Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Fight Night In The Cage II

On 5_28_11 I photographed Fight Night In the cage II. Aside from a few lighting hiccups from their lighting crew, it went pretty darn smooth. (The hiccups were for the first 2 fights, the crew had the lights off...)

Good night of fights, and a great crowd. I'll definitely photograph that production again. Here are some highlights.

PS I'll post more before long. I've got to get some new photos of Erik on here (If You've been following me on facebook, you've seen that my son has been all over my page). It's hard, balancing all of my time, and updating the blog. Obviously, my son will come before uploading pictures.

Anyway, here's the fight photos





















Sunday, May 8, 2011

Beatdown for Berwick Youth

OKay, so I thought that photographing in Chambersburg was bad...Holy crap, I never, ever, ever have photographed fights in lighting SO BAD in my life time.

Honestly, and only my photographer friends will get this. There were spots in the cage that f/2.8, 1/200, ISO 12800 was 2 f/stops under exposed. That is just not suitable for covering sports. Even though the higher ISO on cameras is looking much better, 6400 in my mind is the usable ceiling, and even at 6400, you've got to get the exposure close.

This is a set that I'm almost ashamed to put up. It's one of the times I wish you could use flash during a fight.

The only reason I'm posting it, is because if I'm the only professional there...and this is all I've got to offer...then that's all the fighters have to represent these fights. These photographs are PURELY journalism. They are not any indication of talent, equipment or photographic examples of anything that I need to put in my portfolio.

It really bums me out, because I strongly dislike offering a product that I'm not proud of.

I wish that it was law that all event promoters had to have well aimed lights in their rings, unless the location had ample lighting. This was not the case. I did have fun though, and it was a good time checking out the fights.

Ugh, just like...it's a shame when you can't set the exposure for something nice. Here, you've got to completely waste highlights to get anything in the face, or you've got to just hope that big blobs of shadow are "okay". Just another day in the life of an event photographer, another hurdle to cross. As a professional, I shouldn't complain. I don't mean to complain, and I hope it doesn't come across that way. A lot of people use my blog not only to find links to their photographs, or to learn of up coming/past events. But fellow and aspiring photographers use it as a learning tool.

I guess the lesson here is, do the best you can do and just know that even if you feel like you're offering crap, if you're offering the best of the bunch, doesn't matter I guess.












Yankee Lake Brawlroom 27

I went with my fight team, for one of my teamates to fight. His fighter backed out, but I photographed the night.

To my photographer buddies, they will understand what I mean when I say this.
ISO 6400 1/320, and the lights were fluorescents. You can color correct an image that has even color throughout it, but without making multiple layers of the same image, it is damn difficult to color correct one that has multiple color casts to it.

Fluorescent lights cycle, so when you use a shutter speed faster than the light, you catch part of the cycle, and it either has a color cast, or a band of color in the photo.

I was not pleased with how my photographs turned out as a result of this.

You can see the full gallery here.
http://roblynn.smugmug.com/Mixed-Martial-Arts/Yankee-Lake-Brawlroom-27-43011/16858977_545XhK#1272854089_3w2qTbL