Richard Mackson's Posts
17 days in 20 seconds...
Dateline Rochester: Well, this will be the last of the Beijing Olympic Blogs. While being a writer has never been one of my goals, the last 3 weeks, including participating in a 17 day sleep deprivation experiment, has been fun.
Photo composition by John Dyer
So what is the title of this blog an answer to? Randy Fredlund, our director of the Technology Analysis Group, pointed out that if 20,000 pictures were shot and the average shutter speed was 1/1000 sec, then only 20 seconds of time were actually captured. Kind of puts things into an odd perspective.
Here are some shooting facts.
This was the Olympics of the Nikkor Zoom lens and the D3 camera. My primary long lens turned out to be the 200-400mm F/4 zoom, at times adding a 1.4 or 1.7x tele-extender to make it a 280-560mm F/5.6 or a 340-680mm F/6.7 zoom. The other lenses used were the 70-200mm, 14-24mm and 24-70mm zooms. However for downcourt basketball, it was the venerable 300mm F/2.8. For swimming, it was the old standby 400mm F/2.8 with the 1.7 extender. In order to travel light, the 600 F/4 made only a cameo appearance.
The cameras were set for shooting at 9 frames per second capturing both NEF/raw (~15mb) and Fine JPEG (~6mb) files simultaneously. Most shots were taken in Manual mode using the in-camera meter with confirmation by chimping and checking the histogram.
For exposure on the majority of shots, the shutter speed was kept at or above 1/1000sec. The F-stop and ISO were adjusted accordingly. For instance, at swimming it was 1/1000sec at F/4.8 at ISO 2000. For Women's Soccer downfield (at night) with the 200-400 zoom with the 1.7 extender, it was 1/1000sec at F/6.7 at ISO 6400! The fact that the long lenses had vibration reduction helped at the times it was necessary to "slow it down" and especially for the "da Blur" pictures. For those shots, the laws of reciprocity were kind of obeyed and the F-stop and Shutter speed were adjusted accordingly.
Tripods are not allowed at Olympic venues and are used rarely for sports shooting. Carbon fiber Monopods were used on anything over 400mm.
At this point, many of you might be asking the question: What makes a good sports picture? Some say it's the peak of the action, with an image that is as sharp as a tack. For others, it's the expression. Still for others, it's the composition and the way the subject is framed. Heinz Kluetmeier the senior staff photographer at Sports Illustrated, made it clear to all of us many years ago, "Our job is to capture the moment." Actually, all of these statements are correct. In the end, it's what pleases you. (Of course, being well exposed and sharply focused helps!).
Another question that keeps popping up is: Can pictures like these be made on film? The answer, for the most part, is a resounding YES. Images captured on film, then processed and digitized, can enter the same digital workflow. To paraphrase a comment made by Ralph Morse, retired Life Magazine Photographer, at a workshop earlier in the year, Film and Digital are like a screwdriver and a hammer in my tool box. In the end it is about what you capture not what you capture it on.
So before signing off, once again thanks to those who supported this effort over the past 3 weeks. Ken Harvey for his dogged handling of the IT world. John Dyer for artistic inspiration. Jane Ryan, Bruce Graham and my wife Joy, for taking words written at 2 am and turning them into something coherent. Tom Hoehn and Jenny Cisney for posting the blogs at ungodly hours. Bill Pekala at NPS for technical support with the cameras. Chris Breeze of Breeze Systems for his downloading and browsing tools. Andy Cooper for his compression program. Karen Kozak, Glenn Hyde and Rich Connolly for coordination of Kodak's Olympic efforts. Joy and my daughter Lauren for being at the other end of the Skype Video connection and holding down the fort at home for 3 weeks.
So that's it. Just one more note. This will be the last blog by the "Photon Wrangler." All good things come to an end and what a better high note to end on than this!
Shoot 'em sharp!
Richard Mackson
Photon Wrangler
aka
Director, External Relations
Vice President, Office of the Chief Technical Officer
Eastman Kodak Company
Photo composition by John Dyer
So what is the title of this blog an answer to? Randy Fredlund, our director of the Technology Analysis Group, pointed out that if 20,000 pictures were shot and the average shutter speed was 1/1000 sec, then only 20 seconds of time were actually captured. Kind of puts things into an odd perspective.
Here are some shooting facts.
This was the Olympics of the Nikkor Zoom lens and the D3 camera. My primary long lens turned out to be the 200-400mm F/4 zoom, at times adding a 1.4 or 1.7x tele-extender to make it a 280-560mm F/5.6 or a 340-680mm F/6.7 zoom. The other lenses used were the 70-200mm, 14-24mm and 24-70mm zooms. However for downcourt basketball, it was the venerable 300mm F/2.8. For swimming, it was the old standby 400mm F/2.8 with the 1.7 extender. In order to travel light, the 600 F/4 made only a cameo appearance.
The cameras were set for shooting at 9 frames per second capturing both NEF/raw (~15mb) and Fine JPEG (~6mb) files simultaneously. Most shots were taken in Manual mode using the in-camera meter with confirmation by chimping and checking the histogram.
For exposure on the majority of shots, the shutter speed was kept at or above 1/1000sec. The F-stop and ISO were adjusted accordingly. For instance, at swimming it was 1/1000sec at F/4.8 at ISO 2000. For Women's Soccer downfield (at night) with the 200-400 zoom with the 1.7 extender, it was 1/1000sec at F/6.7 at ISO 6400! The fact that the long lenses had vibration reduction helped at the times it was necessary to "slow it down" and especially for the "da Blur" pictures. For those shots, the laws of reciprocity were kind of obeyed and the F-stop and Shutter speed were adjusted accordingly.
Tripods are not allowed at Olympic venues and are used rarely for sports shooting. Carbon fiber Monopods were used on anything over 400mm.
At this point, many of you might be asking the question: What makes a good sports picture? Some say it's the peak of the action, with an image that is as sharp as a tack. For others, it's the expression. Still for others, it's the composition and the way the subject is framed. Heinz Kluetmeier the senior staff photographer at Sports Illustrated, made it clear to all of us many years ago, "Our job is to capture the moment." Actually, all of these statements are correct. In the end, it's what pleases you. (Of course, being well exposed and sharply focused helps!).
Another question that keeps popping up is: Can pictures like these be made on film? The answer, for the most part, is a resounding YES. Images captured on film, then processed and digitized, can enter the same digital workflow. To paraphrase a comment made by Ralph Morse, retired Life Magazine Photographer, at a workshop earlier in the year, Film and Digital are like a screwdriver and a hammer in my tool box. In the end it is about what you capture not what you capture it on.
So before signing off, once again thanks to those who supported this effort over the past 3 weeks. Ken Harvey for his dogged handling of the IT world. John Dyer for artistic inspiration. Jane Ryan, Bruce Graham and my wife Joy, for taking words written at 2 am and turning them into something coherent. Tom Hoehn and Jenny Cisney for posting the blogs at ungodly hours. Bill Pekala at NPS for technical support with the cameras. Chris Breeze of Breeze Systems for his downloading and browsing tools. Andy Cooper for his compression program. Karen Kozak, Glenn Hyde and Rich Connolly for coordination of Kodak's Olympic efforts. Joy and my daughter Lauren for being at the other end of the Skype Video connection and holding down the fort at home for 3 weeks.
So that's it. Just one more note. This will be the last blog by the "Photon Wrangler." All good things come to an end and what a better high note to end on than this!
Shoot 'em sharp!
Richard Mackson
Photon Wrangler
aka
Director, External Relations
Vice President, Office of the Chief Technical Officer
Eastman Kodak Company
AFTER ALL, WHAT IS SPORTS WITHOUT STATISTICS...43 events in 17 days Oh my!
DATELINE ROCHESTER: Home sweet home. It's been a little over a week since the flame of the Olympic torch in Beijing was put to rest and the Olympic Flag passed on to the city of London. So between this blog, written for the slightly geeky and statistically minded, and one to follow for the more photographically inclined, here are a few facts, figures and pictures of the events.
Over the course of 17 days, the photographs came from 43 different events/sessions, covering 22 different sports or disciplines. Two of the events were the Opening (which lasted forever) and Closing (which was short and sweet) ceremonies.
The total number of pictures shot was in excess of 23,000 - an exact count is tough because the total number is actually 20,326 saved images plus the number of shots that were "chimped" (see definition below) in the camera. Those 20,326 images accounted for 357.53 gigabytes of data which is comprised of the NEF/Raw + JPEG and XMP files for each image.
Never being one to be accused of tightly editing, 6132 images were selected and run through Photoshop for cropping and correction, then compressed down to 4.03 gigabytes of data and transferred via FTP to Rochester and other points for storage.
Gymnastics takes the award for the most images captured at 2503 with the Women's All-around winning the highest number of images shot in a single session with 863. Field Hockey was lowest with 74 (we arrived at the game with 10 minutes to go).
The average number of images per session came in it at 473. Counting all of the different ways the images were edited, manipulated, compressed and saved, the total gigabytes of storage was 553. The prediction in the first blog was 700 gig. That was meant to be total storage; in any event, the number came up short.
And despite a valiant effort on behalf of my colleague and IT guru Ken Harvey, we were never able to transfer all of the raw files to Rochester - even running multiple FTP streams simultaneously 24/7. We learned a lot about total bandwidth and useable bandwidth.
So here are some of my favorite images of the event with more to follow tomorrow.
Somewhere between jet lag and reality
Richard
The Photon Wrangler
Definition:
Chimping is a term used in digital photography (especially when using a digital single-lens reflex camera) to describe the habit of checking every photo on the on-camera display (LCD) immediately after capture.
Usage behavior varies depending on context and the person, but common uses include:
The term 'chimping' is attributed to Robert Deutsch, a USA Today staff photographer, in September of 1999 when writing a story for the SportsShooter email newsletter.
Over the course of 17 days, the photographs came from 43 different events/sessions, covering 22 different sports or disciplines. Two of the events were the Opening (which lasted forever) and Closing (which was short and sweet) ceremonies.
The total number of pictures shot was in excess of 23,000 - an exact count is tough because the total number is actually 20,326 saved images plus the number of shots that were "chimped" (see definition below) in the camera. Those 20,326 images accounted for 357.53 gigabytes of data which is comprised of the NEF/Raw + JPEG and XMP files for each image.
Never being one to be accused of tightly editing, 6132 images were selected and run through Photoshop for cropping and correction, then compressed down to 4.03 gigabytes of data and transferred via FTP to Rochester and other points for storage.
Gymnastics takes the award for the most images captured at 2503 with the Women's All-around winning the highest number of images shot in a single session with 863. Field Hockey was lowest with 74 (we arrived at the game with 10 minutes to go).
The average number of images per session came in it at 473. Counting all of the different ways the images were edited, manipulated, compressed and saved, the total gigabytes of storage was 553. The prediction in the first blog was 700 gig. That was meant to be total storage; in any event, the number came up short.
And despite a valiant effort on behalf of my colleague and IT guru Ken Harvey, we were never able to transfer all of the raw files to Rochester - even running multiple FTP streams simultaneously 24/7. We learned a lot about total bandwidth and useable bandwidth.
So here are some of my favorite images of the event with more to follow tomorrow.
Somewhere between jet lag and reality
Richard
The Photon Wrangler
Definition:
Chimping is a term used in digital photography (especially when using a digital single-lens reflex camera) to describe the habit of checking every photo on the on-camera display (LCD) immediately after capture.
Usage behavior varies depending on context and the person, but common uses include:
- When a photographer's sounds and actions of reviewing frames on-scene appear similar to the actions of an excited primate (Oooh! Oooh! Aaah!)
- When the photographer is completely absorbed in the act of analyzing, admiring or proudly showing a photo off to others
The term 'chimping' is attributed to Robert Deutsch, a USA Today staff photographer, in September of 1999 when writing a story for the SportsShooter email newsletter.