Often times spectacular pictures can only be achieved by the photographer not being at the specific location necessary to push the shutter button on a camera. Maybe the sport that makes the best use of remote cameras is basketball. My usual physical position is kneeling just out of bounds where the three point line intersects with the base line. Since the referees are free roaming in basketball sometimes I take shots of a random leg, half a butt, or what looks like a zebra that walked in front of my camera. This past weekend I had the opportunity to try using a remote camera. This doesn’t eliminate obstructions, but improves the odds of getting a picture referee free. Through the use of devices made by PocketWizards, when I push the shutter button on the camera in my hand, the shutter also fires on the remote camera. Obviously this creates some pictures on the remote camera that are of nothing much, but digital pictures are free to take (pretty much) and easy to erase. Quite a few times I was rewarded with a pair of pictures like the ones below.
The particulars: I was kneeling from across the court holding a 300mm f/2.8 lens to shoot the dunk from behind. In this first picture you can see the remote camera on the floor straight down the blue line from the basket. The remote camera has a 24mm lens mounted to it too get the complete floor to basket view. I was pleased with the results and hope to have more fun with remote cameras soon.