A Remote Camera

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.

Great Valley vs Wilson Varsity Basketball 2013

The Patriots crawled their way past the Bulldogs yesterday at Plymouth/Whitemarsh High School. The first half of the game was plagued with snail’s pace action but Great Valley lit a fire at the beginning of the third quarter. They overcame a halftime deficit to escape the Bulldog’s teeth and advance on to the next round. Click the link below the picture to see all the pictures from the game.

Nate's save.jpg

Scratches

This is my watch. Not much to look at now. It keeps good time, but I don’t bother keeping the day and date correct. I remember buying it. Sunglasses Hut in the King of Prussia mall. It looked like a man’s classic watch like I had seen on my father's and grandfathers' wrists, but with the new flair and style of smaller hands tracking the movement of days and hours. It was a watch James Bond could have worn, although less expensive. It has a divers bezel, but I’ve never used it for diving. It represented the refined, precision, and classy person I wanted to be, and for $85 I thought it was a steal.

It’s about 15 years old now. In the picture it looks really beat up, but when I glance at it during the day it faithfully declares that time is still passing. Those scratches were earned over the years. It was on my wrist when I played with my daughter in the pool. It smashed into a rock at the Grand Canyon while my girlfriend and I were taking our first trip together. It was on my arm during the 135 m.p.h. crash that ended my motorcycle racing career. It was with me when my wife slid the wedding ring on my finger.

It’s a testament to where I have been and accomplishments I have attained. It brings back memories both joyful and full of pain. It’s become more than a watch. Those scratches are the etchings I have left in time.

Nikon D800 Tokina 100mm f/2.8 macro @ 100mm f/64 ISO 100 30sec.​

City Skylines

I have not taken a lot of city skyline pictures. Not because I don’t like them but because a clear view of a city can be difficult to find. I have seen Philadelphia from the Southwest and took what I thought would make a wonderful picture from a vantage point I had never seen, only to discover that too much surrounding noise was in the way of the miniscule recognizable peaks of downtown. You have to be close, almost within the city. Of course this presents the problem of looking up at everything you want in the picture and having other buildings in the way. I thought at one point maybe I could get a picture looking out of one of the high rise buildings which put me at the approximate altitude, and I could get a nice picture of the building next to me, but that was hardly a skyline. Of course the other problem being inside a building is shooting through the windows. Reflections appear everywhere in your pictures. It’s very distracting to see your camera faintly superimposed over what you thought would be a stunning photo. If anyone knows Philly then perhaps you might be thinking that a trip to the top of the William Penn statue on top of City Hall would do the trick, but to make a cityscape and not have Mr. Penn in it wouldn’t be very Philadelphian. There are (obviously) a few places to get a decent picture. I don’t recommend this one, but it worked. I pulled over on the section of highway where I-95 South turns into I-676 West. By the way, no photographers were harmed in the taking of this image.

Nikon D4 Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 65mm f/9 ISO 200 5 image HDR