard and his remote cable - a true combined effort. You can see the remote camera setup in the bottom shot, with a few strobes we fired up as the sun went down.
I'm off to bed (that 6 a.m. alarm is really starting to catch up with me), but check back in a couple days for many, many more shots from today's (mis?)adventures.
15 skiers. 15 snowboarders. A custom staircase and homemade snow by the hosts, Sugarloaf and Sunday River, in the middle of a city.
Dear whomever is in charge - please, please, please make this an annual event. Thank you.
It was quite the experience. Where do I start? We'll leave out the part where I almost got decapitated by a skier, making sure to mention that Mark did indeed, get totally cleaned out by one (it's actually amazing that no photographers were injured in the making of these images).
As many of you know, I'm not much of a snow athlete. I don't ski, I don't snowboard, nothin'. It just never seemed worth risking a baseball season over.
So with that disclaimer outta the way, I have to say, these guys were good. (But, like I said, I didn't exactly know what I was looking at, nevertheless - anyone who can snowboard down a 4" wide rail and do a backflip at the end and land it? Yeah that's good in my book).
Not only that, but we got to meet another kickass photographer - Drew Smalley (dude, I want your lights) - and almost got frostbite, while capturing somewhere in the range of 2,000 frames between us.
Well I gotta run, but Artist photos to come asap, I promise.
All I'm sayin' is - next time we're comandeering a snowmobile.
I mean, that's my weekend in a nutshell, but let me break it down for you. 4,500 frames, 40 snowboarders, 2 photographers, 1 videographer, 2 remote cameras, one snowboard run ridden on top of a cooler (that may or may not have smelled like skunk).
Sunday morning we got up at 7 to head up to Sugarloaf with video wunderkid Kevin Sennett (he's 20, he shot the Winter X games. Damn prodigies). After we got there and hiked halfway up the mountain to the base of the snowboard jump (with probably 60lbs of gear and at least 4 wipeouts between us), my favorite conversation of the weekend ensued.
Doug: You think we could, you know, lie down under the jump? Event organizer: Sure man, whatever you want, just don't get killed.
That pretty much summed up the weekend for me right there. Extreme photos, extreme locations (see below), and a helluva a good time.
I've really wanted to try out the remote camera possiblities of my Pocketwizards for a while now, but the cable, the CABLE, cost $110 or so, a bit much for a CABLE, so I never shelled out for one. Also, I never had two cameras that I was happy with (I always had my main camera, and my "in case of emergency camera." Now, with the D300/D700 combo, I have no qualms about shooting any event with either.
So Friday when I swung by pal Paul Friedman's place (aka the greatest toy store ever), and he said he'd not only just picked up the necessary cable, but that he'd found a knockoff brand one for $28, I was sold, and I'll be picking up one of my own asap.
For a full rundown of the gear we used for the remote setup (and one badass photo), check out Mark's blog, but here's a shot of the setup.
After the competition was over, we headed back to Portland for some more mayhem, but you'll have to check back for the full story on that later this week, but it involves a second shoot with the man, the myth, the legend - Artist.
Another quick post today, for a few reasons. Namely, I'm still in Maine after a 15 hour photo-full day yesterday, but also because it will be a few days (at the least), before I get these frames edited.
The top frame is from almost right when we arrived. After we hiked halfway up a mountain that I almost fell down, carrying at least 30lbs of gear, we decided it would be a good idea to lie down under the snowboard jump. Turned out it was a GREAT idea.
The shot below is of the remote camera we set up for some of the afternoon competition.
Just a quick teaser of one from last night's Downtown Showdown. We're off to Sugarloaf to shoot some more, but I just wanted to share one for now. Many, many more to come.
Ye loyal blog readers might remember Karly from our shoot in the snow and studio a few weeks back. Well Mike and I decided that one day with Karly wasn't enough, so that coupled with Sunday's 50-degree temps led us to a favorite spot in South Boston.
I'm really digging the athlete photos lately, and we just lined up a breakdancer as the final model for the Get It Off! Shootshop (one spot left at this writing).
Ideally we'd have loved to shoot Karly, a division 1 high jumper, you know, actually jumping, but that's a project for another day. Also, I can neither confirm nor deny that electricity and water were mixed in the making of these photos, but I think the outtakes below speak for themselves.
Mike: How deep is that puddle? Kate: You test it. Mike: Nah, it'll be fine, just run an extension cord through it, we'll be OK.
North Quincy senior captain Terrell Staley (48, center), cheers his teammates on. North Quincy lost to Middleboro 16-13.
Just a quick post before I head out to a wedding. I wanted to try out the new Photoshelter embedding technique (Vincent LaForet is rockin' it today on his blog), and it's how I'm going to blog most of my single images from here on out. I'll still do weddings the old-fashioned way (I think), but I wanted to try this out too.
-Doug Levy - Quincy, Massachusetts Sports Photographer -
When Rachel e-mailed me after her last shoot and said that she wanted to do some more athletic/sporty shots, I jumped at the change to shoot her again. She's fairly new to modeling, but makes up for her lack of experience with enthusiasm ("Can you, um, do that back handspring again?" "Sure!"). We're actually working together again this weekend, so stay tuned for some more exciting photos from a very big event Saturday in Maine.
-Doug Levy - Boston Sports and Lifestyle Photographer -
The crew headed over to the Sarasota Kennel Club tonight (I won $32) to watch some dogs run. I thought it would be a great opportunity to try out the high ISO and frame rate of the new camera. As always, click on each for a larger view. I didn't open Photoshop once for these, they were entirely processed in Lightroom, and no noise reduction was applied.
1/200 F/2.8 ISO 3200
Mike stepped out to make a call. 1/250 F/2.8 ISO 3200
What a game tonight. Scituate vs. Medfield in the boys basketball state tournament. With the game tied at 64 and 3.7 seconds left, Scituate senior Keith Fleury (#32 in top shot) stole the ball at mid-court and drove to the basket for a game-winning reverse layup.
I had been shooting from the opposite end of the court, and with 30 second left or so, had switched out my 70-200 for my 17-55 hoping to get some wide-angle reaction shots as the game ended.
I'd also taken down my strobes, as I knew mayhem was probably going to ensue and I wanted to be mobile and not having worry about my gear. When he hit the winning shot, Keith (and the rest of the team) ran right toward me. As I didn't have my flash, the shot is ISO 3200, 1/250 F/2.8.
The bottom shot is one I took before the game (during the national anthem) to get an idea of where my light coverage was. You can kind of see my lights would evenly light the key and for the most part inside the 3-point line, but beyond that, no dice. In fact, if you look at the coaches on the left, you can pretty much see exactly where the light ends. I was shooting with the strobes at 1/4 power and 28mm with 1/4 CTB to correct for the ambient.
The middle shot...the middle shot was during a 5 min. span in the third quarter when I tried to get creative (it didn't work). In this particular gym there was a lot of space behind the benches before the stands started (I'm talking like 25 feet, weird, I know). But the important thing to note here is, I had my "standard" shots in the bag from the first half and wanted to see what I could get that would be different before the game's final minutes. It didn't work. You win some you lose some.
I shot the Division 1 state high school swimming championships tonight at Harvard. It's been a few weeks of sporting firsts for me, first wrestling match, first gymnastics match, track meet and now my first swim meet.
It was surprisingly bright in the poolhouse - 1600/2.8/1/500 bright - so I didn't even need the strobes.
I had some fun, did my best to stay dry (and keep my gear dry) and all in all, got some decent shots. The biggest problem technically? Focusing. Say a swimmer is doing the butterfly, they're underwater, underwater, under, blam! above water, then they're gone. My camera could barely keep up.
Anyway, I'm wiped and I'm off to bed. It's back to hoops this week - Sharon at Canton on Tuesday night.
A lil' pan/blur action for your entertainment this evening.
"Hingham's Jennalyn Plouffe competes in the 55 meter hurdles during the MIAA Division 3 state championships at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center. (Note, not the original version that ran/will run in the paper, colors enhanced in post)."
This is still a technique that's pretty new to me, but like I told a friend, I'm just glad I got to shoot at an ISO <3200.
Ambient at the Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center was 1600/2.8/1/350. Noise city on my D200, so after I had the shots I needed in the bag I started playing around and got what you see here. (Click on the photo for a larger view).
Well, I don't own a D3. That said, my D200 and >ISO 800in poor light don't really get along. One of the first things my editor said to me when she assigned me to shoot gymnastics last night was, "Oh, and you can't use flash." (It seems my obsession with Strobism precedes me). Why no flash? It seems it might pose a distraction when people are doing flips and such and could pose a health risk. OK, I don't love it, but I get it, safety does come first after all. ("It's such a great photo!" "Doug, she broke her neck." - not a conversation I want to have).
Ambient exposure in the gym was ISO 3200 (that's right) 1/160 F/1.8 with my 50mm, and worse when I used my 70-200 and had to stop down to F/2.8.
Now, 1/160 is barely (and usually not really) fast enough to shoot people doing flips and such, but that's not even the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that my autofocus isn't quick enough to snatch more than 1 frame (if I'm lucky) (D3, D3, D3...). When you're shooting at F/1.8, this tends to be a problem, as there's not going to be much in focus to begin with. I'm sad to say I didn't come up with a great solution here, and if anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
The image above was shot at ISO 3200 1/160 F/2.8 with my D200. (You can click on either for a larger view.) The bottom version noise reduction applied with Nik Software'sDfine 2.0 Photoshop plug-in. In my experience, the software works very well on properly exposed images, like the one of Lindsay above. If, however, you have to push the exposure in your RAW converter, the noise will be too powerful to overcome in post-production.
Also, last but by no means least, Rob sent me this link this morning to 100 free 1-sided postcards from Overnight Prints.com. I've ordered business cards from them in the past, and I think you guys know I was busy doing postcard design last week, so I just got my order in a few minutes ago.
First, let me start with the #$*&)(#! Wow! I'm not much one for swearing (OK, that's a lie) but you HAVE TO (that's right, all caps and bold) watch this video. It's basically one part Superman, one part B.A.S.E jumping, one part death wish and ten parts "Levy would never be caught doing this for all the Nikons in the world." Seriously, check it out. Go now. Why are you still reading this? Go. Then come back please.
Some more links before we get to hoops, now that you're back from watching that video (you did watch that video, right?).
John Harrington at the Photo Business News & Forums blogs about fotoBiz & photoQuote, some very handy photo pricing software.
OK, now, if you've made it this far, after watching the video, here's some basketball stuff that I know you were waiting for. Last night was Wellesley at Norwood, and to say it got off to a rough start, is an understatement. My editor said I could basically shoot the first half and leave, as I had a birthday party to go to, but the preceding JV game went into double overtime and the varsity game started 45 minutes late. Ugh.
I setup my SB-80DX on a Home Depot clamp directly behind the backboard at 1/8 power and 24mm in optical slave mode and put my SB-600 on my camera bare bulb style and was able to get my exposures straight during the JV game so that not a moment was wasted come varsity time. Here are some shots that will better illustrate how I did this.
The SB-80DX firing:
Keep your eye on the ball (camera on a monopod held above my head for this one).
Tonight I shot Stoughton at Sharon high school girls' basketball. It was my first time shooting hoops, and the results were so-so. It took me much of the first quarter to get my exposures to a point where I was happy with them, despite getting there a half hour early and shooting warmups. That was frustrating. The good news is after I got that settled, I was able to come away with some shots I was happy with like the above shot of Stoughton junior Darneisha Ruffin.
I shot entirely in manual mode with my 17-55 and the above shot was taken at ISO 1000, F/2.8, 1/125, with my SB-600 on camera "bare bulb" style (straight up with my Sto-fen) at 1/4 power and my SB-80DX on a Home Depot clamp in optical slave mode just over my right shoulder, mounted on the wall. The SB-80DX was zoomed to 24mm and set at 1/4 power.
I also got some of my best shots once I decided to lie down on the floor. Anything but that 5'11" perspective tends to look nice/better. I wish I'd had a bit more light (say, enough to get F/2.8 at ISO 640 and 1/125), but oh well, not much I can do there with the gear I've got.
It was definitely a learning experience, for one, I need to STOP LOOKING AT THE DAMN LCD during the game, it almost caused me to miss a few shots. (Smacking self, "chimp later!")
Somy editor called me today and asked me if I could shoot an event tonight and write the story, saying, "You can do both. Just find a couple people to shoot. I have faith, and you need the dough." The man had a point, so off I went.
The event was a holiday party for families of soldier's serving overseas and those killed in action since 2001 and was hosted by the Jeffrey Coombs Foundation. Patriot running back Kevin Faulk is in the middle photo, and I shot the entire event with (wince) on camera TTL bounce flash. As you can see, the ceiling was really low (10 feet or so) and almost white, so I set the white balance to flash and bounced the flash straight up. You can reverse engineer this light setup by looking at the ceiling in the bottom photo and seeing the light falloff as you get further away from the clown and kid. The event was also attended by Academy Award winner Chris Cooper (top photo) who apparently lives in nearby Kingston.
And you always have to watch out for those dangerous balloon swords, they'll cut yah, I swear.
Tonight I shot a state high school tournament volleyball game. I was determined to use my new Pocketwizards and some Strobist ingenuity to nail the shots for the game.
Shooting in manual mode with my D200 and 70-200 2.8, ambient exposure was ISO 1600/2.8 was 1/30. Now 1/30 is nowhere near fast enough for sports, and in the available darkness of a high school gym, you have to be a little creative. So I stuck my PW and SB-80DX on a $2 Home Depot clamp rigged with some Nikon flash stands.
With the flash at half power, I was able to get an exposure of ISO 1600, 2.8 and 1/180. The flash was mounted to the bleachers, and aimed to cover half the court. The flash setting, which took a bit of trial and error during warmups, was half power at 28mm. The first image below is sans flash, the second with the flash. Notice the noise different in the strobe/non strobe shots. I would have liked another setup on the opposite side to cross light it, but $ are what they are.
These are also not my best shots from the night, as those will run in the paper and I'm precluded from republishing them here.
