Dateline Beijing: It's going to be something of a potpourri today. One thing about the Olympics is that if you are looking for variety in sports, this is the place to be.

BMX Bike Racing became an Olympic sport for the first time at theses games. For many of us lensmen, this is the first time we have shot the event.  These guys and gals get way up in the air and make for some good snaps. The lens of choice was the 200-400 zoom, which this seems to be an emerging standard. What was hard to find was a clean background, that would still let you get the face. What the heck, you can't always be choosey.

Beach Volleyball - Ok come on, there isn't an ocean within hundreds of miles! So how can you have BEACH Volleyball.  Hey, I grew up in Santa Monica, HOME of Beach Volleyball (sorry Manhattan, Hermosa and Santa Barbara). But just south of the Santa Monica Pier and north of the Life Guard headquarters is the place they claim it all began.  that is where Gene Selznick ruled the net.

This was Beach Volleyball of another sort, staged in an arena with press tribunes, cheerleaders and blaring music.  AND THE CROWD WENT CRAZY! (an homage to Cubby the original Beach Volleyball announcer)

The surroundings were odd, but the play was great! Captured with a 70-200 mm zoom

Now for something totally different.  I had always wanted to photograph Men's Heavyweight Weightlifting  Last night I got the chance and was not disappointed!

Armed with a 200-400mm zoom 1/500sec lens at ISO 1250 I found a spot head on and just recorded what was happening.

The winner of the Event was Matthias Steiner of Germany on the last lift of the night with at Clean and Jerk lift of 258 kg.  But that wasn't the only story; he practically took off his head on an earlier missed attempt.

Volleyball Players and BMX riders aren't the only ones to get "Hang Time"

Pressing forward
Richard
The Photon Wrangler

Dateline Beijing:  "Mackson, what is that thing hanging around your neck?" (imagine the words being spoken in English with a European accent).  The question came from my longtime friend Giuliano Bevilacqua who has been covering the Olympics since 1964 in Tokyo.  In those days it was an 8 day trip by train and boat just to get there!  By his calculations, this Olympics is his 22^nd.  He is quite the character and quite a photographer.  We first met doing swimming in the late 1970's. He was always at the morning practice sessions with a long lens made even longer with a tele-extender, walking along the edge of the pool snapping away.  And keeping with his personality, he was giving everyone a running commentary on what he was shooting!  We have been paling around at the last few Olympics

Here's Giuliano at swimming a few days ago

I digress...  So what is around my neck that he was asking about?  Before leaving for Beijing, I wanted a camera that I could carry with me all the time.  The equipment I use to cover the events is hardly something you would wear.  We just announced with Motorola the new ZN5 handset -  5 megapixels sounded good to me and it's always on and ready to go.  You have been seeing the pictures from this camera throughout my postings over the past 12 days.

Here are a few pictures that frankly would not have been made without the ability to just reach into my pocket and fire away.  By the way, it has 4 ways to transfer the images - Blue Tooth, WiFi, CMDA, plus you can take the memory card out and stick it into a reader.

A smiling Photo Marshall (they all smile here!)

Even the Traffic Police smile, as the sign says from this grab shot out of the car.

Sports Illustrated's Robert Beck shoots a few faces in the crowd at beach Volleyball

It didn't quite feel like Malibu

Fans and the medals ceremony for Women's Single's Tennis

And this camera does wonderful panoramas

Here I am as photographed on the ZN5 by Leo Mason who is pictured above editing his Beach Volleyball pictures on the bus back from the event.

Still clicking away
Richard
The Photon Wrangler

Dateline Beijing:  As I said earlier it's been 32 years since I began my Olympics Photographic career covering Volleyball during the 1976 games in Montreal.  As the first Chief Photographer of the "original" Volleyball Magazine I felt pretty good about going off and shooting it this morning.  While I felt at home in the arena the game really has changed.  Sure it's still 6 men/women to a side and yes they do volley the ball.  However the scoring rules have been modified and these guys can jump out of the gym and pound the ball straight down.  And talk about fast, and did I mention tall? Some of them looked to be 6'15" (LOL).

I worked the angles and fortunately after getting into the grove it started to come back. They still spike the ball, the offence it still directed by the setter and some how they manage to dig the ball.  So if you're going to shoot your sons or daughters Volleyball games try and get a nice high angel from behind the line, its easier, and the shots are higher percentage.

So what does Bicycle racing have to in common with NASCAR, they have crashes.  During the Women's Points Race several of the riders got into a rather nasty dust up. And the race kept going under the "yellow flag" 

 

As you can see lots of bikes on the track at once and accidents are bound to happen.

And to make it even more odd, during the "sprint" they maneuver for position and at time get so close to the photographers that a 14mm lens is to long.

And then there is racing!

Riding along
Richard
Photon Wrangler

Dateline Beijing: Here I am at my computer dashing off yet another chapter in this Olympic adventure, trying to decide just what is the most interesting thing to write about.

Should the subject be the "man with the golden shoes," who on Saturday night set a new worlds record in the 100 meter dash sprint?

Or should the subject the sport of Women's Freestyle Wrestling?

No, I decided today's blog is going to be about Tennis. This is the one sport I actually play, and with all due respect to Mike, Norm, Pete and Jim, who are my Saturday morning winter league partners, what we play at the Tennis Club of Rochester is a far cry from the game they play here. A bad second serve here comes at 165 km per hour!

The Men's and Women's Gold Medal games were played back -to -back this afternoon at Center Court. What struck me was not just the power but the concentration. Every coach admonished their student athletes to keep their eye on the ball. You judge for yourself how well these racketeer players listened. (click on the images to see them larger)

So for some tips on shooting tennis. You can either use a long lens in the 400mm and longer variety range and shoot from behind the baseline. Or you can do as I did, shooting from the side in the conveniently positioned "Photo Mode" even with the service line a 200- 400 400 mm zoom lens. Shutter speed should be kept about 1/1000 sec.

And remember "those who live by the poach die by the poach" (a tennis term)

Serving for break
Richard
The Photon Wrangler

Dateline Beijing: It's hard to believe the first week of competition is behind us.  Twenty events are in the "can" to use an old motion picture cliché. Here is a bit of a photographic retrospective of the last week.  There is one image from each of the events I photographed.



































From Beijing still clicking away
Richard
The Photon Wrangler

Dateline Beijing: This morning I wrote this entry fully intending to keep it to a couple of the more gentile Olympic Sports.  But then came Women's Gymnastics...

Archery is one of those sports we get exposed to at one time or another, be it at summer camp or in a PE class at school.  But that was recreation; this is a totally different game.

A few days ago one of the local papers carried a picture of an archer and his arrow in flight just after being released.  For the fun of it, I was off to the Archery Stadium to try and repeat the feat.  Me and 20 other photographers!  Sounds pretty simple, right? Here is a bit of a contest for those of you mathematically inclined (which I am not) and the prize is my undying gratitude.

If an arrow flies at 100 meters per 1 second, and the camera shoots at 9 frames per second and the shutter speed is 1/2000 of a second and the width of the area being  photographed is 3x the length of the arrow, what is the probability of getting the shot simply by turning on the camera and letting it bang away just before the archer releases the arrow?

Here is a hint: we tried, and out of several hundred frames I got one partial picture.  It sounded like a flight of locusts with all those shutters going off.  Oh yes, we were shooting at about a 45 degree angle relative to the archer.

Though we call it Ping Pong, do not EVER refer it by that name to a Table Tennis player!  I shot 300mm at F2.8 1/1000 sec at ISO 1000.  Fast is not a good enough description of the reaction time of these players.

Ok for the rest of the Gymnastics story.  A few days ago when I shot the Women's Team Gymnastics finals I was not very happy with what I got, it was a struggle.  I either had the wrong lens or was out of position.  Actually it was both; plus I had never seen the girls' routines.  Men's gymnastics is not as "random" as the Women's.  So armed with a 200-400 zoom and a bit of knowledge, today's take was a lot different!

That's it for today.

Richard
The Photon Wrangler