SEC Championship: TebowFest 2008

Here is another video, this one from the S.E.C. championship also viewable on Si.com

Had the opportunity to shoot and do video of the Ironman World Championship 70.3 in Clearwater, FL on Saturday. All I have to say is that the Ironman is a sick event that showcases a spectrum of hardcore athletes, both amateur and professional, teenage and geriatric. There were some 70-year-old women there who can out swim, bike and run me. That being said, there were opportunities for great photos everywhere. These guys and girls pushed their bodies to the edge of physical endurance and beyond. The winner finished in a little over 3 hours and 40 minutes. That's 70 miles of swimming, biking and running in less than 4 hours for those of you who are keeping score. I've traveled less distance on I-95 in that time. These are a few of my stills. See the video on SI.com at 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/video/other/2008/11/12/ironman.SportsIllustrated/index.html 

Cheapest Video Light Ever

This one is for Josh Duplechian. This is how to create and set up the cheapest, easiest and if i do say, most elegant alternative to high-priced video lighting rigs. Excluding the light stand, which you should already have, the total cost for this set-up is under $40. I paid a little under $15 for the 500w halogen work light at Lowe's (same at Home Depot) $25 for the white umbrella and $2.25 for the wingnut and bracket.

If you aren't handy enough to install the bracket or simply need to set this up in a pinch you can gaffer tape the umbrella right to the stand as i have done in the last picture.

The light takes a few minutes to put together out of the box. Make sure NOT to touch the bulb when installing as this will seriously reduce its burn life and a replacement bulb costs about the same as the whole unit (you've got to love America). When putting together you won't need either the included stand or the protective grill as this will cast a shadow. BEWARE! They call hot lights, hot, for a reason. This puppy will get very hot, very quickly so make sure to install the little handle that is provided with the unit and give it plenty of time after turning off to cool down before handling.

After a little trial and error, i was able to find a little bracket that perfectly fit the umbrella's diameter. The one installed on mine is found in the electrical section and is used to affix wiring to conduit. It required me to drill through the frame of the light which is not ideal but was the only option I had given the materials available. You might have better luck with something else but I doubt it will cost less than two bucks.

To complete your studio set-up you can go to a fabric store and get some heavy black fabric for about $5 a yard (look for the most light absorbing material you can find, preferably a matte, non-shiny, velvet-like material). I stretch this material tight over the frame of a background stand i already own using A-clamps that I also got at Loews in a package of 12 for $10. 

Place your subject and light far enough from the background so that most of the light drops off to black before hitting the stand and the remaining light is absorbed by the black. I generally place the light at about a 45 degree angle to the subject. It's not very sophisticated but it looks pretty good and a lot more professional than the $50 price tag would suggest.

 Lastly, don't forget to white balance with a card, halogen is not day light balanced. Most cameras will handle the color remarkably well as long as you manually white balance. Never rely on your video camera's Auto White Balance function under artificial light, take the extra time and do it right.

Time Lapse 2

All right, here is how to do a time lapse. You'll need a few things, most of which you'll already have if you're a still photographer. You need a good, sturdy tripod. This is key because any small movement of the camera will be perceptible in the finished project. You need a still camera with either good battery power, an external battery pack or the AC power insert that comes with professional Canon cameras. Lastly you'll need a intervolometer. If you have a pro Nikon, you're good to go, they are built in. Canon makes the TC-80N3, I've included a picture below.

In my opinion, this is one of the few situations where Canon has nickel and dimed the user by not including a basic function that is present on many lesser consumer cameras and its Nikon competitors. It sells for about $135 and doesn't do a terribly wide range of things other than send a small signal to the camera to fire at one of four predetermined interval settings. I suppose $135 is pretty cheap by pro camera standards and it can be a pretty powerful image making tool when used correctly. It is unlimited in its frame rates and exposure count unlike some of the built-in meters which can limit both the rate and count. It uses a pretty efficient little watch battery and will shoot for days without draining the camera's power source. 

When setting up your camera there are a few factors which are pretty important to consider. First and foremost, the camera is going to be there for a long time; usually four hours or more... sometimes much longer. How are you going to protect it from the elements, thieves and curious bystanders? I tend to stay with the unit and just pull up the tent stakes when it gets too hairy weather-wise. It gets pretty boring but you can monitor the cameras functions, drive off chuckle-heads who get too close and nobody steals your 5 grand worth of camera equipment. I realize this isn't always possible due to the location of your placement and the fact that you might be shooting elsewhere. The best way to protect your camera is probably with a small pelican case with a plexiglass window cut out and a ball head mount. It takes a little skill and a few tools to create but everything is waterproof, self-contained and lockable. I'll do a future post solely on the creation of one of these units. 

The second factor is placement, in addition to proper composition in the present you need to be cognizant of the future action and how it will affect your composition and all the action in between. The action that takes place in the frame will hopefully be dynamic and exciting but it has to happen in the confines of your predetermined frame. There's no following the action like with a video camera so you have to do a little planning and some research. If it's a situation that typically happens everyday like traffic or a sunset, check it out and find out the best place to be when the peak action happens. Figure out what the light will be like and where it will fall. If it's a special event talk to some of the people involved and find out what is going to happen, where and at what time so you can anticipate the action rather than letting it happen to you. This holds true for any situation but particularly when you're about to blow six hours standing next to a camera doing nothing and then doing post-processing on 1000 images.

Once you are assured of a safe camera location and a good solid angle from which to capture the action you have to figure out what you want the end result to look like. The rate at which you capture the frames over a given period will directly determine the final "look" of your piece. This is where you have to take post-processing into account. 

Television and video basically plays at 30 frames a second which is a derivative of U.S. alternating current (A/C) power which cycles 60 times a second or 60hz. Back in the day when television was first emerging, engineers took this cycling period, cut it in half and we got the frame rate of 30 fps. When color television was introduced they had to alter the rate because the added color signal screwed up the picture (this is the simplified version anyway). They changed it to 29.97 and that is what we have now and that is generally what you should use in your time lapse unless you are doing some kind of special purpose output or you want a distinct look.

Now, using 30 frames a second you can figure out what your film is going to look like and how long it will be based upon how many frames you shoot and what period of time you shoot it over. For example, if your doing a scenic of clouds and mountains and you want the clouds to rapidly fly overhead in your final product then you need a long interval between frames. This is where it gets a little tricky because you have to do some math. 

Anyone one will tell you that I'm no mathematician (I barely passed college math) but you can figure out how long your end product will be by using a basic equation that divides the total number of frames shot by the frame rate you use (29.97). If you want 30 seconds of footage you have to shoot 900 frames. 

Next you have to figure out what time period you want to cover and what you want it to look like. Back to the flying clouds, clouds move slow (depending on the wind speed) so if you want them to look fast you need a long interval. Shooting one frame every 30 seconds or even one a minute will get them moving really quick. At one frame every 30 seconds you will be covering about 15 minutes in one second of your time lapse, one frame a minute you'll cover about 30 minutes in a second. With a bit of wind, this will have your clouds really hauling ass. The drawback is that to output 30 seconds you will have to capture 15 hours of footage. 

Luckily you usually don't need this much footage or you don't need this kind of interval. I have made pretty nice time lapses over the course of about three hours doing one frame every 10 seconds which yielded about 35 seconds of footage. It depends on your subject matter and what you want to do with it.  

Post-production is the next step, I am aiming this mainly at photojournalists so I'm going to give you the quick and dirty of post. This is also by far the cheapest solution. There are a bunch of companies that make software for creating time lapses; Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Affects, BTV Pro, GBTimelapse etc... but for the money and simplicity of use it's pretty hard to beat QuickTime Pro. For an additional $30 bucks you can upgrade the installed QuickTime Player on your Mac to Pro. If you do any sort of video or sound editing you should have already done this, it's invaluable. 

All you have to do to create a time lapse with QuickTime Pro is simply have all your images in one folder (they will already be chronologically ordered by you camera's numbering system) File>Open Image Sequence>Click on first image>Open>Choose the frame rate (29.97). That's it, you now have a fully functioning time lapse ready for use.

I do need to back track here a little. When setting up your camera you do need to make a couple of considerations based on how you will be using your end product. Since still cameras shoot at such a higher resolution than video cameras it's really easy to make a super High-Definition movie with your still camera. 

I use the M2 (medium small) jpeg setting on my Canon EOS 1D Mark II for time lapse work because by still camera standards it's a pretty small file but by video standards it's huge. Its 2544 x 1696 pixels is way more than even the best modern High-Def televisions can register yet the each individual file is only 1.3 mb (12.3 open). When you're dealing with nearly a thousand images size adds up quickly (about a gig) although this is still miniscule amounts of data compared to a time lapse done with a High-Def video camera which could be hundreds of gigs.

If you are only going to display the end result on the web, use your camera's smallest jpeg setting, but know once you've shot it small it will always be small.  

If color and post production image values are critical, you might even shoot RAW. If doing work for Hollywood or broadcast you are going to want the most creative control possible. I'll tell you right now that I generally try to stay away from doing post color or exposure by getting it right in the camera before I start. If for some reason you have the need or desire you can easily create an action in Photoshop to suit your needs and batch process the whole lot. It does however take time and/or a fast processor. 

That's about all it takes really, you will need to tweak the process to suit your own needs as you go and can figure out the nuances of the process with a little practice. This piece is one that I did on Clearwater Beach's Pier 60 around sunset. The interval was one frame every 10 seconds for a little over three hours. I set it up while fishing and the end result was much better than my catch that day.

Time Lapse Videos

I'm officially the worst blogger ever. I've heard that the point of blogging is to actually write things (on a consistent basis) that other people might want to read, not simply to just put up a couple of pictures and a few words every two weeks. I have my excuses of course, the move to Tampa, the kitchen renovation, interviews, The Olympics! etc... They are all pretty weak in light of the fact that it typically takes only a few minutes to post something, so in that spirit, I'm going to share a few examples of my newest passion and how to do it. 

Time lapse video (or more accurately, photography) since it utilizes a still camera to create High Definition videos, can be a really nice addition to your bag of tricks when doing multi-media for newspapers or even feature-length documentaries. You see them a lot now on Discovery and Science Channel shows where they use them to condense a lot of activity into a really short and much more entertaining package. Depending on your interval you can condense hours or even days into a few seconds. 

Time lapses are a really good storytelling tool because they pack so much information into such a short and easily readable nugget. Still photographers are perfectly adapted to creating these type of segments because of their understanding of proper composition, which is the most important element to creating an interesting time lapse.  Filling the frame and anticipating the action are also key. 

The time lapse I'm posting here is actually a mix of still photography and realtime video. In my next post I will explain exactly how it's done and include all the necessary materials so you can create your own. I promise not to wait two weeks to do it.

Wedding Stuff

Been a little while since my last post, I've been busy with preparations for my move to Tampa.  I photographed a great interracial marriage ceremony a few weeks ago. The two families came together in what I can only describe as the very ideal of racial harmony and unity. The couple and their families represent what I believe (and hope) will be the future of America and what I hope will be normalization between people of all races.

That being said, the wedding was actually really fun and light-hearted. The reception was at Busch Gardens in Tampa and even though we were separate from the park, it still made for a really festive backdrop as you entered the facilities. 

There was a ton of dancing at this wedding and the music was a great mix of classical wedding songs like by the likes of Sinatra to very contemporary hip-hop, soon-to-be classics by Flo Rida. These are some of my images from the day.

Robert Price Interview

This is an excerpt from the first interview I did two weeks ago for the Oriskany project. Robert Price was a 19-year-old yeoman attached to a squadron on the Oriskany in 1966 while in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam.  He was aboard ship on September 26, 1966 when a parachute flare ignited in a weapons magazine causing a massive fire which claimed the lives of 44 sailors. Price recounts the tragic events that unfolded that day and remembers the two friends he lost.

U.S.S. Oriskany Video

These are some clips from my first dive on the U.S.S. Oriskany on May 17, 2008. The 17th was the second anniversary of the ships sinking as part of Florida's extensive reef building program. The carrier at 911 feet long and displacing 27,100 tons, is the largest vessel ever intentionally sunk for the purpose of creating an artificial reef. The ship lies 22 miles off the coast of Pensacola, FL in 212 feet of water. 

I completed two dives that day to a maximum depth of 140 feet. The ship was well along in the process of encrustation by corals and other marine life and the attraction of varied species of fish including dozens of large barracuda, grouper, amberjack and at least one very large leatherback sea turtle. 

While it was very cool to see all these large species, the main attraction is the overriding sense of awe that overtakes you as this behemoth first comes into view. I have lived aboard two carriers and am well acquainted with their huge size but their floating counterparts have nowhere near the magnitude of one encountered at the bottom of the sea. 

For one, in the best possible scenario of visibility it is impossible to see even an 1/8 of the length of this ship at one time. At pier it is possible to take in the largesse of a carrier in one eye full but underwater you just swim along endlessly discovering new portions of the ship until you run out of air.

I chose to shoot this project in HighDef believing it necessary to do the scale of the subject justice. To be truthful it has so far been a pretty big pain in the ass. For one, the file sizes are huge and the transfer rate in Final Cut extremely slow. I am also working in the newly incorporated AVCHD format and their seems to be plenty of bugs between Sony and Apple to iron out. If anyone out there has had any experience with perfecting the AVCHD workflow in Final Cut Express feel free to pass it along.

My hope is to eventually develop this footage, along with archival material and some interviews (which i will be sharing soon) into a feature length documentary on the ship's journey from warship to artificial reef. Any and all comments, suggestions and insights into this project are welcome. I am currently trying to contact former members of the Oriskany's crew in the Florida area for interviews.

I have finally broke down...

Well I finally did it, I broke down and created a blog. As if between my regular still photography, budding wedding photography business, radio show and movie project I have so much extra time to kick around that I need to be starting something new. Alas, I am but a slave to fashion though and since "all the kids are doing it" I too will jump off the bridge with them.

My hopes for this space are as such: a place to keep friends and colleagues updated with my whereabouts and goings on, an outlet for unpublished work, a classroom to pass on my accumulated technical knowledge and to acquire new and finally as a place to display the progress and receive feedback on my ongoing movie project on the reefing of the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Oriskany, the largest artificial reef project in the world.

Also, I plan to utilize run-on and incomplete sentences with equal frequency  and blaspheme the very nature of AP style.