Thursday I mounted a remote camera about 60 feet directly above the goal for some hockey at West Point. Friday was the first game I used the camera. I have a 32 gig card in the camera and I can not retrieve it until after the game on Feb 4th. I need to go up on a lift to mount the camera and have been trying to set this up here from quite some time. Finally go the OK from the facilities manager and was able to coordinate a time to set the up. Now, we just need to agree on a time I can take it down. Hopefully, I can do this with out requiring an addition trip.
Suspended directly above the goalie is a Canon 1DMk2n with a 28mm lens. It is suspended with 2 magic arms and multiple safety cables, lots of wire ties. I have insurance, and it is on file with the school.
I am using AC to power the camera and PW and I am powering it up just before the game and pulling the plug after the game. I did a custom WB and manually focused the camera about a foot lower the the top of the net (hopefully, I should have enough DoF)
I'm curious how high up that is? My initial reaction was that 28mm would be a little wide but, of course, it depends how high up this rig is. One of the facilities I shoot from the catwalk is high enough up that I use a 70-200 and am zoomed to the 150-200 range most of the time.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with from this rig. Looks like you put a lot of time/effort/thought into it; hope it pays off for ya!
Scott Sewell wrote:
I'm curious how high up that is? My initial reaction was that 28mm would be a little wide but, of course, it depends how high up this rig is. One of the facilities I shoot from the catwalk is high enough up that I use a 70-200 and am zoomed to the 150-200 range most of the time.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with from this rig. Looks like you put a lot of time/effort/thought into it; hope it pays off for ya!
The ceiling is not that high. I started out with a 85mm. But, was way to tight. I was told by the facilities manager it was no more than 25 feet, the lift we used was a 26 foot lift. The 28mm covers about 3-4 feet on both sides of the net and about 1 foot behind and 3 feet in front of the goalie box. I think a 35mm would have been a perfect choice. But, I did not want to lose my 24/70 for that amount of time. The catwalk here is higher but this ceiling is the floor for the mechanical room for the air handling system.
As far as the thought going in to it. I have everything at least triple secured. The magic arms have bolts with washers in them at the camera plate and safety cables are attached to the magic arms with hose clamps. Camera is on a L-bracket with 2 safety cables attached. I think no less than 3 failures at any 1 point would allow any 1 piece to fall.
Micky Bill wrote:
would some sort of wifi card or tethering (may too far?) come in handy?
That's a long time to wait....
I had thought about wi-fi but 2 things I thought about was 1) the ceiling is the floor for a mechanical room. So, I thought maybe there would be to much interference for the signal and 2) Cheapest scenario would be the wi-fi card and I have not heard good feed back on it for the 1D cameras so I never bothed picking 1 up.
Tethered was a thought. But I would have needed to pick up a 45ft usb cable. I never looked in to it.
The images are for the university and not time critically and they are ok with the wait. As for me. DAMN I wanna see the images!!!
If it's of any reassurance, you shouldn't have to be too picky about DoF at all given how wide you're shooting. I'm in a position a lot like Scott and need a 70-200 on my overhead shot because it's so high. As a result, the ap has to be stopped down to 5.6. However it's not a big deal because of how much light is bouncing off the floor and back up to the camera. Here's the last overhead shot I've done: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1080419
