HS football vs. the DSLR video shooter...

So I've been testing out if the 7D, follow focus rig, tripod and hand held as well as the other video bits can shoot HS football with any degree of success.

My son is a freshman this year and to get in good with the coaches, AD and booster club I've been trying create some fun things they can use as well as let other parents get "closer" to the action. I've been shooting stills and video of my son's and daughter's sporting events for a long time now. So as they enter HS, side line access is a bit hard to get. By giving back to the school now should get me better access later. I'm hoping...

So here's a quick little video I put together of Freshman practice. I got to played around with time in this video some. It also includes my first ever time lapse. I think that came out pretty well!

https://vimeo.com/4804​5543

Chas, In todays social media world you can get alot more bang for the buck by having your kids kind of "Promote" it on their FB or YT pages. I assume they might have one if they are high school age. That can lead to much more id the booster club get ahold of a video they like. Keep up the good work. My wife use to teach a local flag core here in Dallas. I got to play with my first steadicam on the high school footbal field. Some times it easier to get on the side lines whe you look important. It worked that way for me….

#61 is going to be called for holding on every play? Who the heck taught that kid to hold, grapple and throw an offensive lineman out of the way? Horrible technique that's going to cost his team big time all year long unless he learns how to play D-line!

Oh, and nice video! Very clear.

dave

ps: My 6' 3" 340 lb son was a nose-tackle his entire HS career. You need good technique to beat an OL double-team and get past a FB to sack a QB!

Excellent idea lecherro! I'm not sure if the CT Booster club has a FB page or not. I'll ask the President that when I see her tonight at the football teams first interschool scrimage.

Snyderman - I know what you're saying. Not sure if you noticed, but that was a defensive drill they were running so #61's holding was fine, but why?. After seeing that both myself and my son were asking why that kid was holding that other kid so much. He should have just shucked him and went straight in for the QB. Wierd... My son is in all those Defensive shots as well as the offensive drills too. He plays ironman - both defense and offense. He's the starting left or right D-end (they keep switching him) and the tall kid standing out on that play/shot in the background. He gets in and has moved to the right D-End spot when I start shooting from the right side side, check out the kid he pushes back just holding him around the waist. Funny! He also plays left tackle. He also has great hands and should be a tightend, but the freshman coaches don't run a true tightend system. He's an oddity to them. They know he can catch the ball well, he's pretty tall with decent speed and he can block as well. That sounds like a tightend to me... why not run a tight end instead of using shorter fullbacks and running backs?

Anyhow, thanks for the ideas and comments!

Nice Video!!! I am wanting to do the same type of video for a friends son who is a senior. I have few questions for you.

1. What AP and TV did you use?

2. Did you custom white balance?

3. What software did you edit in? The transition from clip to clip are pretty good.

4. Did you use a monopod or tripod? If mono which one?

5. Did you capture audio using a external device?

Thanks in advance.

Great video, On the timelapse did you drag the shutter? it seems very choppy. What was your interval?

extrememc wrote in post #14905975
Nice Video!!! I am wanting to do the same type of video for a friends son who is a senior. I have few questions for you.

1. What AP and TV did you use?

2. Did you custom white balance?

3. What software did you edit in? The transition from clip to clip are pretty good.

4. Did you use a monopod or tripod? If mono which one?

5. Did you capture audio using a external device?

Thanks in advance.

1) I shot this in 720, 60fps so 1/125th Tv, Ap was probably around f8 or a bit higher. I didn't use a ND filter because I wanted a lot DoF to help hold focus. ISO was set to 100.

2) I let the camera take care of white balance, AWB mode.

3) I use Sony Vegas Home movie Studio 11 Platinum Edition. Pretty powerful software for not a lot of money. All the transitions were very basic cuts or dissolves.

4)I used a tripod for some shots. When I used my 70-200 f4L with a 1.4 x TC, you bet! No hand holding that rig. But when I had the 10-24 Di Tamron and the Canon 24-70L, that was hand held. I couldn't have a tripod or monopod when I was one the field with the coaches. I had to be very mobile.

5) Any audio that wasn't the music just came from the internal mic on the 7D. It's fine for that kind of ambient sound gathering. Maybe having a Rode or Sennheiser add on mic would be better, I just don't own one.

gotaudi wrote in post #14906119
Great video, On the timelapse did you drag the shutter? it seems very choppy. What was your interval?

Yeah, I did drag the shutter on that a bit. I think the SS was set to 1/50th to get just a bit of blur to help the smoothness some. That was one of my very first TLs. I know I need to keep playing with it and learning more.

I had the intervolometer set to shoot one shot every ten seconds. That whole segement was really about 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes long. I'm still not down with the whole calculation thing when making a TL. I just let it run for how every long I could get of them.

Any suggestions for learning TL would be appriciated. Especially stuff covering the finer points.

ChasWG wrote in post #14906906
1) I shot this in 720, 60fps so 1/125th Tv, Ap was probably around f8 or a bit higher. I didn't use a ND filter because I wanted a lot DoF to help hold focus. ISO was set to 100.

2) I let the camera take care of white balance, AWB mode.

3) I use Sony Vegas Home movie Studio 11 Platinum Edition. Pretty powerful software for not a lot of money. All the transitions were very basic cuts or dissolves.

4)I used a tripod for some shots. When I used my 70-200 f4L with a 1.4 x TC, you bet! No hand holding that rig. But when I had the 10-24 Di Tamron and the Canon 24-70L, that was hand held. I couldn't have a tripod or monopod when I was one the field with the coaches. I had to be very mobile.

5) Any audio that wasn't the music just came from the internal mic on the 7D. It's fine for that kind of ambient sound gathering. Maybe having a Rode or Sennheiser add on mic would be better, I just don't own one.

Thanks for the info. So was there a reason that you used AWB instead of a custom WB?

ChasWG wrote in post #14906917
Yeah, I did drag the shutter on that a bit. I think the SS was set to 1/50th to get just a bit of blur to help the smoothness some. That was one of my very first TLs. I know I need to keep playing with it and learning more.

I had the intervolometer set to shoot one shot every ten seconds. That whole segement was really about 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes long. I'm still not down with the whole calculation thing when making a TL. I just let it run for how every long I could get of them.

Any suggestions for learning TL would be appriciated. Especially stuff covering the finer points.

for things that move quite rapidly (such as people) a shutter speed of around .5-1 second really smooths everything out and makes it look natural. To do this in daylight you need about 6 stops of ND filter to get that shutter speed. I also like to shoot in Sraw so I have the greatest flexibility with white balance and exposure (especially in the shadows).

The interval really depends on how fast things move and the amount of time it takes the event to happen. If you want to take a shot of a party an interval around 5sec is pretty good) if you want to take it of a flower bud opening during the day it takes about 6 hours. You would probably move to a 20-30 second interval. The best way is to play with it and see what looks you like.

If you want a 30 second timelapse and the event takes 2 hours and you want to play it back at 24fps

24fps * 30 sec = 720 frames.

If the event is 2 hours (7200 seconds)

Interval = 7200seconds/720 frames = 1 frame every 10 seconds....

extrememc wrote in post #14907627
Thanks for the info. So was there a reason that you used AWB instead of a custom WB?

You know, the AWB on my camera seems to nail it each and every time. Only when I shoot under sodium vapour lighting does this not work, but then again, a custom WB doesn't work either. The color shift and cycling of lights changes so much with those type of lights, nothing but good post proccessing works. Otherwise I use AWB quite a bit. But from time to time, to get the color balance I want to see, I set a custom WB.

gotaudi wrote in post #14910119
for things that move quite rapidly (such as people) a shutter speed of around .5-1 second really smooths everything out and makes it look natural. To do this in daylight you need about 6 stops of ND filter to get that shutter speed. I also like to shoot in Sraw so I have the greatest flexibility with white balance and exposure (especially in the shadows).

The interval really depends on how fast things move and the amount of time it takes the event to happen. If you want to take a shot of a party an interval around 5sec is pretty good) if you want to take it of a flower bud opening during the day it takes about 6 hours. You would probably move to a 20-30 second interval. The best way is to play with it and see what looks you like.

If you want a 30 second timelapse and the event takes 2 hours and you want to play it back at 24fps

24fps * 30 sec = 720 frames.

If the event is 2 hours (7200 seconds)

Interval = 7200seconds/720 frames = 1 frame every 10 seconds....

Thanks for all the great info. I just got done reading a couple different blogs and forums (Phillip Bloom and Timescapes.com) and this is the same bit of advice from them.
I'm planning a sunrise shot in the morning with some faster moving clouds. I took some test shots from this mornings amazing sunrise and all I can do is hope the same thing happens in a few hours from now. If it does, I'll be happy.
I'm planning on a 2-3 sec interval between shots. Hopefully I have done enough work this past morning and I'm ready to start. Oh well, I can always try again another day.

Thanks again for the help!

Hey Chas the macro insect video is very relaxing to watch and listening to. Good job on that one.

Thanks man! I just got a real macro lens so I'll test it out and see if I can't get some more of that kind of stuff. My other thing I do for relaxation or fun is to tend my garden and with that comes the insects. So the garden and the photo/video thing go hand in hand. It seems to work out and I like doing those kinds of shots.

Thanks again!