Strobes and Football

[Sauk]

I was reading I believe a article over at sportsshooters.com that talked or linked to something where someone used strobes for football.

How many strobes would you need, strength? God that would be so nice to set up 2 to 4 strobes in the stands, light poles, etc...

Would it be worse then having an on camera flash? I am assuming if it were raining out you would have to weather protect them or just not use them.

Any thoughts about this? That article got my motor running about next years football shooting lol Our field has terrible lights! And to be able to use strobes would be awesome! I already have 2 of them (B800's).

Anyone else ever consider doing this?

[FlyingPhotog]

I've never seen a regulation football field with strobes at any level (from pop warner up to the NFL...) Are you sure the writer wasn't talking about Arena Football?

I just don't think you could throw enough light to make it worthwhile. At least not without blinding people... ;)

[EDIT] Well I'll be... Didn't think that was reasonably doable. The one comment below the article is correct though...Television would have a real problem with this.

[dmwierz]

Matthew:

This is probably what you saw, correct:

http://markhancock.blogspot.com/2005/03/behold-beast.html

His strobes are roughly equivalent to Alien Bee 1600's and roughly twice as powerful as AB800's (I believe that's what you said you had, right?)

Dennis

[Sauk]

Dennis,

yep that is the article.

Looks like he only put them one side. with the way our football is I could easily put them around the field. Our field is in a hole pretty much so the walkway stuff is 20 feet above the actual field.

I plan on getting 2 AB 1600's after xmas as well :)

[topher04r1]

I think that would be a neat idea but I dont think i would try it unless i had some serious power...

[Sauk]

I think having 4 1600's set around the field would work, the issue would be finding outlets though. But heck having two of them I would think would be better then nothing on this field i shoot at! lol

Normally I believe I am at ISO 3200 with a shutter of 250! That is even with a 2.8 lens.

If I could get the iso down to 1000 the images would be so much better I would "assume"

[topher04r1]

i think if you can get 4 lights on the field you would be golden .... i would just make sure you get them up nice and high with large reflectors on them :)

[dmwierz]

I think having 4 1600's set around the field would work, the issue would be finding outlets though. But heck having two of them I would think would be better then nothing on this field i shoot at! lol

Normally I believe I am at ISO 3200 with a shutter of 250! That is even with a 2.8 lens.

If I could get the iso down to 1000 the images would be so much better I would "assume"

Matthew. This would be cool. I'd be concerned with 'flare" or whatever it's called when your strobe is either in frame of when it inordinately brightens your image, especially if you can't get the strobes high enough, and/or if you were shooting a wider angle.

I'd think having two strobes behind you and mounted high (like on the press box as in the link) would give you a goodly amount of light, and if they are aimed correctly, they'd minimize odd shadows. Definitely go with the 11" reflectors, though.

Man, to shoot a night HS football game without having to do a hundred red eye corrections! What a dream!

[Sauk]

you know at least one of us is going to try this :D Can't wait to see the results! lol

[Jim M]

I would think getting the strobes high would be a key to this. Otherwise, the light would fall off too much to be practical unless you just got used to how much light was in which part of the field. When I shoot drag racing with two heads at 400Ws each (more than an AB800 and less than an AB1600) I get about 2/3 stop difference from one side of the track to the other. This is actually less variation in exposure than is required when switching from a black car to a white car. The trick is just getting used to what the light will be at a particular location on the field. The farther the lights are from the field, the more even the exposure and as you raise the lights up, the less fall off there is from side to side. With my lights and where they are set I use ISO 500 and exposures typically range from f/5.6-f/7.1. My lights are probably quite a bit closer than would be possible on a football field.

Unless you change sides of the field, I wouldn't see any need to set lights on both sides of the field. No sense in shooting into your lights.

[Heatseeker99]

I would think you're better off using a 580EX, better beamer, and Quantum Turbo Battery pack for football.

[SkipD]

Somehow I think the article is a bit hokey. Take this part, for example: With all these variables mentioned above, I could have gotten f/4 at 1/500 on the field at 800iso. I didn't really trust how it looked on the LCD, so I chose a setting on the safe side (f/2.8 at 1/250th). Shutter speed is not something that is relevant when using flash. Even if he could sync with the flash at 1/500 second (no Canon SLR camera can), it wouldn't make one whit of difference for the flash exposure if he was using 1/125 or 1/250 or 1/500 at the same aperture setting. The only thing a slower shutter speed would do is pick up more of the ambient lighting.

In addition, the light fall-off at distance for studio-style strobes does not make the numbers seem realistic at all to me.

[Jim M]

Somehow I think the article is a bit hokey. Take this part, for example: With all these variables mentioned above, I could have gotten f/4 at 1/500 on the field at 800iso. I didn't really trust how it looked on the LCD, so I chose a setting on the safe side (f/2.8 at 1/250th). Shutter speed is not something that is relevant when using flash. Even if he could sync with the flash at 1/500 second (no Canon SLR camera can), it wouldn't make one whit of difference for the flash exposure if he was using 1/125 or 1/250 or 1/500 at the same aperture setting. The only thing a slower shutter speed would do is pick up more of the ambient lighting.

In addition, the light fall-off at distance for studio-style strobes does not make the numbers seem realistic at all to me.
I don't doubt for an instant that he is doing what he says he is doing. The shutter speed thing aside (maybe he's using a Hasselblad, maybe it's a typo), I think he has plenty of power to do this. The farther away from the light source you get, the less fall-off there is per unit of distance. For purposes of illustration and simple math, presume a flash has a guide number of 64. His flash is, of course, much more powerful than that, but this will demonstrate the principle. A guide number of 64 would mean that at 2ft. from the flash the exposure would be f/32. At 2.8ft. the exposure would be f/22. One stop change in .8ft. At 22ft. exposure would be f/2.8 and at 32ft, the exposure would be f/2. That would be one stop change in 10ft. I'm sure his flash is much farther away than 22ft from the action, so the fall off would be even less. Furthermore, his lights are up high. The more perpendicular they are from the surface to be lit, the less the fall-off on the field because the change in distance from one side of the field to the other in relation to the light source is less. In fact, if the lights were directly over the center of the field and high enough, there would be no appreciable fall-off at all from side to side.

So that's why I think he is doing what he says he is doing.

[bobbyz]

Somehow I think the article is a bit hokey. Take this part, for example: With all these variables mentioned above, I could have gotten f/4 at 1/500 on the field at 800iso. I didn't really trust how it looked on the LCD, so I chose a setting on the safe side (f/2.8 at 1/250th). Shutter speed is not something that is relevant when using flash. Even if he could sync with the flash at 1/500 second (no Canon SLR camera can), it wouldn't make one whit of difference for the flash exposure if he was using 1/125 or 1/250 or 1/500 at the same aperture setting. The only thing a slower shutter speed would do is pick up more of the ambient lighting.

In addition, the light fall-off at distance for studio-style strobes does not make the numbers seem realistic at all to me.

Original canon 1d syncs at 1/500.