TTurrill
31st of December 2007 (Mon), 00:11
Earlier today, I posted some shots taken during the GLI at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Friday and Saturday. I mounted several White Lightning 1600 strobes in the end that I would be shooting from. I changed the lens from a 300 f/2.8 to a 28-300 f/3.5-5.6. I set the lens to 235mm f/6.3 and used a auto white balance on my MKII. I had the strobes positioned on each side of the arena right behind the hash marks of the face-off circles about 100' up in the gantry. Settings in camera were 1/320 f/6.3 ISO 1000. Since I was unable to go back overhead until the game ended, I was not able to recheck my images until after the game. Another thing to keep in mind when shooting with strobes, you only get 1 shot aproximately every 1.5 seconds, due to the cycle time of the strobes. Most arenas will allow you to set lights up for a nominal charge. Some arenas that have union members working in the arena set your lights for you. So you only have so much lead time until the game starts. I like the White Lighting strobes so far. My other option would be to rent the lights that are already mounted for games. Typically the charge is about 500.00 per game. Usually those are the Speedotron heads and power packs. Keep in mind you may be required to provide your own pocket wizard transmitters to trigger the strobes ( some arenas still have hard wired units and you still need to improvise for this). Also keep in mind all the safety straps to support your equipment in case of mounting failure and reflector covers needed in case a bulb breaks. (This allows the fragments to be contained inside the reflector so the pieces do not fall on the players or the crowd). PLEASE CHECK WITH THE PROPER AUTHORITIES AT YOUR ARENA BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO MOUNT ANYTHING OVERHEAD. It is always great to try and get a different look to your shots, but you do not want to get thrown out of your arena trying to do this. Sorry about the long rant. The shot below is with the strobes, I would like to try some more settings when time permits.