FIRST Photography: How do YOU cover it?

[Andrew Rudolph]

Originally Posted by MissInformation

I use one of my sequence modes a lot (my camera has 3) while photographing the robots in action and while it gives me a lot of similar photos to weed through, I almost always get a good shot. Here are examples of sequence mode: sequence photos taken on an overcast day. I get the same results with robots zooming around the field.

I agree with heidi on that I use the sequence mode esp, in a situation where its really hard to get the perfect moment (i.e robot shooting, Pushing match, Human player....) I made this from a sequence i did of our autonomous...

[Barry Bonzack]

Although I have other duties when at competitions, I have a photography hobby that I have not had much time for this semester. In high school I took volunteer pictures for the local newspaper, and was on a photjournalist for my school newspaper my sophomore year, and head photographer for the yearbook my Junior and Senior years. Last semester I volunteered my services for the Harmony High yearbook for sporting events in their transition of replacing me.

How prominent is your role as a photographer on your team?

I now hand off my camera to another student, I am too busy mentoring and coaching. However, last year I went to Houston with team 1083 to be their photographer, it was fun. I went to Atlanta the past two years without my team and I just took as many pictures of the Florida teams as I could.

What do you use?
Nikon D100 and telephoto lens

What subjects are you good at shooting?
What subjects do you prefer to shoot? (Robots on field, Candids, group photos, etc.) Sports is my favorite subject, especially football. (Yes, I have been run over once. Fun story behind that one) But I have taken photojournalism on most all topics.


When at competitions, where do you shoot from?
Stands, Sidelines, Pits

Anything you'd like tips with? Don't be afraid of what others think of someone there with a camera, and (Off the record especially for FIRST events) for the best pictures you may need to sneak past a couple security guards..

*EDIT*: WILL YOU BE IN ATLANTA?

Yes, I will mostly be in the 1604 pit, if not check the 1390 pit.

[Carol]

[quote=geeknerd99Man, this is a huge post. I hope it helps.

Daniel[/QUOTE]

Daniel, thanks a lot. I'm going to play around with it some more. I am reffing at the Championships so don't know how much I will get to use it (although the striped shirt lets me take pics from positions most people can't get to ). But on Thursday during practice runs I can snap away. Come say hello if you see me and I can admire your camera....

[vadyr]

taking pictures and videotaping the competitions is one of the biggest pains in the neck ever! nobody wants to do it on my team because they all want to cheer...so i get stuck with 3 video cameras and a stills camera....talk about lame!

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by vadyr

taking pictures and videotaping the competitions is one of the biggest pains in the neck ever! nobody wants to do it on my team because they all want to cheer...so i get stuck with 3 video cameras and a stills camera....talk about lame!

it is definately a sacrifice. When you tape or photograph an event you only get to see one small part of it, and that only through a camera viewfinder. You really do miss a lot of whats going on around you. Its almost like you are not really there, you are seeing it remotely on a tiny little screen.

[dhitchco]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

When you tape or photograph an event you only get to see one small part of it, and that only through a camera viewfinder. You really do miss a lot of whats going on around you.

Yes, tis the role of the "fly on the wall".......But, at the end of the day, you get to choose what footage goes into the highlight reel and who gets the credit. So, try to engage your teammates to take still photos if nothing else and then promise to put their name into the photo credits in the highlight video.

Also, I typically walk around with at least two cameras and point blank say to someone, "Hey, take this camera and go take about 20 close-up shots of our fans in the crowd".....or "Hey, take this video camera and keep it centered on the entire field for the whole match and then bring my camcorder back to me..."

That will get more people involved in the video/photo sub-team.

[geeknerd99]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

it is definately a sacrifice. When you tape or photograph an event you only get to see one small part of it, and that only through a camera viewfinder. You really do miss a lot of whats going on around you. Its almost like you are not really there, you are seeing it remotely on a tiny little screen.

Not only that, it's extremely difficult to both do your job and participate at the same time. Besides drivers, I'm most likely going to be alone on the field for a majority of the time, so my championship experience this year is going to be very different than last year's.

The solution, a coalition of media people as proposed in this thread. The thread is effectively dead right now, perhaps due to lack of interest. But, it seems we're a little more into it now. I'm not sure where to hold yet seeing as we could potentially have plenty of people, or a just a few.

If we can, we really should coordinate something to make coverage of Atlanta a lot easier. It's up to us to represent our teams and FIRST to the outside world, so everything that can be done to help this would be very helpful to all parties involved. Of course, newspapers usually don't think of us as "photographers" in the way they use the term, but when it boils down to it, we're the ones that have to do their job. I don't think any of the local newspapers around here want to attach a photographer and a journalist to the team for 4 days just to cover Atlanta. They'd much write an article with our guidance and use photos that we've taken.

Really, having a buddy or two during competiton would be quite helpful while "on the job". I could go on rambling about how nice it would be to have someone else there while you're shooting, but as of now, I have no clue whether or not we can hold a media meeting. Who knows? Maybe it'll be like a second webhug! Perhaps right after the webhug? Wait, when is that? How's lunchtime, Thursday sound for people?

Brandon, we are having another webhug, right?

[Dillon Compton]

How prominent is your role as a photographer on your team?
As prominent as I make it; I am the only real "photographer", but I typically hand off the video to others. Robot comes first though; I'm on pit crew, so fixing breaks is more important than taking pictures.


What do you use?
A bunch: Most standard are my Nikon D70 DSLR with an array of lenses and my N65 for 35mm. I also have a point and shoot 4MP digital cam and a leika SLR if I decide to bring them. Currently am working on getting access to a friend's digital backs, in which case I'll be photographing atlanta at 20+ megapixels.

What subjects are you good at shooting? (Robots on field, Candids, group photos, etc.)
I'm pretty good at everything, really; strongest point is probably candids/portraiture, but I've got a good eye for most of the varied subjects mentioned above.

What subjects do you prefer to shoot?
Canidids- Video is for robot images, I like to document the experience that everyone has.

When at competitions, where do you shoot from?
Depends on my time/energy-I'll probably mostly do field-side at atlanta, assuming we get a press-pass again; the ability to help work on the robot on the way out is valuable.

Anything you'd like tips with?
Not really- I'm pretty adept with my equipment. I can answer questions if anyone has them, though.

*EDIT*: WILL YOU BE IN ATLANTA?
Sure will- feel free to swing by 1394's pits and say hello.

[Koko Ed]

How prominent is your role as a photographer on your team? I offered to do it and I'm the one who usually is in charge of it (I often delegate the task to a student who has nothing to do).

What do you use?Kodak Easyshare DX6490. Currently very busted and possilby costing $225 to fix.

What subjects are you good at shooting? (Robots on field, Candids, group photos, etc.) Mostly we have shots of the team at work at the site and the competition.

What subjects do you prefer to shoot? I like candids of people being themselves.

When at competitions, where do you shoot from? At FLR because Mike is there I don't bother shooting photo because I am busy with video and taping from the feed. Plus Mike takes such great shots there was no point in me trying to compete with that. He mostly takes shots of the X-Cats anyways (he was an X-Cat in 2003 and 2004). The kids take shots of one another.

Anything you'd like tips with?I am no expert so I have nothing to offer.

[Barry Bonzack]

I would like to make a call out to a gracious photographer and videographer that would be willing to take pics and video of our robot and team in Atlanta during our matches for me to use in the promo videos I make. I was scrolling through what we have assembled thus far, and its not a whole lot to work with. Thanks for the help, please PM me and I'll give you my phone number so we can keep in touch when we get our match schedule. THANKS!

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Film vs Digital? the answer is simple: how many people on this forum still use an 8mm movie camera (which is all we had when I was a teenager) and how many used camcorders?

Digital wins in all aspects: Hands down. A 35mm photo on 100 ASA film as an approx pixel level of 10M pixels. Switch to ASA 400 or 800 to shoot indoors and you are down below 5M pixels (easily).

Film is still used by professionals, and it has some unique characteristics that are hard to duplicate on a digital camera.

I have to back pedal on this post a little. My daughter is getting married in september and I have been looking for a photographer. I checked out several wedding photographers who all use high end digital cameras, and I was pretty sure that was the way we were going to go

BUT, the last photographer on my list, went to see his work, and I was totally blown away by the difference in quality of his photos. He uses a Hasselblad film camera for all his work. The one difference that really stood out is the latitude of the film. When you have a bride in a white dress with a lot of frilly detail, her vail, and the groom in a black tux you have a wide range of light level to capture, without having the tux come out all black, or the dress being totally washed out.

The reason I bring this up, for FIRST events you encounter similar lighting problems, floodlighted fields with darkends backgrounds. With the right film you could get much better results over whats possible with a digital camera.