... but what is banding and what is just a shutter speed that isn't quite high enough to render it sharp? Or in other words, how would that ball look if it was shot with a 1D X at the same shutter speed?
p.2 #4 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
Stoffer, the close crop of the moving ball shows the bands clearly. Only way to get sharp image of a moving ball is to use flash at impact moment. 1/8000 is not enough. Dunno about those 1/32000 speeds how close they get.
p.2 #5 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
Stoffer wrote:
... but what is banding and what is just a shutter speed that isn't quite high enough to render it sharp? Or in other words, how would that ball look if it was shot with a 1D X at the same shutter speed?
It look the same . Now maybe the A9 at 1/3200 shutter speed may stop it but you need to realize at impact the ball is going to get to about 130mph as mentioned a very short duration flash would be the only way
p.2 #6 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
Stoffer wrote:
... but what is banding and what is just a shutter speed that isn't quite high enough to render it sharp? Or in other words, how would that ball look if it was shot with a 1D X at the same shutter speed?
The electronic shutter traverses the sensor in about 1/150s - 1/160s, according to oscilloscope measurements by J. Kasson. Even if you set the SS to 1/32000 second this means that you traverse a small slit where each row of the sensor is exposed for 1/32000s only. But for fast moving stuff, when the slit reached the end of the club, the head slightly moved already and the club bends slightly. The mechanical shutter has a speed of about 1/300s, that should be what you have in a D5 or 1dxii.
Top player accelerate the drive to about 150-200 km/h, on average about 175km/h, that means 26-35cm in 1/160 s.
The image from the OP shows about this movement of the club head. If you used the mechanical shutter it would be less severe, by about one/half.
If we only look at the ball speed, 1/8000 should mean the ball travels about 7mm (1/3rd of an inch). 1/32000 should essentially freeze it.
p.2 #7 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
MJKoski wrote:
Stoffer, the close crop of the moving ball shows the bands clearly. Only way to get sharp image of a moving ball is to use flash at impact moment. 1/8000 is not enough. Dunno about those 1/32000 speeds how close they get.
MJ, you stated that you timed the club hitting the ball in one shot mode. Maybe you could post some of these images to show how they differ from what is being captured by the A9.
p.2 #8 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
MJKoski wrote:
Stoffer, the close crop of the moving ball shows the bands clearly. Only way to get sharp image of a moving ball is to use flash at impact moment. 1/8000 is not enough. Dunno about those 1/32000 speeds how close they get.
There are two issues with the wall - warping from rolling shutter and horizontal banding. The two might not be directly related. Seeing that ball image actually jogged my memory about a patent Sony got a few years ago regarding reduction of rolling shutter by reading multiple sensor lines at once - perhaps the banding is a side-effect of that technique.
Not sure if I have any @ 1/8000s. Maybe there are in my archives. Notice that the ball actually warps in shape as the club hits it. So there is natural skew just after the impact and it looks very wild in high speed camera footage. Soft core balata-balls are the most funny and they gain maximum spin as well. I do my golf footage in paparazzi-style from the bushes sometimes.
p.2 #10 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
Nice shots Jordan (as we've come to expect every year lol)
When I saw you had an A9 (review copy?) a few days ago I was really hoping you'd take it out to to Muirfield as golf is a nice test of the e-shutter. Hopefully it stays dry for the rest of the practice rounds.
p.2 #11 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
I shot a lot of golf with Medium format, you get one shot and one shot only. It's all really a matter of perfect timing at impact. You have to count for shutter lag and your reaction time. Not to mention the subject. I would hit the shutter right at the start of the downswing. That's how much lead time I had to give and your going to miss a lot. Takes a lot of practice. I play golf a lot myself so it helps when you shoot it. Bunker shots are relatively easy as the swings are a lot slower. Those full driver swings are a test of your patience. But even so your going to get warped balls in most of your shots. The new A9 may help with this very high shutter speed of 1/3200. That will stop a great deal of shots. Driver though will still be a challenge. These Pros swing really hard. They are out there 320 yards. I'm lucky to get 265 and I hit hard.
Honestly this is where I really feel my age is on the golf course. I just can't hit with these young kids anymore. They out hit me by a truck load. They are hitting wedges and I'm hitting a 8 iron. That's disheartening
p.2 #12 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
Having spent a decade working as both a sports photographer and photo editor, I will add that as an editor I tended to favor iron shots about 90% of the time just for ease of composition and page layout.
Driver shots are just awkward to crop, especially for the more typical horizontal layout of most pages because you need to get such a wide image due to the long shaft, and it looks really bad to crop the head of the driver off.
Wedge shots in comparison are great because you've got the golfer down a bit in their stance, the shaft it short, etc
Driver is cool, and we all love to watch the pro's rip it 300+, but its not a very useful shot, even if you can capture it in its duration
There is often a difference between doing something because we can, and because its useful...
Take bat on ball shots in baseball....
I'd send guys out on assignments and I swear they'd spend 5 innings and 4 times through the batting order just trying to get that shot.... and if/when they did, to what end ?
Its like "cool, I got the ball compressed around the bat...look at that...". We've all seen that though before, and while its cool to capture it ourselves, is it actually a good image ? Does it tell the story of the game ?
Again, I know 99% of guys aren't doing editorial sports work on here, so if not, do whatever makes you happy with your camera, but.... I will say this....
Features like the silent 20 FPS are very cool, but they are also going to lead to an inundation on the web of "decisive moment" shots just because people can do it easier.
Lastly, having working with the Nikon 1 and adapted glass, I will say that even at 40 fps its amazing how much happens between those frames.
You might think that with 20 FPS you'll never miss a moment, but there is still a lot of time between those frames
p.2 #13 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
Well said! A round of golf is about everything what happens during the round. Best moments are hidden with the balls sometimes. Sometimes there is no ball.
p.2 #19 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
arbitrage wrote:
I wonder what 1/32000 would show??
Won't matter because its the sensor readout time, not what the e-shutter is set up to. My Fuji's do 1/32,000 and things look as warped as 1/1000th, just noiser since it takes a higher ISO.
Only thing I've found that actually freezes a golf swing is a very short duration strobe. I've done some studio shots back when I worked for the university athletic dept. and used old Vivitar speedlights, powered down, because they had a very, very short duration at those power levels. My Alien Bee's had a bit too long of duration and things weren't quite crisp.
I had an old Speedotron Blackline pack and head kit from way back in the day that might of been short enough duration as well....
Shoot on a dark backgroud, with low ambient light, with short duration flash, who's duration essentially becomes the shutter time, and you can freeze darn near anything
p.2 #20 · Shooting Golf with the A9 (Memorial Tournament)
millsart wrote:
Won't matter because its the sensor readout time, not what the e-shutter is set up to. My Fuji's do 1/32,000 and things look as warped as 1/1000th, just noiser since it takes a higher ISO.
Only thing I've found that actually freezes a golf swing is a very short duration strobe. I've done some studio shots back when I worked for the university athletic dept. and used old Vivitar speedlights, powered down, because they had a very, very short duration at those power levels. My Alien Bee's had a bit too long of duration and things weren't quite crisp.
I had an old Speedotron Blackline pack and head kit from way back in the day that might of been short enough duration as well....
Shoot on a dark backgroud, with low ambient light, with short duration flash, who's duration essentially becomes the shutter time, and you can freeze darn near anything ...Show more →
Indeed. The reset signal and the read operation move up the sensor at 600,000 rows/second to traverse the whole sensor height in 1/150s. 1/32000 second exposure means, the read operation is 18.75 rows behind the reset operation. Depending on the relative size of the ball wrt the image height, a ball of a height of 100 pixels would be traversed in 0.00017s. A 200km/h the ball is moving about 1cm in that timespan, so you will have a nice oval shaped ball. At slower speed and with less pixels on the ball, it might be that the deformation is only slightly detectable in magazine shots.
