Alien Bees - Skyports - Light Stands Field Report

[MT Stringer]

After a couple of months shooting high school volleyball and basketball, I thought I would pass on some of the experience I have garnered. After shooting approx 25K pops this season (volleyball and basketball), I had only 2 complaints. One was from a volleyball coach that said the lights were a “bother”. Actually it was the other team that was the bother. The other one was this past weekend when a player complained about the flashes. He had missed an easy lay up and the subsequent lay up from point blank range. The next day I shot their team again. This time there were no complaints and the player was just as bad as the day before.

Sorry for the long write up. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

I hope you find some of this information useful.

Note: All of the volleyball and basketball games in my MaxPreps Profile were shot using the setup described below.

Mike
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Camera Equipment – Canon 1D MK III and 40D bodies; Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS; Canon 135L f/2.0, Sigma 28-75 f/2.8; Canon 580EX II Speedlight.

Alien Bees
I have been using a pair of AB 1600’s. The various gymnasiums sometimes require different power settings or set up. With some of the setups, I have aimed them at the ceiling to bounce the light and cover one half (or more) of the court. In others, I set them up high on light stands and aimed them out towards the top of the key or center court. I set up one light on either side of the court on one end only. Since I am shooting both schools, I get the offense of each team for one half. The strobes have performed flawlessly. I now have about 25K pops on them. I was concerned one might go out so I bought a spare bulb and carry it with me. It is a simple replacement, so I shouldn’t be down long if a bulb burns out.

Power – I started out using full power with the light bounced off the ceiling. It takes 2 seconds to recycle the strobes so that slowed me down some. When they were set to direct strobe across the court, I set them at ¼ power. This let me get off 5-6 shots with a slight delay of ½ second or so when I was clicking the shutter. Single shot mode/AI Servo is what I have been using. So, if the action is fast (multiple rebounds, etc), I can follow it and capture several shots that might provide a good one in the bunch.

This last tournament was held in a less than ideal gym. In other words, it was dark (20 lights with one randomly shutting off). I set the power at ½, bounced off the ceiling and it worked well. That gave me a setting of 1/200 sec, f/3.2, ISO 400.

Light mounted on hand rail #1
Light mounted on hand rail #2


Impact 13 foot air cushioned Light Stands
These stands have worked well for me. Having the air cushion feature makes it easy to lower the light from high up. I usually carry one stand into the gym with me. If I can’t clamp on to the hand rails, I’ll use a stand or both of them if needed.

To increase stability, I have been taping each leg to the floor with gaffer tape or DUCK! Tape . Even though I try to set up the stands so they will be out of the way of foot traffic, it doesn’t seem to matter. Someone (or many someones) will come along sooner than later and put the stand in jeopardy. Anchor your stands well! You have been warned.

One drawback of these stands is they are about 48 inches long when closed up but they still fit nicely in the floorboard of my truck.

Elinchrom Skyports
I have two transmitters and three receivers. That allows me to have a transmitter on each body, no switching needed. I haven’t had any problems with the replaceable batteries. However, before the last big tournament, I put in new batteries just to be on the safe side.

The receivers work well. Range is way more than enough for operating anywhere in the gym (or down the hall as I discovered at one tournament). I hit the test button on the trigger and saw the lights go off in the gym. The signal went through the cinder block walls. That’s good enough for me.

One drawback is the receivers don’t have replaceable batteries. They must be recharged. Well, I found out their limitation this past weekend. Thursday and Friday, I left them on hanging from the light all night. After awhile, they will turn off. Next morning, I turn them on and go again. That worked well until about 2pm Saturday when one of the lights quit firing. I saw the receiver was off (no blinking green light) so I changed it out with my spare. The light started firing again and all was well. I put the receiver on the charger and continued with the game. About an hour later, the other light quit firing. Sure enough, the receiver was off. I swapped it with the one I had been charging and all was good to go again. Those two finished out the day until the championship game was over about 9:45pm. The spare I was charging was fully charged and ready to go if needed. I guess I will go back to recharging them each night of a multi-day event.

Note: I have experienced a few misfires. Some were operator error because I would find one of the switches on the transmitter had been changed. It is probably due to rubbing against my side while walking. The little switches stick up (or out) just enough to hang on anything that rubs against them.

Also I am not completely sure the patch cables between the receiver and the strobes are completely reliable. I need to find some spares and try them. So after 25K pops, I have had about 2 dozen misfires.

Also, since the Skyport transmitter doesn’t have a lock on the hot shoe fitting, I have been using a slender piece of gaffer tape to secure it. That has worked well for me. No sticky residue with the gaff tape.

Stanley Fat Max 4 in 1 Mobile Workstation
This has been talked about before but this workstation is working out well for me. I don’t have any complaints. I carry both strobes, extension cords, super clamps, tape, security cables, a spare lens or two and still have room for a laptop and other stuff. Here it is in action at the tournament.


Miscellaneous – Clamps, Tape, Security Cables
I carry a pair of Impact Super Clamps so if a handrail is accessible, I can clamp onto them and not have to set up the stands. That’s much easier to do. One disadvantage to doing this is the mounting point may be a long ways from the court. Thus more power may be required. The AB 1600 has that available.

I use gaffers tape to tape down the stand legs and extension cords. I’d rather spend a few minutes making a neat installation than to take the chance of someone tripping over a cord and possibly injuring themselves. I also place a piece of tape on the stand to hold the power cord so there is no tension where it is plugged in to the Bee.

Caution tape and pylons – I found these at Lowes and apply the tape around the mount when it is on a hand rail. I also tape the stand leg if it is sticking out into the traffic. I set an orange 12 in pylon by the leg also.

Extension cords – I carry a 50 foot cord for each light and a 25 footer for the laptop. This has worked out well so far. I also have a three way adapter that I have used to split the power between the light, laptop, and charger for the Skyport.

Security cables – I have posted before about the cables I made. They are 1/16th in coated with a loop on each end. I slip one end through the umbrella holder on the AB and stick the other end through the loop. Then I use a caribiner to wrap it around the handrail and clip it off. On the light stand, I tied the cable off to the stand below the light and then wrapped it with duck tape. If the light fell, it would be caught quickly and hopefully not land on someones head.

[Lightworks Imaging]

Thanks, now all I need is the OK to shoot an event. The schools here are kinda funny about photography.

[tim]

Thanks for sharing

[Mark Booth]

Regarding the Skyport receivers losing power overnight... It is my understanding that they last for about 30 hours when left on. Yes, they are supposed to automatically turn off after some period of time but I've left my three receivers on and unused for 2-3 hours at a time and they didn't automatically shut off. So, I haven't the slightest idea when they would actually turn off on their own.

I've read that the Skyport receivers use a Nokia cell phone battery inside. Apparently, the charging socket is the same size used on certain models of Nokia cell phones. And, because of that, some clever people have figured out that you can get one of those little inexpensive emergency cell phone chargers that use AA batteries to recharge/power the Skyports. You just need to be sure to get the correct patch cable with a plug size to fit the charging socket on the Skyport receiver. Then, for the cost of a couple of AA batteries, you can have your drained Skyport receivers working again.

Mark

[PacAce]

Originally Posted by Mark Booth

Regarding the Skyport receivers losing power overnight... It is my understanding that they last for about 30 hours when left on. Yes, they are supposed to automatically turn off after some period of time but I've left my three receivers on and unused for 2-3 hours at a time and they didn't automatically shut off. So, I haven't the slightest idea when they would actually turn off on their own.

I've read that the Skyport receivers use a Nokia cell phone battery inside. Apparently, the charging socket is the same size used on certain models of Nokia cell phones. And, because of that, some clever people have figured out that you can get one of those little inexpensive emergency cell phone chargers that use AA batteries to recharge/power the Skyports. You just need to be sure to get the correct patch cable with a plug size to fit the charging socket on the Skyport receiver. Then, for the cost of a couple of AA batteries, you can have your drained Skyport receivers working again.

Mark

They're supposed to go to stand-by mode after 4 hours but even in stand-by mode, the battery will still drained eventually because the unit does not power off completely. You have to manually switch the unit off to prevent draining the battery.

[MT Stringer]

Thanks for the info, Mark. I don't know how long a period of inactivity is before the receivers turn themselves off. We had several teams cancel due to bad weather (Snow in Houston!!) so they were not used for about 1 1/2 hours when there wasn't a game being played and they stayed on.

I remember someone talking about the fix you mention with the cell phone charger. I need to do some searching and see if I can find that info. That could come in handy in a pinch. Thank goodness I had a spare receiver and charger on hand.
Mike

[MT Stringer]

Thanks Leo. 4 hours would sound about right.
Mike

[Mark Booth]

Originally Posted by PacAce

They're supposed to go to stand-by mode after 4 hours but even in stand-by mode, the battery will still drained eventually because the unit does not power off completely. You have to manually switch the unit off to prevent draining the battery.

Thanks Leo! So, after 4 hours, they stop blinking but they aren't completely off. Good to know because, as I mentioned, after 2-3 hours, mine were still blinking.

MT, regarding the Nokia charger thing. I did a bit of research and the appropriate plug you need on the Skyport end is 2mm. Many Nokia phones have used that 2mm size. In fact, if you search the web you can find USB to 2mm Nokia cables designed to charge a Nokia cell phone from a computer USB port (or other USB power output device).

It is beyond me how a single 1.5v AA battery can recharge a Nokia cell phone battery that normally requires 5V but there are far too many of these "emergency" cell phone chargers on the market for me to believe that none of them work. Here's one vendor's YouTube video of one being used to charge a Nokia cell phone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZbyzOgLYdQ

Since the Skyport receivers reportedly use a Nokia cell battery inside, I would assume the thing would work just as well for the Skyports.

You can find those "Lipstick" single AA emergency chargers on the web for about $4, including a Nokia 2mm compatible cable. Here's one here:

http://www.sourcingmap.com/battery-p...0-p-47279.html

The N95 and N80 Nokia phones definitely used a 2mm plug. So, if you want to search elsewhere, search for one that's compatible with the N95 or N80.

Mark

[DDCSD]

Nice little write-up Mike!

[beacherz]

Thanks for taking the time to share your set-up. Lots of useful info.

[111t]

Nice, well thought out setup. There was a local photog who took photos for st bonaventure basketball. This was back in the film days. He mounted lights in the ceiling trusses. They were pointed straight down at the court. He used pocket wizards to trip the lights. I imagine it kind of sucked to have to go up in the scissor lift for an hour before each game and the same after. The players were never bothered because the flashes never popped in their face. I never got a chance to see this photog in action, but his photos were phenomenal. I imagine this is the sort of opportunity that might present itself in a college situation with a major basketball program.

If i had to do it tommorow, i'd probably do what you do.

[MT Stringer]

Just a brief update. At this last tournament, I needed to mount a light stand in the bleachers as close to the floor as possible. The far side of the court didn't have bleachers and I had to set up a stand against the wall , which in reality was only about ten feet from the sideline. The only way I could match the distance was to mount the stand against a hand rail and extend the strobe up a little to match the height of the other light.

I could have used tie-wraps but instead I used 10 inch bungee cords that I got in a pack from the hardware store. They are quick to install and work great!

Note: That is a 50 foot extension cord that I used. a 25 footer wouldn't have been long enough. I had to route it down the wall and along the base to the receptacle in front of the bleachers. I had about 10-15 feet left over that I coiled up and taped to the handrail.

I hope y'all find this info helpful. I'm still learning and basically winging it as each gym is different and brings with it a surprise or two. Case in point, this last gym had several receptacles that didn't work and I had to plug into a rickety receptacle behind a team bench. Four times during the three day event, someone put their bags on top of the cord which immediately pulled out of the receptacle. I even duck taped it to try to keep it plugged in but that didn't do any good either.

1) 4 bungee cords holding a 13 foot air cushioned light stand in position. Good and sturdy.

[111t]

Nice.

Yeah electrics in schools is a hit and miss sort of deal. A lot of times they'll have outlets switched off at the breaker box. (don't ask me why, but i've found it to be common) Outlets that are beat to hell are pretty common too. Another thing that I found to be a problem from time to time is electrics that were not up to out lighting setups. This was usually in older schools. There would be problems with our Norman 808's cross talking. This would manifest itself buy, say, one unit firing and then a misfire alarm would sound on a different unit. Pretty annoying. (That hadn't even been tripped)

I like your trick with the bungee cords. I may steal that one...

[MT Stringer]

Thanks Paul. The bottom three bungees are single wrapped around the support and the stand legs. But, the top one (right below the caution tape) is double wrapped and it was very snug.

[george m w]

Hey Mike,
Looksl like a good setup you had there strapping the stand to the bleachers.

I've found something that works well for keeping my extension cords managed. They are called 'strip ties'.....they are velcro with a pull thru buckle. They have them in various lengths. Quick, easy and of course reusable. I got several packs of them from microcenter.

That and the big gnarly s-biner....sure makes it's easier to deal with all this and keeping the tangle and trip hazards to a minimum.

A happy and prosperous new year to you.

George