I have been watching the NBA games, and while Kevin Garnett was tumbling over some poor Photographer with a white lens on the end line, I noted a device in his flash shoe that looked like a flash with an antenna on it. I assume it is a remote flash trigger, yet I don't see any flashes going off. I don't think they allow Photographers to use flash at the game anyway.
What could that gizmo be?

Radio Popper?
http://radiopopper.com/blog/?p=18

Edited by M Vers on May 08, 2008 at 08:23 PM GMT

I thought they had flashes in the "rafters" and remote triggered them.

If you watch carefully, there are flashes being triggered constantly during the action. It gets rather annoying once you notice it.

It could be a PocketWizard:

They've been putting remotely fired strobes overhead in the NBA for decades. I read an article in a photo mag years ago (possibly from SI's Walter Iooss) back in the film era about how they got these great shots around the hoop.

The new tech with the 1DIII and others being remotely triggered and seeing the result on a laptop and being able to send the pix to the photo editor in nearly real time is where we are now...if I understand correctly. Live View makes this possible.

Oh gosh, you're right. I now see the fllashes which seem to be up in the backboard supports.
Sorry I asked

Oh my God! I had never noticed them before. So, I just turned on the Hornets/Spurs game and BAM! There they are and I can't stop seeing them!!!!! Damn this thread!!!!!

JoeSesto wrote:
The new tech with the 1DIII and others being remotely triggered and seeing the result on a laptop and being able to send the pix to the photo editor in nearly real time is where we are now...if I understand correctly. Live View makes this possible.


Live View has nothing to do with wireless transfer...
OTOH this does:

It was a pocket wizard. Saw that play and laughed cause I am such a photo-geek :-)

Alan Kefauver wrote:
Oh gosh, you're right. I now see the fllashes which seem to be up in the backboard supports.
Sorry I asked
No, they are actually way up in the rafters. If the flashes were in the backboard they would be a real problem for the players, and even the fans. On TV they look like they are down near the floor, but when you're at a game and you look up, you can see them.

Even the old Boston Garden had them in the rafters. I have a photo I took from my seat of Cedric Maxwell going up for a shot in the 1984 Finals that almost perfectly caught a flash burst. The exact same shot (taken from the baseline) turned up in SI the next week.

Mark

Sorry....you asked. I told. =)

Enjoy never being able to watch a basketball game on TV again...

As a side note: Pocket Wizards aren't just for strobes in the rafters. You can fire remote cameras with them as well. That's how you get the photos from behind the backboard, right under the goal on the ground and other angles that photographers can't be.

http://www.sportsshooter.com/special_feature/ssacad3_remotes/index.html

Edited by Jonathan Knight on May 09, 2008 at 11:57 AM GMT

M Vers wrote:
JoeSesto wrote:
The new tech with the 1DIII and others being remotely triggered and seeing the result on a laptop and being able to send the pix to the photo editor in nearly real time is where we are now...if I understand correctly. Live View makes this possible.


Live View has nothing to do with wireless transfer...
OTOH this does:

do you need liveview to shoot tethered, whether literally tethered or wirelessly tethered?

no.

Jonathan Knight wrote:
It could be a PocketWizard

It might also be used to trigger the shutter on another camera that's set up elsewhere for shots from different point of view, not just flash.

Musicman wrote:
Jonathan Knight wrote:
It could be a PocketWizard

It might also be used to trigger the shutter on another camera that's set up elsewhere for shots from different point of view, not just flash.

Please see my above post....

You guys are jerks! I was just trying to watch the Lakers game and now I can't see anything but the strobes!

(There are a couple of guys behind the Lakers backboard with white lenses, too...looks like 70-200 f/2.8s...)

adam613 wrote:
You guys are jerks! I was just trying to watch the Lakers game and now I can't see anything but the strobes!

(There are a couple of guys behind the Lakers backboard with white lenses, too...looks like 70-200 f/2.8s...)


Shhhh don't tell the f/4IS guys that people use the 2.8s...they will say how heavy the lens is, and how soft and sucky it is! (joking).

I never noticed the flashes until I started looking at gear. Same thing happened when I started playing guitar 13 years ago. I never noticed gear, then once I started buying I was always eye balling. Ruined everything for me. When I was young and stupid (okay, younger and stupider) I had myself convinced that I needed what my heroes were using.

RobertLynn wrote:

Shhhh don't tell the f/4IS guys that people use the 2.8s...they will say how heavy the lens is, and how soft and sucky it is! (joking).

Why would you want to use an f/4 to shoot a pro basketball game? I would think you'd need every bit of shutter speed you could get...

(Don't get me wrong, the 70-200 f/4 is the best thing that ever hapened to my photography, but each lens has its use...)