Photographing matches
 

I've learned FRC events are very hard to photograph due to fast moving objects and low light conditions. I'm starting this thread to see what cameras and settings other people are using for photographing matches at FRC events. Please be very specific in what equipment and settings you used, and where you were located when taking the photograph. If you can post some examples of the results you obtained, that would be great too.

My camera is a Canon SX100 IS. At San Diego, I stood about 15 feet off of fieldside and had to shoot in shutter priority mode at 1/100th second to eliminate any blur, and ISO 800 and exposure +2 to get it bright enough. I'm not very happy with the high level of grain that comes with ISO 800 though.

What results are the rest of you getting?

Re: Photographing matches
 

Kodak EasyShare v1253 12 MegaPixels w/ HD Video Recording as well, Usually I stick to leaving the flash off since I'm by the field which has plenty light, and I also use a sports setting which helps capture the moving objects (This particular camera comes w/ 23 different settings from capturing still objects, objects on the move or scenery in general)...

I've also taken various pictures w/ said camera of scenery in CA and OR moving at about 60 - 80 mph and every picture has come out clear except the really 1'-4' up close shots. Distant Shots where clear and you don't really realize that I was moving. Unfortunately though what won't help you is the fact that I forget what settings I had...

I'll go take a look at the camera now and update when I can.

Settings I was using
LT Exp: No LT Exposure
Colo Moder: High Color
ISO: Auto
Sharpness: Normal
Blur Warning: On
MP: Anywhere between 6 and 10

This camera takes & stores pictures / video failry quickly so I can take multiple shots in secs. I love Technology and the best part is... I'm not even close to being a photographer and I have awesome shots... really don't have samples except whats on my myspace.

Re: Photographing matches
 

Let me just say that there is no one magic camera or settings that will produce knock-out photos every time at FRC events. The conditions change so dramatically from area to area and event to event that it is impossible to recommend something over another. So far this year I have only shot 2 regionals Chicago [Day1] [Day2] and Flint [Comp]. Since Flint is not representative of typical lighting conditions please excuse that all my examples are from a very limited set of one regional. After a few years of shooting events, I can impart a few pointers:

First, know your camera! This is the difference of what a good photographer knows. A good photographer should be able to make dynamite shots with a disposable camera because they know what the camera can/cannot do. The honest truth is the difference between a several hundred dollar camera and a several thousand dollar camera is one will get you 90% of the shots you want to get and the other will get you 95%. But, if you chase that 5% of shots with the former camera you will be disappointed to find that none of them will come out acceptably. Find the capabilities of your camera and live within them.

Find the capabilities of your camera by taking a zillion or more photos, looking at them on the computer, and learning what works and what does not. Some things that work with one set up may not with another. This is where learning the capabilities of your camera come in to play.

Most of the time the limiting factor at a FRC event is as you pointed out that you are shooting something moving fast in not the most ideal lighting. You are getting into the 95% camera to really get the shots you want. All cameras will take nice shots outside on a sunny day. Generally the more expensive equipment is better suited to gathering more light and making better use out of the light available. They are more expensive because you are paying for larger glass to gather more light, using glass that is less lossy, and hitting a CCD that is more light sensitive. This seems to be a logarithmic curve between cost and performance. You can spend thousands and only get a marginal improvement, but that being said if those are the only shots you want than it may be worth it.

Most cameras these days you can manipulate most of the settings such as ISO, EV, white balance, shutter speed, etc. Most of these settings are a balancing act. For example, the ISO setting increases the gain of the CCD making it more light sensitive, but also increases the gain of the noise floor of the CCD. You want to use the lowest ISO setting you can to get the cleanest photos, but the lower the setting the less light you have and the longer the shutter needs to be open. If motion occurs while the shutter is open, then that part of the image would appear to blur.

Blur is not a bad thing! [Pic1] [Pic2][Pic3][Pic4][Pic5] We perceive it to convey motion, or to draw your eye to the area of attention. Turn it from being a detriment to an asset by using blur to convey context and liven up your picture.

Some times you do want a rock solid shot of the field with the robots on it. You can accomplish this with any camera, but you may need to make some concessions to live within the capability of your camera. Knowing that motion causes blur, take your shot when there is not motion! For example, right after the match ends but before the judges go out on the field and the drivers leave their post take your shot while the machines are not moving. Someone casually looking at the photo would not be able to guess that the match is already over. [Pic1] It is a little bit of smoke and mirrors, but remember that you are going after the shot and only you need to know in what context it was made.

There are things that you can do to minimize the amount of blur in your image. The source of blur can be your subject or you. Make sure you are holding your camera rock solid when you take your shot. You could try to use a tripod to help you keep steady, but I hate them. Tripods do not work well with as many people at an event as FRC and no one paying attention to where they are walking. You also want to be mobile to get around as quickly as the fast paced game itself. A tripod will only slow you down. Get creative. Set your camera on a trash can or rail to stabilize your shot. (This was after the event, I sat the camera on the stairs to leave the shutter open longer. [Pic1]) The one trick I use is I wrap the neck strap under my arm and make it short. Then when I lift my elbow to take the shot the strap tightens and I can use my entire upper body to stabilize the camera. With a pocket camera I sometimes hold it against my forehead to keep it from moving. If you have two hands on it and it is out in front of you to look through it is not easy to keep it still.

Take your shot when your subject is not screaming down the field such as when the machine is hurdling [Pic1] [Pic2] or sitting at the starting line. [Pic1]

OK, I can tell this is going to a multi-parter. If there is interest, I will continue with white balance, subjects, constitution, and more on mitigating blur in future segments……

-J

Re: Photographing matches
 

I am back for another quick article. This is the subject of white balance, and could be the difference between good shots and great shots. This I found to be the trickiest off all things to get right at a FRC event and the most overlooked in shooting. The problem is that the field is typically lit by very hot, bright lights while outside the arena it is lit with a cooler mix of lights with tungsten, fluorescent, and natural light seeping in.

The problem is this, the environment absorbs, reflects, and takes on the personality of the light source. A light that is skewed toward the blue end of the spectrum will cause the scene to appear blue. A white piece of paper would look blue, but our brains tell us that we know that the sheet is white so we trick ourselves into compensating for this blue cast. Take a picture of the same scene and the camera will show you exactly how the scene looked at the time it was taken turning a perfectly staged scene into a group of lifeless zombie corpses ([Bad] as opposed to [Good]). The same can be the case if the light source is skewed reddish which tends to wash out all the color to where nothing in the scene pops ([Bad] as opposed to [Good]) or ([Bad] and [Good]).

Take a look at an FRC event and you notice that there are many light sources lighting the same subjects in the scene. The main field lighting originates from rows of par cans on either side of the field suspended by the field truss. But, look around and there are plenty of other light sources to throw off the scene. These can be outside light seeping in or a mix of house lights. This causes a lot of trouble because the subjects take on the character of each light source. It may be impossible to compensate for everything in the view of the camera. I have found that it is just best to try to limit the amount of light sources in the scene as you can see in this photo the subjects are lit by house lighting but the background is saturated by natural light that is hotter resulting in the blue background [Pic].

Some times there is nothing you can do about the lighting situation. For example, the large displays are lit by even hotter HID bulbs. Take a look here and notice that the area around Delphi has a blue cast. [Pic] Correcting for the cast in the sign would have created a red cast in the rest of the image which would be even more noticeable. Correct for the primary subject in the field of view.

Some cameras are better than others in automatically correcting for lighting conditions. In a challenging lighting shoot like at a FRC event I mainly do not take my chances and do not use the auto white balance. For some cameras the sunlight setting is a good ballpark value for the main field and the tungsten setting is all right for the pit areas which are typically lit by house lamps. Using the built in settings makes it easier to shuffle settings between areas.

Many cameras allow you to manually compensate for the lighting conditions by shooting a blank pure white sheet of paper under the light your subject is under. If you tell the camera what you are shooting is white it can calculate the delta of how off the shot is and compensate for it. This does not work well in practice, however. The field will probably get mad if you go out on the field to shoot a blank piece of paper, and who carries a stack of paper with them anyway? A better approach is getting yourself a white balance filter. (http://www.digitalphotographykits.com/whitebalance.htm) It is a diffuse lense calibrated to pure white that you can just point at the dominant light source and hit the color correct button on your camera and you are done.

Another trick is if the image is fairly close but there is a little bit of a hue, and it is the perfect shot that you would like to print (minus the hue) it can be “fixed” in a number of post processing softwares. The main process is to identify an area of the photo that is pure white, pure grey, or pure black. It is fortunate that the referees shirts are white and black, since they make a great color reference. Also, the carpet on the field is normally grey. I occasionally take a couple loose strands of the carpet as a reference that I can hold up to the screen and match the picture to it. Note that this can only correct for minor color variances because a strong hue will loose color information from the other color components that it is over-saturating, so some photos just cannot be fixed unless you shot the photo in RAW format.

If your subjects are real close, you can generate your own light source with the camera flash. For example [Bad] or [Bad] as opposed to [Good] or [Good].

I do not find much use for a flash at most competitions. First, even the most powerful portable flashes will not give you the distance or field coverage really required without spending some real money. Also, even if you were using it for an effect such as opening the shutter slightly before the flash of a robot racing down the field. That would give you a streak blur and a crisp image of the robot. However robots are mainly metal and glares unnaturally even under a diffuse flash. Flashes work best with diffuse subjects such as people, but then create a whole new problem of red eyes, hot spots, and such.

One instance where a flash can work is if you are trying to overcome a significant back light such as [Bad] as opposed to [Good]. Though notice the red eye that should be post processed out. Try to surprise the subject so they are looking away to create a more natural looking scene and to avoid red eye from the retina reflecting the flash directly back to the camera [Better].

Another is to de-emphasize the background in a shot by overpowering it with a strong light source in the foreground. [Bad] as opposed to [Different].

Who knew there was so much to white-balance! Tomorrow I can post some more opinions on EVs, dynamic range, and lenses or answer any questions if anyone is interested….

-J

Re: Photographing matches
 

It always makes life easier to have a fast lens.
I have a Nikon D80 with a 80-200 f2.8 lens. It is great for those low light situations. Speed of the camera can be important as well. This makes for great action shots. This camera can only take pictures at a rate of 3 frames per second. I am looking to improve that this summer with a newer version.

Re: Photographing matches
 

jasonjmonroe,

I'm interested! Keep the excellent articles coming...

Eldarion

Re: Photographing matches
 

Check out http://www.joemenassa.com/robotics2008.html and see the beautiful shots he takes. He uses two giant canon cameras. Not sure which ones or settings, contact him on his site.

Re: Photographing matches
 

For SD/LA I typically use the following settings.

Canon EOS 20D
1/250s f/3.5 at 200.0mm iso800 with Flash hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time 23-Mar-2006 09:38:48
Make Canon
Model Canon EOS 20D
Flash Used Yes
Focal Length 200 mm
Exposure Time 1/250 sec
Aperture f/3.5
ISO Equivalent 800
White Balance (-1)
Metering Mode matrix (5)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Program aperture priority (3)


Use that light meter. It helps.

Re: Photographing matches
 

I've been shooting FRC for two years with a Canon Digital Rebal (v1.0, 6.3MP) and cheap Canon lenses (an 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 and a 70-300 f/4-5.6) with decent results. My pics from this year's Midwest Regional are at www.frcpics.com. I have been shooting at mostly 1600 ISO in RAW format, when I shrink down the resulting jpegs the noise from the high ISO is vastly reduced. I like action shots of the robots and the drive teams, so the shutter speed is the key element for what I am trying to do, I shoot for at least 1/200 to help stop the action. Concerning white balance, I find the regional fields work best under the incandescent setting, while the Georgia Dome is a lot brighter and likes the cloudy setting. The beauty of RAW is the ability to easily adjust the white balance and exposure in Photoshop prior to publishing.

I just stepped up to the new Canon D40 with a pair of lenses I hope will make this easier, a Canon 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS (Image Stabilized) for general shooting an a Sigma 50-150 f/2.8 for the action shots. Stay tuned for pics!

Re: Photographing matches
 

Superman dat ISO.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

In my experience, the key to getting sharp photos is simply to let enough light in. Open the aperture all the way up, and crank up the ISO. VCU has pretty bad lighting, but in Atlanta, I was getting 1/100-120 @f4.5, ISO 800. Seemed to work pretty well. Of course, some of this may be limited by availability of hardware.

I used 2 Digital Rebel XTs with Canon's 70-200 f/4 L, Tamron's 28-75 f/2.8, and Sigma's 10-20 f/4-5.6

Re: Photographing matches
 

I agree, Geek... Atlanta is the mecca for us photo-geeks! Great light = great shots! For action, though, I question if 1/100-120 is enough to stop it... If we are just looking for throwing the pics on the web and not making 11X14's of them, I am also a fan of cranking the ISO and opening the aperature to allow the speeds we need to stop the action. I am curious to see how I can screw up the depth of field of a 2.8 tele this year in Atlanta...

Re: Photographing matches
 

I just wish I had shot more photos of the drivers and other PEOPLE instead of the robots. I'd like to do that some more, but I drove last year and I'm robocoaching this year. Maybe I can trade off with our photographer this year for a few rounds and have someone else robocoach for a bit.

Re: Photographing matches
 

All these photo's are hosted from my Smugmug account, so I don't mind putting a few on here. It save a bunch of storage on CD to do it this way.:)

Some of these are obviously from the floor, others were from up in the stands. All were shot with a Canon 30D, some with a Sigma 17-70 2.8, others with a Canon 70-300 3.5-5.6 IS.

This first one if from the floor, during field reset. ISO 400,1/50, f/5.0, 40mm.


This is again from the floor between matches. ISO 1600,1/125,f/4.5,115mm.



Here is a shot of the Regional Champion during Autonomous.
ISO 400, 1/100, f/4.0, 70mm.



And now for a little fun.
ISO 100, 4s, f/32, 70mm.

Re: Photographing matches
 

There's lots of excellent advice here in the postings by JasonJMonroe. I particularly like his advice that stopping all the action isn't always the best answer to getting a great action photo:
One of my favorites from this year, captured on a Nikon D200 at the BAE Systems Granite State Regional, was taken by my father-in-law, who is a long-time amateur photographer:



The above pic was taken using aperture priority at an f-stop of f/4.5 with an effective ISO of 400. Camera was panned by hand, steadied against the forehead using the viewfinder (rather than the screen). Auto-exposure was 10/250 of a second. (Discussion on photo here on CD.)

The real trick to getting photos like this is practice and experimentation to learn the right combination of shutter speed and camera panning to use to have the moving subject be sharp while very slightly blurring the background. Experimentation (and digital film) is your friend for this!

Lots of good advice here, too! Some videographers love a monopod to balance the needs for flexibility of movement to choose the correct location for the shot with the need for a stable platform for the camera.

Best Regards!
--ken

Re: Photographing matches
 

If you are reading these replies and thinking all of this talk about shutter speeds and what not is daunting then let me tell you that while it is really good to know all of this, it is not the absolute end to getting a good photo... I don't mess with shutter speeds, most of my camera settings are on "auto" and I still get good shots... I am not a professional photographer, but my photos have been used by local papers and in a NASA end of year report, and I am often asked for permission for my photos to be used on other websites.

My camera is a Panasonic FZ20, with a 12 X optical zoom and image stabilization (a must for the bigger zooms).

Mostly advice for digital photog: Fast shutter speed is important to me for catching action shots, so I use sequence mode quite a bit. If you use sequence mode, make sure you have lots of memory because you will take a lot of photos (over 1,900 the two days I was at VCU this past weekend). Ideally, I try to be as close to the field as possible and not hate the people who actually get to be right there at the field (I think if I were a pushier person, I could get that close, may have to work on this).

I've always been anti-flash, but I've softened towards it during the past 2 years (mainly because the camera I have now is no where as good as my UZi was in low light). I tend to only use flash if I think the shot is a one chance deal or if I notice the light is still too dark for sequence shots.

Don't be afraid to use editing software on your photos. If they are too dark, they can be lightened. If a little blurry, sharpened. Something distracting in the shot that takes away from what you want the focus to be on? Cropping can sometimes help. Histograms, curves, learning your editing tools can be as useful as learning your shutter speeds.

Heidi (who swears that one day she will take a photography class and learn all of those shutter speeds, iso thingies and what not)