Scott Kelby has been doing a lot with remote camera triggering lately, with some great results using remote cameras at Atlanta Falcons games. We’ve posted a fewpreviousstories about his exploits, and now he’s back with the definitive guide to remote camera triggering.
He goes over what you need, how to set up it, and gives a couple of tips on where to place your cameras. He’s been depending on the PocketWizard Plus III’s to trigger all four of his cameras and he says:
“I used these for the first time during the play-offs and and I’m in love with these things. The range is incredible… so you can put remotes in crazy places. It also has 32 different channels so you don’t have to worry about someone else firing yours.”
He hopes the video inspires more people to try remote camera triggering and we do to! “Once you do it one time,” he says, “you’re going to absolutely love it!”
See more videos from Scott at scottkelby.com and for more videos, check out KelbyTV.
Considering almost everyone has a camera of some form or another with them all the time, it’s kind of crazy how popular (and fun) a good old fashioned photo booth can be.
In this AdoramaTV video presented by Mark Wallace, you’ll learn how to set up a photo booth that will automatically process and display your photos. All guests need to do is pick up the PocketWizard Plus III, stashed by the entrance, and click away to remotely fire both the camera and the flash.
Don’t forget, silly faces are mandatory and strictly enforced!
The photography instructor behind KelbyTraining.com and host of KelbyTV.com, Scott Kelby is back with an end-of season review of his foray into NFL photography. Here at PocketWizard, it’s been a thing of beauty to watch his journey from remote camera newbie to seasoned pro, all during the course of one football season.
scottkelby.com
To catch the dramatic intro at a Falcons game, Scott used four cameras: “three mounted and one hand-held — when I fired my hand-held camera, with a PocketWizard [radio trigger] on top, it fired all the three other remotes, all capturing the same moment, but from different angles, perspectives and focal ranges.”
He used a mix of Plus® II’s and borrowed Plus® III’s to fire his cameras, but liked the Plus III’s so much after the game he ordered four of them for himself.
Read the full post to see images from the game as well as his setup. Also see his Q&A with his readers, where the remote cameras were a popular topic.
As theaters eschew film projectors in favor of digital ones, the movie theater projectionist will become a thing of the past. Photographer Joseph O. Holmes has embarked on a project to document this quickly-disappearing profession.
He writes not only is the lighting inside the projection booths dim, but it’s also pretty awful looking. He brings his own light into these spaces in the form of a softbox and Nikon speedlights, and, if his son isn’t available to assist, he holds the softbox himself and triggers his camera remotely using his PocketWizard FlexTT5® and MiniTT1®.
Scott Kelby is offering a new show on KelbyTV dubbed Photography Tips & Tricks and it’s off to a fantastic, and mighty informative, start.
This first episode “features Scott Kelby, RC Concepcion, and special guest Bill Fortney sharing tips on using Auto ISO, bracketing, and setting up a remote camera in places to which you don’t have access.”
For the project, Jonathan captured candid portraits of people in their cars while waiting at red lights. He writes, “By highlighting the occupants and interiors of vehicles I bring normally private moments into the public space that surrounds the zone of an occupied vehicle. This is an effort to create portraits of an extensive and permeating culture that has a large group of members but often has little communication, interaction or bonds between individuals.” (Read the full statement.)
To get the images, Jonathan came up with a pretty interesting rig using two cars and a couple of friends. He had his camera mounted on a tripod in the back of his car, pointing out the rear view window. Sitting next to him, his friend manned the MacBook Pro the camera was tethered to. His girlfriend drove the second car, which had one gridded strobe pointing out the back side window. Once everyone was in position, he would use his PocketWizard Plus® II to trigger both the camera and the strobe simultaneously.
Joel Hawksley, a photographer for The Southern Illinoisan in Carbondale, IL, spends a lot of time in the gym. He’s not working out; he’s setting up lights. Fortunately for shooters everywhere, he’s taken the time to show how he does it in an informative post on his blog.
Hawksley goes into serious detail, all in one page, and explains how he does everything to make high school gym athletes look like superstars. The gear he literally lays out in this blog post include the PocketWizard PowerMC2, the FlexTT5, and the AC3 ZoneController.
This blog post provides dozens of large photos, including many behind-the-scenes shots. Watch what Hawksley does to light up big places. You won’t be sorry.
Photography educator and photographer Scott Kelby has recently tested gear while shooting sports photography at football games.
Shooting for the Atlanta Falcons at the Georgia Dome, Scott set up a remote camera using PocketWizard Plus® II radios as a trigger. This enabled him to capture dramatic shots of the players running out of smoke as fireworks went off. Then the unthinkable happened! “Epic remote-camera fail,” as he called it.
Thankfully for us, for Scott, and for the NFL, Scott persevered, found the problem, and got it right at his next game! Turns out, all that happened was the sync cord popped out after he tested it. With the sync cord screwed firmly in place, Scott set up his Nikon D3 with his Sigma 15mm fisheye lens on the ground where the players would run onto the field. Every time he took a picture with his Nikon D4, the remote D3 was triggered.
Acclaimed sports photographer Donald Miralle was in the enviable position of covering the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. From day one, he was getting great shots!
Using the PocketWizard Plus® III at the opening ceremony as a remote camera trigger, Donald was able to capture the fireworks going off in the stadium and over London Bridge simultaneously, resulting in two epic photographs. He writes, “You can be in two places at the same time!”
Donald was kind enough to answer some questions regarding his photography and these shots in particular.
How did you get to photograph the Olympics this year?
I shot this Olympics for Newsweek Magazine / Daily Beast, as I have the last two Olympic Games (Vancouver, Beijing) and the prior four games I shot for Getty Images / Allsport (Athens, Torino, Salt Lake, and Sydney) Working for Newsweek is a great assignment ,as they do not require daily coverage nor are they interested in standard action shots, which they can pick up off the wire if need be, but rather more artistic and different angle shots which is right up my alley. They ran a couple stories as well as weekly “Best of Olympics” galleries they ran on Web and in print, so I was really able to focus on making pictures and less on deadlines. That was really nice.
Our very own Ian Ray was on hand at Sports Shooter Academy IX this past April to help participating photographers get the most out of their PocketWizard radios. In this video, he shares three tips to help you maximize your radios’ performance for remote camera triggering.
Get on up. The ground can absorb a lot of your radio signal. If you’re using remote cameras that are placed directly on the field, consider mounting your PocketWizard higher up on a fence or pole.
Loooooong range. If you’re using a Plus® III or MultiMAX®, setting your radio trigger to long range mode can double your operating range.
Make contact. If you’re using a MultiMAX, you can extend the contact time (the time the trigger keeps the electrical contact closed) to allow your motor drive to run longer. Ian recommends using 0.3 seconds, depending on your camera.
Like these tips? Consider signing up for their next workshop!
