Night/evening Shoot?

[dreslism]

I have a customer who installs artificial turf in football stadiums.

They asked me today about a shot during the home opener with the stands filled, lights on, etc.. This would be an evening game, but at this time of year, it should not be too dark yet.

Anyone shot something like this before?

My current cam is a higher end canon pocket cam.

Next week I am going to buy a DSLR. I should be able to push the ISO quite high with this newer camera and get usable shots at ISO 1600.

I am not sure what I will get out of it for a shutter speed.

Not very easy to do test shots to see if it will work, as the stadium lights will most likely be on for the home opener, but not like I can turn them on myself to test the setup. :)

Any thoughts on do-ability of this?

Thanks,

[Teej]

The shutter speed will depend on the lens you mount.

THe most cost effective fast glass is usually like a 50mm prime, 1.8. Should be under $100 for all major makes. I think Canon's is ~ $65...very light weight and you'd get very fast shutter speeds. All else being equal, that will give you a shutter about 4x as fast (ie 1/1000 instead of 1/250) relative to an F3.6.

Can't give any personal experience, however.

[dreslism]

Yeah my wife already has the 50mm 1.8, so I'm sure I could just "borrow" that lens, but not sure the 50mm is gonna cut it to fit everything in.

Thanks for the info.

[Tabbytabb]

another option would be the 28mm 1.8, we are getting nice performance out of this even wide open. If you are shooting on a cropped sensor it wont be that wide though.

What camera are you getting? That will really determine how "useable" the high ISO will be.

I think it will be doable but will be tricky. I have played around with some twilight stuff but was using the 24-105 IS lens with a Kenlabs Gyro mounted to keep everything still. I think we were getting about a 50% hit rate at 1/50 or so with the IS and Kenlabs.

Tabb

[Menno]

On a cropped sensor DSLR forget the 50mm lens, it's not wide enough. I once forgot to put my zoom lens on wide and could not understand why wife kept yelling to fly farther and farther away. When I checked the EXIF it said 48mm :arggg: .

Also you get more motionblur compared to a wide angle lense, so you need faster shutterspeeds than with a wide angle. That way you loose the advantage of the large aperture that the 50 mm has.

Just my opinion :)

Menno

[dreslism]

Thanks for all the feedback, as far as I know the 5D is the only non cropped sensor, and it AIN't going to be that! :shock: Are there other non cropped sensors out there?

It's *just* going to be the rebel XT. ( Have to start somewhere ).

My wife has one and she shoots HighSchool sports indoors with it and pushes it to 1600 and with some post processing, they are very useable. ( Of course she is shooting the 70-200 2.8 IS ) so that beast helps.

I just thought I would check around and see if it can even be done, and if so, what does it take.

I can't take a gyro up, too much weight for me at this point ( maybe some day ), but thanks for all the feedback.

What model gyro do you take up on your heli?

Thanks alot for all the feedback.

[LoopBaCK]

Not very easy to do test shots to see if it will work, as the stadium lights will most likely be on for the home opener, but not like I can turn them on myself to test the setup.


Try calling the coach a few days in advance and let him know what you're doing. He may have something planned with the field for that time of night/evening so you could go up into the highest section of the bleachers and get your exposure info. Heck - he may even come up there just to help out (coaches are proud of their fields - especially nice new ones :wink: ).

Since you're needing to get shots of the field and not the surrounding area you may not have as much trouble as your thinking. The light put out by a typical field lighting system is pretty intense. With such good light shooting from the field at ground level at 10 o'clock at night is not a problem. Now take into account the distance the heli will be back from the field and the light diminishes somewhat. BUT... if you're trying to get the field to fill the frame I think the light should be enough to get a shot at a much lower ISO and reasonable shutter speed (maybe around 125th to 300th/second). You can always push up the ISO to compansate but I just don't think you'll need to go that high.

I have a few evening shots already scheduled at our local HS football field for this fall during games and don't anticipate any trouble with lighting. Am using a Canon 20D.

[GGoodrum]

If you are looking at new cameras, you might check out the Sony DSC-R1. It has a lens that goes to 24mm, and has a large CMOS sensor. It also has 10.8 MP and has ISO settings out to 3200. I'm amazed at the quality of the pictures it takes. A friend of mine, who is a professional photographer, talked me into trying one, when I was looking to replace my now "ancient" Canon D30. Glad I did. :)

-- Gary

[fitenfyr]

Wes is right.

You are going to find that pushing to 1600 is not necessary so long as all you are trying to capture is the turf and stands.

A basic daylight exposure I bet will do the trick.
We used to do that all the time back in high school on film.
Our "standard" exposure for hand held football was 1/125th of a second wide open (I think that was about 4.5 or so on the old Pentax telephoto)
Then we would "push" the film to ISO 800 in the lab by extending our developement time a bit.
This was all black and white Tri-x so it was real easy to work with and the film grain was real tight.
Digital is not any different in my opinion when it comes to this.
I would try a couple different ISO's from 200 to 800 and see what you get for exposure.
Only you can judge how stable your helicopter is going to be with regards to your shutter speeds.

[dreslism]

If you are looking at new cameras, you might check out the Sony DSC-R1. It has a lens that goes to 24mm, and has a large CMOS sensor. It also has 10.8 MP and has ISO settings out to 3200. I'm amazed at the quality of the pictures it takes. A friend of mine, who is a professional photographer, talked me into trying one, when I was looking to replace my now "ancient" Canon D30. Glad I did. :)

-- Gary

I have seen some guys are shooting this, and I have also seen one guy said he was not happy with it.

When you say a large cmos sensor, does that mean it is a full size sensor like the canon 5D, or just larger than most DSLR's?

Thanks,

How long have you had yours Gary?

Any sample shots out there?

I think the weight of this beast is what scared me off, I think it was just about 2.5 pounds which would put it out of my ability to use it.

[flyinfool]

They asked me today about a shot during the home opener with the stands filled, lights on, etc.

I know it is just the safety officer in me coming out, but this sounds very dangerous, flying over that many people, and potentially in conflict with FAA no fly zones around stadiums.

I do not claim to know the law on this, I'm just raising the point.

[dreslism]

Jeff,

Thanks for the concern, I was waiting for someone to chime in.

I would not be flying over anyone. It would be a shot from outside the side of the stadium shooting endzone to endzone. Would be completely outside the stadium and only about 100 feet up. I would consider this safe.

The point about the stands filled would be caught with a wide angle lens in the shot.

Oh and the part about stadiums, they're not really stadiums, just a high school football field.

--Scott

[flyinfool]

OK, I was picturing a Pro football STADIUM with 100,000 people running everywhere and 20,000 cars surrounding it, and 60,000 cell phones worth of RF noise.

As long as you have an area that covers the entire flight pattern with room for the unexpected, that you can be sure that no one will wander into for the duration of the flight, you should be OK.

[GGoodrum]

If you are looking at new cameras, you might check out the Sony DSC-R1. It has a lens that goes to 24mm, and has a large CMOS sensor. It also has 10.8 MP and has ISO settings out to 3200. I'm amazed at the quality of the pictures it takes. A friend of mine, who is a professional photographer, talked me into trying one, when I was looking to replace my now "ancient" Canon D30. Glad I did. :)

-- Gary

I have seen some guys are shooting this, and I have also seen one guy said he was not happy with it.

When you say a large cmos sensor, does that mean it is a full size sensor like the canon 5D, or just larger than most DSLR's?

Thanks,

How long have you had yours Gary?

Any sample shots out there?

I think the weight of this beast is what scared me off, I think it was just about 2.5 pounds which would put it out of my ability to use it.

I don't have any aerial shots with my R1 yet, but I will soon. I'm going to try it on my Raptor, with the 3-axis active stabilized mount I'm testing.

I've had it for about six months, I think.

It has an APS-C - sized sensor, which is about 2/3 the size of a full 35mm frame. That's about 5 times bigger than the model this camera replaced. The other thing you need to remeber is that this is also about 1/3 the cost of a 5D, and that's with a lense.

The only real shortcoming I can see is that although it can take 3 fps, it only allows three before hese need to be written to the card. That will hamper its use for 360 degree panos, but for everything else, it works great.

Another worth a look, I think it the new Sony DSLR-A100. It has most of the same features as the R1, but has removeable lenses and a true 3 fps continuous mode, until the card is full. You can get the body and a 50mm equivalent lense for about the same as the R1. There's lots of lenses available, as they are based on the Minolta mount.

-- Gary

[dreslism]

Thanks Gary,

I did see mention of the A100 recently and thought I would have heard others talking about it, but you're the first to mention it.

The R1 is out then if I can't use it for panos.

That A100 is tempting, but I'll have to check the weight and see if it is as heavy as the R1.

I have been leaning towards the canon as my wife has a canon DSLR and she has already started the lens collection. :-)

We'll see. I am hoping to go and get something in the next week or so.

[fitenfyr]

You will not go wrong with a Rebel 350xt.
They are good cameras especially for AP work.
Smaller than most DSLR's in my opinion with a good chip in there.

You will be amazed at the field of view you can get from a 1.5x chip and the "standard" 18mm zooms they have.

[dreslism]

Thanks Jason.

That is one of the reasons I wanted it as it is smaller and lighter than something like a 20D.

Yes, I think going from a pocket cam with a 38 mm effective lens and small sensor that I will be very happy with the 350xt. My wife has one so I am familiar with it and weighed it all up as I would put it on my heli and it should work out nicely.

Also at $699, I think it is a good value.