Professional Boxing: Chumash Casino Resort/ShowTime [Large Images Warning]

[jsarnold]

Spectacular! The little details like the sweat flying off the boxers makes these images so awesome! You know your stuff dwight!

[DwightMcCann]

Berrylicious, that sweat is mixed with vaseline and really makes a mess of your lens! I don't think it gets to the rows of fans, but it sure gets on the photographers lined up along two sides of the ring ... the other two sides have officials of various sorts.

Doc, yes, but it's a lot of fun to watch.

Kenyc, Yes, I fell in love!

jsarnold, thanks ... everything I know I learned in kindergar ... no, wait, I meant from listening to the more experienced!

[Big John]

Dwight, you continue to amaze me! These shots really show the brutality of the sport, which is part of the fascination for me. You really do a great job of giving us a feeling of being right there in the ring with them....WOW!

1300 shots? That seems like an awful lot of photos to go through. Is that typical for sporting events? When I go out shooting at college games, I can snap off an easy 200 to 300 shots and I feel like I am getting a little carried away, but I am up in the stands with basic consumer lenses so I am getting nothing as dramatic as these! Again, great shots and I look forward to seeing more of you work!

[DwightMcCann]

Big John, when I shoot a concert at the casino I normally shoot 300 shots if limited to the first three songs and 600 if I can shoot a whole one hour to two hour concert. When I shoot a fight night, there are six to eight or nine bouts. The likelihood of capturing a punch at the microsecond or two where the face is distorted by the glove and sweat is flying is very, very small and almost impossible to time. Since you would like to have one of these for each bout along with other images, it is necessary to shoot almost every punch thrown in which the boxers are aligned such that you can see them both (rather than one blocking the other) and the Ref isn't in the way. Since they are punching frequently, this is easily 200 frames per bout, which may be from three to eight or more rounds. Do a little math and you'll see the numbers are pretty reasonable. And even that doesn't often get me that exact right moment ... and shooting 8.5 fps really doesn't help much ... it is experience, timing and luck.

It is easy to get rid of over half of them as they are out of focus or too blurry. In general the camera exposure is set manually based on meter readings taken before the events, often something like f2.8, 1/500th with ISO 400, although I think I was shooting ISO 1000 with near f4 ... the TV guys are superb at getting the light perfect. OTOH, it is pretty hard to manually focus so I go with AF but even that gets off when you are shooting at f2.8 to 4.0 ... not a lot of leeway. But I do have about 300 or so "almost good enough" images and maybe 50 total good images and five publishable images ... the Ring Card Girls don't count!

[Croasdail]

Interesting numbers Dwight. The overall numbers are what I kinda expected, though I am surprised the number of out of focus shots... oh course as you know I have never shot this sport so this is an apples to pineapples comparison.. but I will shoot 600 - 700 at a football game with about 10% bad due to focus... another 50% are "nothing there" shots and then the rest it depends on my mood if I like them or not, with maybe 5 -10 really standout shots. I was shooting film last year though (EOS 3 w/booster)- only moved to digital for spring sports as my second camera... it will be interesting to how things are different this year. I am shooting a 20D this year and am missing the speed and accuracy of focus of the 3. I would love to see what the numbers are for other sports and shooters too.

[kenyc]

Originally Posted by DwightMcCann

Big John, when I shoot a concert at the casino I normally shoot 300 shots if limited to the first three songs and 600 if I can shoot a whole one hour to two hour concert. When I shoot a fight night, there are six to eight or nine bouts. The likelihood of capturing a punch at the microsecond or two where the face is distorted by the glove and sweat is flying is very, very small and almost impossible to time. Since you would like to have one of these for each bout along with other images, it is necessary to shoot almost every punch thrown in which the boxers are aligned such that you can see them both (rather than one blocking the other) and the Ref isn't in the way. Since they are punching frequently, this is easily 200 frames per bout, which may be from three to eight or more rounds. Do a little math and you'll see the numbers are pretty reasonable. And even that doesn't often get me that exact right moment ... and shooting 8.5 fps really doesn't help much ... it is experience, timing and luck.

It is easy to get rid of over half of them as they are out of focus or too blurry. In general the camera exposure is set manually based on meter readings taken before the events, often something like f2.8, 1/500th with ISO 400, although I think I was shooting ISO 1000 with near f4 ... the TV guys are superb at getting the light perfect. OTOH, it is pretty hard to manually focus so I go with AF but even that gets off when you are shooting at f2.8 to 4.0 ... not a lot of leeway. But I do have about 300 or so "almost good enough" images and maybe 50 total good images and five publishable images ... the Ring Card Girls don't count!

Dwight, I may have asked this before, but do you shoot jpg or raw? If raw, you must have a boatload of CF cards

I can definitely identify with the good-to-shots ratio. I can shoot a full day of softball (3-4 games typically) and out of maybe 800 or so pics I might get 3-5 outstanding ones and a dozen or two that are really good. Probably over half are just throwaways and another quarter or so though passable pics are nothing special...

KAC

[DwightMcCann]

The AF problem is significant from the edge of the mat ... the boxers move almost randomly and there are two of them, not always moving together. Also, the Ref moves constantly and seems to like to walk across the line-of-sight to the boxers, hiccupping the AF. While the AF is excellent when locked on, there is more delay than optimum when obtaining the lock on, which happens over and over. In football the guys are usually moving in specific direction, toward a fairly obvious point (particularly if the ball was kicked and they are all rushing for a header) ... and if nothing else, the ball moves between players giving you an indication of where the action is going. In boxing, everything is pretty close to start with, so the amount of focusing is also significant. I'm not sure you could shoot boxing successfully from the mat with a 20D and I hope I don't have to try!

[DwightMcCann]

Kenyc, I don't shoot RAW ... just too much post processing for the style of shooting I am doing. I have one 4G and two 2G cards and a smattering of littler ones. For boxing I go through the 4G and a 2G card but have that other 2G card handy!

[Big John]

Hi Dwight, I just wanted to take a minute and thank you for sharing so much of your knowledge with newbies like me. I have enjoyed your posts and I also appreciate how you keep all your comments and criticisms positive and on topic.
Not everyone goes into so much detail, and the generous donation of your time is deeply appreciated!

[gmen]

Originally Posted by DwightMcCann

The AF problem is significant from the edge of the mat

How do you set up your focus points Dwight? I've had some good hit rates from using two off centre points - i.e. I register an alternative focus point and switch to it on the fly as the boxers dance around the ring.

As you know, I'm not into thread-hijacking, but here are a couple of examples from fights back in April this year that show the beauty of that lovely back-lighting and (perhaps) the effectiveness of the off-centre focus point...





As for the volume of pics... I also shot around 1300 images at each event (across 5 or 6 bouts). I also exclusively shoot jpeg - deadlines just don't allow for the RAW workflow.

---- Gavin

[Croasdail]

Random moving objects with another random object flowing through the field just to keep things lively huh.... sounds intersting. I guess I will bulk load up some more film and borrow the old 3 from my son and compare the difference. As for football - very much not the same thing like you said. I even like to shoot a couple of scimmages before the season just so I have an idea how the plays may play out. That's why I am crying about the 300 bitting the dust right now. My new 85 just made it here from NYC though.. and that made me feel a little better - sweet little lens. And like mentioned above - very much thanks for the detailed responses... I am really looking forward to sept 10 to see how well I can put to work what I have learned here.

[DwightMcCann]

Gavin, you can hijack any thread of mine ... you have given me back much more than I have provided you! I remember these images. I usually set AF for 'closest object', the little ring of rectangles (I haven't read up on it since it seems to work OK for me ... I also think I reduced the number used to 13 with a function but I will be going back to look into that again.) When I have switched to an off center point, which I have tried several times, the boxer on the side I am focusing always moves to the wrong spot and then I wind up switching just while the best punch of the night happens and I miss it! Since there is only a fight every two or three months it takes a Loooonnnnnngggggg time to test various shooting modes.

I am shooting the 'Original Lowriders' [some people have said this is actually a reorg of War, but I'm not a music afficiando so it doesn't mean much to me] tonight so will be busy, but I do have my 'timelapse' shots from last Friday's fight and will try to post some. Unfortunately my Dreamweaver MX 2004 application just started dying on invocation last night so I am sorta' screwed until I get it resolved, but I'll do local uploads if necessary. Watching the whole 2600 frames at 15 fps is fascinating, but at 58M I am probably not going to make the whole .avi available online. And for those just joining us, I have secured permission from the casino, Gary Shaw Productions, ShoBox, ShowTime, and the Lumineres (I think this last name is correct ... they handle the lighting truss) to mount a second still camera in the lighting structure above the boxing ring (you will see what I am talking about in the timelapse frames) and use a wireless trigger from ringside where I will be shooting with my elbows on the mat, although I won't be ready to do that until early next calendar year. And sometime in the Spring I expect to have wireless image transmission back to my laptop which I might also use in this application. I will, of course, share everything with you guys in excruciating detail, as always. And let me repeat myself to the point of boring you, "Any question worth asking is worth asking twice!" Please don't hesitate to ask me about anything you are are curious to know. The only thing I won't discuss on a public forum is how much I make but you might even get that out of me offline!

Someone said something about my being always positive and upbeat ... let me assure you I have my other side in spades but make a huge effort to make my contributions as you see them. I have been known to type for 30 minutes, notice it was a rant, and simply delete it. I can easily be as nasty a son-of-a-bitch as I can a really nice guy when I am provoked or highly stressed. I am just mentioning this so you might cut me some slack if I should get overtaken by events and explode publicly.

[DwightMcCann]

Bloo, you weren't supposed to stick your face up to your monitor! D'oh! Man, that hurts!

[jopfin]

Man o' man Dwight those are fantastic pictures, felt like I was there, awesome, plain and simple awesome, great work..............Joe

[DwightMcCann]

If you would like to get a better sense of the setup of the boxing ring as well as where I usually shoot the casino concert events please see my recent submission at http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=88861