My Oregon-USC story and a 5D2 review. (long)

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

11/01/2009 11:36:05 PM · #1

As was mentioned in this thread, I had the opportunity to be down on the field and up in press areas for the Oregon-USC game. I was quite excited about what was probably the biggest Oregon game in a decade. I was also excited because I had just received my new 5D Mark II. I had had the opportunity to goof around with it a bit, but I was a bit apprehensive because I didnâ��t know the new menus very well. Well, nothing like trial by fire.

I met my friend Chris at his work and we walked the 15 minutes to the stadium after grabbing a slice of pizza and a soda for the way. He had been able to buy a face value ticket from a coworker which was great as tickets were going for multi-hundred dollar prices on StubHub and other scalper sites.

The atmosphere was electric from the start. Being Halloween, Autzen stadium was declared a â��black outâ�� and fans were encouraged to wear black. The student sections were nearly black to the fan. There were also, naturally, a number of costumes in the crowd, some pretty elaborate.

(Sorry about the watermarks. Iâ��m a bit paranoid given recent events.)

I got down on the field about thirty minutes before the game started. I wanted to get a little practice with the camera and seek out the best angles and see what the sky was doing. The first thing I noticed about the 5D2 is it burns through card space. My current philosophy has been to have multiple smaller cards so as to not put all my eggs in one basket. I had brought 4 2GB cards with me and I would say on a typical photoshoot that would be plenty. It was not. This is especially true when you are doing bracketing for HDR. At three exposures a shot plus the JPG we are looking at 70-75 megs for each image. Ouch. On RAW+Small JPG a 2GB card can hold about 60 shots (I forget the exact number). Time to upgrade the cards.

The next thing I noticed about the 5D2 is the satisfying sound of the shutter. It sounds lower and a bit more substantial than the 5D, although Iâ��m not positive how much is different between it and the original body. The body is also more metallic and had a textured feel absent from the previous version.

As we approached game time, I discovered a new benefit to being on the fieldâ�¦cheerleaders. Now, itâ��s sorta funny. My mental projection of myself tends to match the age of the people Iâ��m around. If Iâ��m around 20-somethings, in my mind, Iâ��m a 20-something. 40-somethings? Iâ��m 40. The reality, of course, is I was old enough to be any of the girls' father and I wondered what they thought about the â��creepy menâ�� taking their picture. (I was far from the only one.) But they didnâ��t show any problem because they are professionals, right? One funny thing about cheerleaders is you think of them as being tall and leggy. Well, nearly all of them were likely 5â��2â�� or shorter. Probably better to be thrown into the air by the guys. There were some pretty sweet acrobatics done at times, but I never managed to catch them when they did one of the big tosses.

The game started at 5:00 and the sun set at 6:00. At first the plan was to shoot from the field so I could shoot up and capture the sky while the clouds were there, but I quickly called an audible and decided to shoot down from above and hopefully capture the sky with some wide angle. Before I went up, however, I learned a new thing about being on the field.

Itâ��s loud.

No, really. Itâ��s LOUD. I was prepared for noise with ear plugs, but I wanted to experience things for myself before I put them in. While the noise was not at the pain threshold, it was enough where your ears start â��clippingâ�� like speakers playing too loud. Autzen Stadium is not big by any stretch of the college football worldâ��s imagination. It holds only 54,000 people. But because it has no dual-purpose (like a track), the seats extend right to the field with probably only 10 yards between them and the out-of-bounds line. During the 2007 game against the Trojans, crowd noise was measured at 127.2 decibels. According to Google, a thunderclap or live rock music is 120 db. A jet takeoff at 100 meters is 130 db. I donâ��t know if it was that loud last night or not, I just know it was loud.

Two quotes to capture the experience:
"Per square yard, the loudest stadium in the history of the planet."
- Keith Jackson, ABC Sports.

"I've been to many many college games in my life, from the big house to the swamp in Florida. I flew in to Eugene Oregon in 2003 to see Michigan and was laughing at the 56k in attendance. I was like, "This place is going to be a push over." Soon the crowd started piling in, they were running the warm-up reels on the big screen, and I knew, after kick off that Autzen was a freakin nuthouse. That place was the craziest, loudest most unforgiving stadium I've ever seen. I could not believe how loud it was, I couldn't hear the guy next to me. The energy there, the anger, the hate, the noise for Michigan... it was mind blowing. People make the assumption that just because places like the Big House has 95k+ that its automatically louder. Bull Sh*t. What good is 95k if only 20k are screaming? Not one Mo Fo in Autzen was quiet."
- Author Unknown

With that, I headed for the roof on top of the press box. A quick elevator up and then some stairs (â��Authorized personnel onlyâ��) and I was now high above the field looking down. Luckily the skies decided to play nice. I even saw the remnants of a rainbow.

This vantage was a great place to watch the game unfold and hear the noise rise up to you like tribute to the football gods, but I wanted to explore more. Looking around I saw people standing on the roof of the smaller structure to the east (right) in the picture. Hmmm, letâ��s try that. The sun is setting directly opposite and maybe weâ��ll catch something cool. I asked someone on the deck if they knew how to get up on that roof. He mentioned a ladder in the corner of the building. Ok, good enough. Iâ��ll find it.

Hmmâ�¦that looks safe.

Anyway, I made my way up without dropping anything and now had a vantage from the endzone. I liked this view a lot and the sky was still cooperating nicely. (Was I the only photographer at the game who cared about the sky?)

Here I began to notice the next thing about the 5D2. The noise control was excellent. I had started out at ISO 800, but by this time was starting to move to ISO 1600. On my 5D, for shots I might want to print large, I consider 1600 to be pretty unsuable, especially if you are going to underexpose a shot or want some darks. Here I was very pleased with how it responded. The 5D2 does have an auto ISO feature that will let the camera range up and down the ISO scale, but frankly I was a bit scared to use it in a situation like this without some experience with it first. However, that might be a useful feature in the future. None of the pictures you see have any noise reduction applied other than they have been resized to 720 pixels.

A minor annoyance is the few extra buttons one must use to quickly set a +2/-2 bracket. Perhaps it was just because I was not used to it, but I didnâ��t like it as much as the process on the 5D. I wonder if you can set a custom button to an auto bracket on/off? That would be sweet. Turning the camera off and on to cancel the bracketing just felt less quick than before and I wondered if I was screwing anything up by having the auto sensor cleaner on (and thus triggering whenever I did the off/on trick).

We were now getting through the second quarter and it was time for new ground. There were lots of people on the field. Less on the press-box overlook. Even fewer on the east building room (down to about 4). Hmmm. Look at the roof on the sky boxes there to the right. I think I actually see only one person. Wonder if I can get up there?

So I sauntered over to the sky boxes on the north side of the field. When I asked my first person how I get on the roof I saw a nervous look and was quickly directed to the â��lady over thereâ��. OK. Letâ��s see how far we can go. Time to drop some names.

â��Can I see some credentials?â�� Sure. Here are my passes.

â��Who are you affiliated with?â�� Nobody. I am shooting for the University and personally for the Director of Football Operations.

â��Come with me.â�� We headed to a small room full of environmental control equipment.

More questions. Some phone calls. â��Tell this gentleman how to spell your name.â�� OK. F-R-I-E-S-E-N.

â��This is unusual. That is a secured area.â�� I stood silent. Rather than saying fine, I was going to make her tell me no. What did I know? I had seen someone up there (I thought it was a security guard), so I knew it was possible to get there.

â��OK, weâ��re going to let you up. But weâ��re going to check this out, and if it doesnâ��t check outâ�¦â�� she left an ominous silence. I was pretty sure the ending wasnâ��t â��weâ��re going to push you offâ��, but I knew it wasnâ��t going to be pleasant.

I told them thanks and made some light chit-chat about how warm the room was and I hoped the other lady was enjoying her soup. Always be friendly when you are trying to get away with something. It makes people want to help you, not shut you down.

OK, away we went. Another very steep stairway/ladder and I was up. There was a little out buiding on the roof and someone quickly came out to see who I was. Not only did I drop the Directors name but now I was armed with â��Vicky said it was fine.â�� That was good enough. He let me be. Unfortunately the sky was dimming in the 5-10 minutes it took to get up there. Still, I was now shooting literally between two banks of lights illuminating the field. Cool. Nobody else was getting this shot.

I was really getting used to the nice big screen the 5D2 provides. A real step up from the 5D.

The first half was almost over and I decided it was time to be back on the field and to try my hand at shooting the players, so I headed down. At this point it began to rain lightly, but it never really dumped too bad. I did pull out my trusty, gallon ziplock bag, but the 5D2 is supposed to be fairly weather resistant so I probably didnâ��t need it.

Now, I am not a sports photographer. Not by a long shot. I like shooting landscapes and Iâ��m happiest when people arenâ��t in my frame, but it was time to try. I pulled out my 300mm f/4L, headed for the endzone and waited for someone to come my way. Luckily, with the way Oregon was playing, it didnâ��t take long. I had been worried that a f/4 lens would be way too slow for a night game, but the fact that I could comfortably shoot at ISO 1600 made it really not that big a deal. I donâ��t know what shutter speed the pros were looking for, but I settled on 1/200th as a reasonable compromise for handheld work. (It probably should have been just a bit fasterâ�¦1/320 or so) I stuck it on Tv and got to work. The AI servo worked well (something I had little experience with) and really, I probably could have upped the speed some as the aperture was usually in the f/4.5 to f/5.0. I also switched back to my 24-105 f/4L to try and get some wider angle action shots.

By this time I was unfortunately having to go through my cards and erase bad shots to make more room for pictures. Bummer. I think itâ��s time to graduate to 4 GB cards which these days are pretty cheap. The final benefit I noticed from moving to the 5D2 was frames per second. While the 5D2 can hardly be considered fast compared to cameras both above it and below it, moving from 3 fps to 4 fps is definitely noticeable as it represents a 33% increase in speed. While this wonâ��t typically make a difference in the shooting I do, I was definitely appreciative of it last night.

After the game and the pandemonium to follow I walked home with Chris after a great night I wonâ��t soon forget. I had an awesome time and was very pleased with the way the 5D2 performed.

Whew. Thanks for listening!

Message edited by author 2009-11-02 01:54:58.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

11/01/2009 11:47:00 PM · #2

Wow, thanx Doc, for taking the time. You have become the reincarnation of Skiprow, LOL. Great story!

R.

Message edited by author 2009-11-01 23:47:08.

caba

Nikon D800

Nikon AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED

11/01/2009 11:56:04 PM · #3

I saw a fan with a yellow storm trooper costume on, I hope you caught him, great pic's at a great game.

Spork99

OM System OM-1

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro

11/02/2009 12:03:12 AM · #4

I'm equally impressed with my 5DmkII even if I don't have such a cool story to go with its debut.

MattO

Nikon D4

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II

11/02/2009 12:11:06 AM · #5

Very nice that you were able to do all this Jason. Only thing I can suggest on your sports photos is to watch your horizons just like you do on a landscape. Nearly all of them have a tilt to them.

Matt

11/02/2009 12:13:18 AM · #6

Originally posted by MattO:

Thanks Matt. Great point. I don't know if it's normal, but the Oregon field is quite "bulged" from sideline to sideline. Some of the tilt is due to this (the Masoli one especially), but others are clearly from me just trying to get the shot. It's back to the basics for me in this new genre.

I was worried that fixing the tilt would make the players look funny, but I went back and fixed them anyway and agree it looks better, even if some of the tilt is from the field (I doubt all of it was).

Message edited by author 2009-11-02 00:16:24.

njsabs

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II

11/02/2009 12:16:12 AM · #7

Fun read...thanks for posting some of your pictures...I am glad that you had a great time.

MattO

Nikon D4

11/02/2009 12:25:03 AM · #8

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Originally posted by MattO:
Very nice that you were able to do all this Jason. Only thing I can suggest on your sports photos is to watch your horizons just like you do on a landscape. Nearly all of them have a tilt to them.

Matt

Thanks Matt. Great point. I don't know if it's normal, but the Oregon field is quite "bulged" from sideline to sideline. Some of the tilt is due to this (the Masoli one especially), but others are clearly from me just trying to get the shot. It's back to the basics for me in this new genre.

I was worried that fixing the tilt would make the players look funny, but I went back and fixed them anyway and agree it looks better, even if some of the tilt is from the field (I doubt all of it was).

Most if not all football fields are higher in the middle then the edges to allow water to drain and not puddle and ruin the field. About the only fields that they don't do this with are artificial turf fields.

Matt

Tez

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM

11/02/2009 12:31:10 AM · #9

when I got my 5d2, I bought 2 16gb cards with it :)

30mb raw files make memory cards cry.

mpeters

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

11/02/2009 12:47:55 AM · #10

Good post Jason. Fantastic stadium shots! And the Ducks won. :)

Leo

Apple iPhone Xr

11/02/2009 01:32:23 AM · #11

Woo Hoo -- Go Ducks
Great read, great pics. Glad you got a good work out with your new camera. Sounds like you had an awesome time.

LY (class of '89)

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED

11/02/2009 10:40:10 AM · #12

Morning bump since I worked hard on this. :)

eqsite

Nikon D7100

11/02/2009 10:53:29 AM · #13

Great story and photos, Jason. I'm glad you didn't get tossed off the roof :)

see

Canon PowerShot S95

11/02/2009 11:21:10 AM · #14

The big question. How well the photos where received by the University of Oregon..
Nice work..

ErinKirsten

Nikon Z9

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 105mm f/1.4E ED

11/02/2009 11:37:07 AM · #15

GREAT pictures Doc!! What an amazing game to be able to debut both your skills and your new equipment at. Although I had fun watching with my family - I was also a teensy bit jealous and then my little raucous 9 yo turned to me and said this is the best Halloween ever and I quickly forgot about how I would have loved to be in your shoes and enjoyed my own. Thank you for sharing - my kids are loving looking at them. They were wondering if you got any of Kenjon Barner or LaMichael James in action. They think they are pretty cool!!

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 105mm f/1.4E ED

11/02/2009 12:10:56 PM · #16

Originally posted by mom2two:

Here you go!

ErinKirsten

Nikon Z9

11/02/2009 12:13:17 PM · #17

Oh yeah!! I can't wait to show them when they get home from school!! They have his jersey too so this will be extra special for them to see.

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 105mm f/1.4E ED

11/02/2009 12:17:52 PM · #18

Here's another:

I couldn't find any of Barner.

ErinKirsten

Nikon Z9

11/02/2009 12:36:14 PM · #19

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

Here's another:

I couldn't find any of Barner.

Boy that kid is small - fast and elusive but small :-) Thank you again for sharing!

soup

Canon EOS-30D

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

11/02/2009 12:48:01 PM · #20

good story - good job - must have been a blast.

Nuzzer

Canon EOS-7D

Nikon NIKKOR Z 24-120 f/4 S

11/02/2009 01:10:21 PM · #21

I love those stadium shots, and a great story too!

bassbone

Nikon Z8

11/02/2009 01:50:12 PM · #22

A great story and some great shots. Well done Jason. It sounds like you had a great experience, and the use of confidence and patience clearly paid off for you (and in even more so) for the University.

I just had to look at the views for the photos you posted so far, and no surprise which one is leading the way so far...

ahjenny

Olympus E-620

Olympus 14-42mm f.3.5-5.6 ED Zuiko Digital Zoom

11/02/2009 10:12:34 PM · #23

Great story, and your pictures were fun to look at. Thanks for sharing!

ace flyman

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

11/02/2009 10:39:43 PM · #24

Hard work and a lot of fun....Awesome job!