A Little News

This is my favorite sports season. Spring in Alabama is anything but dull. Baseball, softball, soccer, tennis and crazy weather come together in a medley you simply couldn’t pay to get anywhere else. Literally, I shot snow Saturday morning and kids playing soccer in the park Sunday afternoon. They were wearing shorts enjoying the 60 degree weather. All within about 30 hours. Ahh, Spring.

Baseball, softball and soccer all present an opportunity to use a remote camera. Now, I know what you are thinking, only dudes with deep pockets can afford a remote setup. I used to think the same way you are plus I only had one camera. That kind of puts a crimp in the whole remote shooting thing. Let us assume that you either have a second body or can beg, borrow or steal one for an afternoon sporting event. One hurdle down. Second hurdle. Do you have a set of Pocket Wizards? Yes!? Wow, now we are really cooking. How about a remote cord that will keep your camera awake? Oops! Don’t have a couple hundred bones to lay down on that one. Don’t worry. I have really good news.

My coworker Jonathan Palmer let me in on a little secret. You can build your own cable for about twenty bucks. I ordered a really cheap electronic cable release that cost about $13 from Ebay. It came from Hong Kong and didn’t look like much. I brought it to Jonathan and he got out the surgical tools first cutting off the switch end and keeping about three inches of the cable and the end that connects to the camera. We then used some inexpensive connectors from Radio Shack and soldered the whole deal up and Shazam!, I now have a remote cord. My D2h is a very accommodating piece of equipment and comes with a setting that allows me to leave the meter on at all times which keeps the camera awake so it is ready to shoot.

Have a hot battery because the camera will consume an entire battery during the course of a game. Now all that remains is a way to mount the camera securely. This need is met by a Magic Arm from Manfrotto. I got the Magic Arm and a camera platform new for just a bit over $100 dollars. This allows me to clamp the camera somewhere and just walk away. I carry a Pocket Wizard and fire manually from anywhere within PW range which is enough to shoot from anywhere around a baseball field.

The key to using a remote camera is that you have to prefocus on specific location and wait for the action to go there. I use the remote on a base where action happens frequently. Second base or home plate are both good choices. That allows me to use my other camera with the long glass to follow the play around the field and my remote camera then picks up my security shots. I use the 80-200 on the remote. Another note. Make sure you secure the camera if it is mounted in any location where it could fall on a person or into the field of play. There are a variety of cables that can be used to do this. ALWAYS make sure the camera cannot fall and injure some! After that is done, you are ready for some action. My only real challenge is to not get so caught up in shooting that I forget to fire the remote.

For the next post, I bet you would really like some detail on how to do this remote cord so I will give some detail.

Photos copyright Gary Cosby Jr and The Decatur Daily. The opinions in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.