Overview

On February 12, 2018, Patty sent me a text, to tell me that our friend Mary’s son had asked if I would be willing to shoot photos at a tournament that his wheelchair rugby team, NoVA Mutiny, was hosting in Richmond, Virginia on February 24-25.  The six-team tournament was being sponsored by Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), with support from both the Virginia chapter, and the national office in Washington, DC.  It would serve as a tune up for the Atlantic Sectionals tournament coming up on March 23-25 in Fort Washington, MD.  For me, in addition to the opportunity it provided to volunteer for a great cause, it was a chance for Patty and I to get down to Richmond to visit her father, her sister, her brother, and their spouses for the weekend.  Unfortunately, we ended up cutting the trip short, coming home Sunday morning, because Patty wasn’t feeling well.

The teams that participated in the tournament were the following:

• Maryland Mayhem, from the University of Maryland Rehabilitation & Orthopaedic Institute in Baltimore, Maryland
• MedStar NRH Punishers, from the MedStar National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, DC
• Carolina Crash, from Carolinas Rehabilitation in Charlotte, North Carolina
• NoVA Mutiny, from Fairfax, Virginia
• Oscar Mike Militia, from the Oscar Mike Foundation in Marengo, Illinois
• Raleigh Sidewinders, from the North Carolina Spinal Cord Injury Association (NCSCIA) in Cary, North Carolina

***** The Rest of this is Rough Draft *****

Venue/Event/Team Photos

In covering an event like this, I always need to remind myself to not just take photos of the event itself, but also to take photos that capture the context for the event.  Some of the photos that I wanted to make sure that I took included:

1. An overall view of the venue, showing the front entrance, and in particular, any signage
2. A view of the lobby once you walk through the door
3. A view of the arena from the entrance
4. A view of the arena from the highest point available
5. Any opening ceremony or announcements, showing the organizers
6. Closeup views of the equipment (wheelchairs, ball, spare wheels)
7. Players getting prepared
8. Team photos
9. Officials and volunteers
10. Fans and spectators

This event was held at Shooters Indoor Sportsplex in Midlothian, Virginia.  Unfortunately, since Patty and I left town on Sunday morning, I didn’t end up taking all the photos I wanted.  Here are some of the context photos that I did take:

 

In order to make some of these otherwise sterile photos more interesting, I wanted to be prepared to spice up some of the photos using some structured lighting.

Camera

1. (1) Nikon D850 Digital SLR
2. (1) NIKKOR AF-S 105 mm f/1.4E ED Prime Lens

Flash Assembly

1. (1) Nikon SB-5000 AF Speedlight
2. (1) MagMod MagBeam Kit
3. (1) MagMod MagBeam Gobo Pattern 3
4. (1) MagMod Holder

Action Photos

TBD

Camera

1. (1) Nikon D850 Digital SLR
2. (1) NIKKOR 105 mm f/1.4E ED Prime Lens

Flash

1. (1) tbd

Portrait Photos

During my first chance to shoot one of these rugby tournaments, the 2017 Maryland Crab Pot tournament, I set up a paper background and took sports portraits of a few of the athletes.  At the Atlantic Sectionals tournament a few TBD later, I gave each of these athletes a framed print of their best photo.  Examples are below:

For this tournament, I was really looking forward to improving my skill at taking portraits.  I had done the research and seen that, in order to take photos that really accentuate muscle definition, you almost need a separate light on each muscle group.  Some of the best photos I had seen

Background Stand

tbd

1. (1) Avenger C-stand 33

Camera Tripod

1. (1) tbd
2. (1) tbd

Rim Light

1. (1) tbd

Fill Light / Display Stand

1. (1) Nikon Sb-5000 AF Speedlight
2. (1) Westcott Rapid Box 26-inch Octa
3. (1) Apple iPad Pro 9.7
4. (1) iShot G8 Pro iPad Pro 9.7 Tripod Mount

Background Light

1. (1) MagMod
2. (1) Nikon SB-5000 AF Speedlight

Display Monitor

1. (1) Dell XPS 15 Touch (2017)

Lens Ball Photos

One of the things I had on my Christmas list, and Patty gave me, was a lens ball.  A lens ball is a crystal sphere, that can be used as an auxiliary shoot-through lens that will invert.

1. (1) Nikon 60mm f/2.8 Macro Lens
2. (1) Next Deal Shop Crystal Decoration Ball
3. (1) Nikon D850 Full Frame Digital SLR Camera

Photo Editing & Display

tbd

1. (1) Portable Table
2. (1)

Post Processing

Post processing for the photos from this event was pretty challenging.

Results

tbd

Lessons Learned

1.  If I’m going to shoot events using the Nikon D850 DSLR, then I need more memory

The Nikon D850 DSLR has a 45.7 MP sensor.  The RAW files are approximately TBD.  Even though I only shot one day of this event, and I was trying to screen out the poor or out-of-focus shots as I went, I ended up filling more than one and a half 128 GB memory chips, or a total of about 200 GB.

The D500 and D850 DSLRs have two slots for memory cards.  One is for XQD format cards.  The other is for SD cards.  When I bought my D500, I bought one each of the the fastest and highest capacity memory  cards available, which were as follows.

• Sony 128 GB XQD G Series Memory Card
• Sony 128 GB SD UHS-II SF-M Series Memory Card

There are at least a couple of reasons why I set the SD card to have JPEG copies of the RAW files I store on the XQD card.  The first is because, with the D500, I was finding that in low-light situations, I couldn’t correct for the noise in the RAW files, and so I ended up using the JPEGs.  The second was to provide a way to quickly get usable photos off the camera, for sharing with others, or posting, or both.

When I bought my D850, which has the same memory card slot arrangement, it seemed like these same cards were still the peak performers, so partly for interchangeability between the cameras, I bought one more each of the same cards.

But now that I’m shooting with a much higher resolution sensor, I could easily see myself running out of memory.

I could change how I use the cards I have,

2.  I forgot to put my contact information in the metadata when I imported the photos

TBD