A South African photographs baseball

Two months ago, I was asked to photograph baseball and softball play-offs for The Grind, an online publication that highlights the athletic achievements of students on the west side of Houston in general and Katy ISD sports in particular. Katy is known for consistently helping students achieve success in sports with many of them getting full ride scholarships to universities and some even entering the pro leagues. The focus of The Grind is not to concentrate on the negative, i.e. how a particular student's scoring average is less consistent or less reliable than what it used to be, but it tries to focus on highlighting the successes of the team as a whole.

As some of my readers will know, I know very little about baseball or softball for that matter. I can tell you about soccer (having coached it) as well as the intricacies of rugby and cricket, both of which I played as a schoolboy while attending Selborne College in East London and Jeppe High School for Boys in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am somewhat better versed in American football, because my sons played it while in middle school and the moment I figured out how the game was played, I became the parent that would call the referee out on bad calls, and yes, there were some.

Back to the present. It's a strange feeling to walk up to a baseball game, camera with long lens slung over your shoulder and to know virtually nothing about the game. It would be akin to someone not knowing a thing about "Lost" holding a conversation about the actors, plot etc over drinks! I entered the bullpen, mingled with the players, introduced myself to the coaches who, for the most part, are really decent down-to-earth people. Oh, the prima donnas (Italian for First Ladies) who hold themselves to be above everyone else exist, but not in Katy. I could name names and schools, but that won't help the kids and I refuse to behave in a manner similar to them.

It's a late sun-soaked Texas afternoon, the air sticky with humidity. The bullpen is filled with screaming girls or grunting guys whooping and high-fiving each other and I start shooting at a low ISO, around 200, speed up high to try to capture the ball in mid-flight as the pitcher hurls it towards the batter (is that even a word?) who in turn tries to slug it out of the field. Aperture is about f/5.6 so that I can capture the pitcher or batsman in action. I get lucky, get a few decants shots. Wait, you say. What lens are you using? Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L II, oh and I'm hand-holding it. As the sun goes down and the ballpark lights come on, I have to increase my ISO first up to 800 until at last I am at 1600. More than that and digital noise will become more and more evident in the prints. The problem is that stadium lights just are NOT bright enough, so as it gets darker and darker I have to open the aperture more and more going down to f/2.8. The sky becomes darker, but the digital camera captures the most incredible hues of blue: indigo, blue-black, blue-purple. This has to be my favourite time of day. This is dusk, the magical hour. The game however doesn't stop. Batsmen sprint to 1st base, steal and slide in to second base, make a mad dash for 3rd and head for home plate when they are caught out. As the quality of light continues to diminish rapidly, I am forced to slow down the shutter speed. There is no chance that I can capture the ball in mid-air any longer. It becomes a stripe, a white smudge with a slight arc curving in towards the batsman or ending up in the catcher's gloved hands.

The pace and energy of the game doesn't generally slacken. Occasionally, one team gives up the fight and decide to just play ball. The adrenaline levels fall and weariness sets in. My shoulders, arms and back ache and my eyes struggle to focus. I cannot flag, because there is another game I must shoot before the night is over. Finally, the end comes. Sometimes it's a close call, merely one run apart. Other times it's a whitewash, the losing team getting one run and the winning team scoring 13! The players line up to greet each other following the game, each hammering the side of their opponents' closed-fist as they walk past each other. I capture some final shots of key players and the coach and then head to the next game.

Some will say, hang on. That 70-200mm lens is great, but shooting sports with it? It's like trying to cut a steak using a spoon! You're right. It is not the best lens to use for the job I'm doing. I could use a 1.4x converter and get a little more distance out of it, but I will also lose a stop of light. Another option is that I could buy a bigger lens, something like the Canon Telephoto EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM, but that costs around $4500. I tried the new Sigma 50-500mm DG OS HSM APO but the aperture is only f/4.5-6.3. No optimal at all and I got absolutely NO benefit using it in low light. that "mutha" is HEAVY! I was unable to hold it in my hands without shaking like a leaf in the wind. I used a monopod to provide some measure of stability, but the lens just isn't fast enough for night-time sports. Their is simply no way that I can capture a batsman sliding into base at f/6.3 at 1/30 second even if I am panning. The Sigma 50-500mm would be great if you were shooting your dog or kids or birds or wildlife during the day, but as soon as nightfall approaches, don't even think about it.

Now that we are into bi-district playoffs, and heading into games that determine the State Champions, I may have to just suck it up and rent a longer, faster lens from my friend Roger Cicala at LensRentals.com, but they are expensive all the same.

In case you're wondering if I've learned anything about baseball, Doug Johnson, the editor of The Grind, sat me down over a beer and gave me a few pointers. None of his advice helps me understand the Astros. They still suck! Thank goodness for Katy sports!

Online Inspiration

It's not often that something truly free, (and yes, I do mean absolutely free, gratis, no cost) comes along that I can recommend without reservation. While I have my favourite photographers, I have nothing but praise for the people at Creative Live.

The way it works is this. You sign up at Creative Live (yes, you have to sign up to get their emails because their bulk email provider MailChimp, which is also mine, is ANAL about making sure that you don't spam users by using purchased email lists, or email addresses you randomly collected from cyperspace). Once you have signed up, you are able to tune in to various classes delivered by world-class experts in their field at no cost. If you dig the presentation enough, you can purchase the entire series for a very good price.

What types of programs does Creative Live offer?

• Fundamentals of Digital Photography by John Greengo
• Photoshop to HTML by Erik Fadiman
• Android Java Apps
• DSLR Cinema by Vincent Laforet
• The Creative Eye by Art Wolfe
• Aperture 3
• Watercolor 101
• and much more to come!
  

If you're in the mood to check it out, head over to Creative Live's website to see what offerings they have and the times they go "live". You can view the live feed here.

If you're a Twitter fan, follow them @CreativeLive and for the group use #creativeLIVE.

Remember you can follow me on Twitter: @classenj. Also, please recommend my blog to a friend. Later this week more news coming up including some great photographs and backgrounds for your desk/laptops.

Till then,

Adieu.

J.

Frustrated? Uninspired? Feel like a hack?

There are days when I wonder whether or not I am a photographer, whether anyone cares about my work, whether I care about my work. I wonder why I am uninspired, when the dawn will break and the dark night of doubt will end.

If you have ever felt this way, or perhaps feel this way today, watch this amazing video:

American Heart Association: Heart Ball at Hilton Americas, Houston, TX

The decor of Hilton Americas in Houston, Texas was augmented by glamorous women dressed in shades of red adorned with glittering jewelry largely accompanied by men dressed in the obligatory traditional black tuxedo as the "Who's Who" of Houston gathered for the annual ball of the American Heart Association.

I was photographing for a friend of mine, Todd Parker who is the owner of STP Images. We were suitably dressed in dark suits, white shirts and ties. The batteries in our cameras and flash heads were charged, digital cards were loaded and freshly cleaned lenses were loaded on our Canon bodies as we entered the hotel lobby. We headed up to the 24th floor where a VIP party was in progress, and immediately set to work taking photos of the event. I was shooting with my Canon 5D and a 24-70mm f/2.8L lens mounted on a bracket. The flash I used was a Speedlite 580EX unit with a diffuser mounted on the bracket above the camera connected to the hot shoe with the OC-E3 Off-Camera Shoe Cord. Not satisfied with the 4 batteries that the 580EX uses to power it, I attached a Canon flash battery pack CP-E4 to the bracket. I now had a total of 12 batteries powering the flash, with another 12 batteries in my suit pocket as backups. I had 3 spare digital cards and started snapping photos.

There are many things that can wrong, but the weak point of the set up is...? I quickly identified two weak areas. The first is that my fixed-arm bracket took incredible photos in landscape view. The photos were well exposed and people I photographed were flattered by what they saw. When I flipped the camera to the right so that it was in portrait mode, the flash head moved with the camera and I ended up with the most dreadful shadows appearing behind the people. Think about it. The flash head was pointed towards their chest/neck area and the shadow was then projected onto the closest wall. Not a pretty sight. The second area that concerned me was point where the off-camera shoe cord attaches to the flash head. Essentially, you have 1/2" of stability, and if you bump up against someone or a table, the whole unit can come crashing to the floor. The glue between the hot foot and the part that connects to the bracket is amazingly weak. I didn't have to deal with this issue, but there was another photographer who had to. I helped him out with some elastic bands I keep on the head of my flash (very ghetto-looking colours too!) but he was able to borrow a spare from someone else.

What did I learn? Keep a spare off-shoe camera cable in your bag and use a camera bracket which allows you to flip the camera from portrait to landscape and back again, while the flash unit remains stationary.

Overall, I was very pleased with the quality of the photographs. You can view them here yourself. Please let me know your thoughts.

Sporadic Posts

Anyone who reads these occasional posts from time to time knows that postings have been sporadic to rare. This is partly due to the fact that while I love writing, I tend to write detailed epistles rather than brief interesting factoids and observations.

A second reason why my photo blog is a sporadic occurrence is that I was laid off on December 1, 2009 and have been focussed on finding work, sending resumes into great unknown black holes, aka as databases. Formerly, when one applied to a place of employment, they at least had the courtesy to thank you for your time, but that you were under-qualified or in some cases over-qualified. These days, one doesn't even get an automated email saying "Thanks, but no thanks!" Of course, these are the same companies that often insist their workforce is a cohesive unit, where your input is valued and appreciated. If they can't set up their HRIS platforms to send you an automated email when they deselect your name in the database, you can only wonder how they treat their employees!

As far as blog posts go, I will endeavour to write at least one posting a week and more if warranted.

2009 -> 2010

I don't know about you, but it's hard to comprehend that it's the end of yet another year, and what a year it's been. Before I continue, here's wishing you a merry, joyous and peaceful Christmas. The good Lord knows we can all do with some joy and peace.

Some of the events of this past year such as the Israeli attack on Gaza, collapse of Icelandic banking institutions, North Korea sending off missiles into the blue yonder, Swine Flu, continued free fall of US markets and financial institutions, protests in Iran, Michael Jackson's death, floods, typhoons, snow in Houston....the list goes on, have left almost all of us unscathed by the pain and hurt that is 2009. As one radio commentator put it, Christmas is about hope, hope of the impossible becoming reality. My wish for you is that 2010 will become a year of realized hope for you.

I have updated 3 areas of my website. The company joined Twitter (@classenj) and I have placed a link on the homepage of the website. Two areas of the website have been expanded, viz. Interiors and Portraits.

New and exciting events, software, cameras, lenses etc. keep making their debut, and needless to say, it's almost impossible to keep up with everything. I will continue to share my photographic experiences and journey with you throughout 2010.

Best wishes for a successful and prosperous New Year.

Photographing the Twinkle of Holiday Lights

With Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, most folks can begin to focus on getting their holidays decorations out of boxes that have been hidden away in storage for the past 11 months and can again begin to decorate their homes, shrubbery, trees etc.

I have seen some pretty spectacular holiday light displays, and cars line up outside the subdivision for what feels like hours so that everyone can ooh and aah at the night time wonders that are Holiday Lights. Someone pulls out a camera, takes a ton of photographs, but inevitably, they are bound to be disappointed with the pictures they took. Either they were so far away, that you can't see much of anything, or else they were so close and the flash went off creating daylight and hiding the beauty of the lights.

How can a person capture the beauty of Holiday lights? Last week I ran across a blog at one of my favourite sites to rent equipment from. Roger Cicala is a super guy, easy to work with and runs a top notch company. I am going to copy his blog here, as well as post a link back to the original article so that you can reference it yourself.

Stop down and use a tripod

OK, you knew it was coming. The most important thing you can get for shooting lights during the Holiday season is a tripod. Yes, I know you have image stabilization on your lens (or in your camera). But if you want the lights to really shine, you’re going to need a tripod. The reason is Light Rule # 1: Stop the aperture way down when shooting lights. If you shoot wide open, say f2.8 or more, the lights show up as glowing little blobs. But if you stop down. – way down, down where diffraction softening would interfere with a sharp daytime shot – you get awesome star points from your lights. Look at the same shot below, taken from f2.8 to f22. Major difference.

The effect is well worthwhile, but by the time the aperture was reduced to f8 (which still didn’t give great stars) the exposure time was almost a second. Way too long for any amount of Image Stabilization to be effective, so a tripod is a necessity if you want pointy-star lights.

BTW – here’s your photography equipment trivia of the day. Did you know you can tell how many aperture blades the lens has by the number of rays on the star? If the lens has an even number of aperture blades, the star will have the same number of rays as the number of aperture blades: 6 blades, the stars will have 6 rays, etc. If there are an odd number of aperture blades, the stars will have twice as many rays as there are blades: 7 blades, the stars have 14 rays. (The reason is that each blade makes two rays, but with an even number of blades two rays overlap at each location, with an odd number they don’t overlap.) Why does this matter? Because some of the lenses famous for their smooth bokeh have 9 aperture blades. The 18 points that result from these when stopped down tend to blur and not be as dramatic.

Dusk, not dark!

You know the ‘golden hour’ that landscape photographers talk about, the time just after dawn when the light is soft and angled and you get the best landscape images? There’s a similar time for shooting lights, the hour right after dusk. During this time there’s still enough light left to allow you to see at least an outline of the house, people or whatever else is being lit, instead of just a pattern of lights.

Fill flash / double exposures

When shooting indoors I go to lengths to avoid flash, especially direct flash. But outdoors its very useful. Especially if you miss dusk and things have gotten dark. A bit of fill flash can show the details of the house, gardens, or even the Christmas tree that would otherwise be lost if you’re exposing just by the lights.

There are several ways to set flash so that you don’t blow out the lights. Many flashes will let you choose a “fill flash ratio” or number of “stops of compensation”. A 4:1 ratio (which is the same as -2 stops of compensation) is usually about right. With a tripod, though, you will get better effects by what is variously called slow sync or dragging the shutter. With this technique you’re basically using a long exposure to get the pretty lights followed by a brief burst of flash to expose the background. The technique varies a bit depending on camera and flash brand, but I generally use it in Aperture Priority mode (to set a high f-stop to make the lights twinkle) and the camera will automatically set the flash for fill-flash function. If there is too much or too little flash, you can correct the next shot with exposure compensation. There are lots of other ways to do it but a half hour of experimenting (along with GASP reading the flash manual) will get you comfortable.

If you don’t want to mess with flash, then shooting two exposures (Ha! You’ll need a tripod again), one exposed for the background the other stopped down to expose just the lights, is an easy solution. You can combine as layers in Photoshop (I usually use the blend-if sliders, but there’s lots of ways to do it).

Swirls and effects

If its pitch dark and you don’t have your tripod (or even if its not pitch dark and you do) Holiday lights are a great time to totally play around. Set your aperture and ISO so the exposure time is a second or two, then move the camera around during the shot, zoom the lens in and out, whatever floats your boat to get some nice abstract patterns. They’re pretty by themselves, but if you put them as a layer in photoshop over a properly exposed image you can do all kinds of fun things using the “blend if” sliders, etc.

Three shots of the same set of lights with different camera movement during 1 to 2 second exposures

Reflections

Especially when shooting entire buildings, things are twice as pretty if you get the lights reflecting from other surfaces. Of course Christmas lights reflecting off a pond or lake is beautiful, but we don’t always have a pond or lake handy. Rain puddles, snowmelt, or ice all make the lights can all provide great reflections. Indoors lights will reflect from mirrors, but at night they’ll also often reflect from windows, glass cabinet fronts, or off of a well polished floor (like the pond, at my house there’s usually not a well-polished floor handy).

White balance for snow!

Most cameras auto fill-in-the-blank functions struggle with snow. Auto exposure and autofocus are not much of a problem when shooting lights because the high contrast lights will lock on autofocus easily and we’re usually setting long exposure times. The Auto white balance is usually useless when there’s a lot of snow, creating blue or sometimes yellow casts. To me the simples solution is shoot everything in RAW and correct it later, but most people set their white balance manually before shooting in snowy conditions. Just setting white balance on a clean, not shadowed patch of snow should do the trick.

Thanks Roger! That was a great tip.

Well folk, that's it for now. I'll keep the posts coming.