Blue White Remote Cameras

(Canon 5D Mark II & NIKON D300 stitched together) – click on the image to see a higher res version.

As promised, here is a writeup of the remote cameras that I did this weekend for the Blue White game. I went on top of the BJC several times last week to scout locations for cameras. Some of the ideal spots required bigger clamps than I own (which are all superclamps), so I will have to get new ones for the upcoming year. I decided to do two cameras of similar focal lengths pointing in opposite directions. I borrowed my friend’s D300 and used that in conjunction with my Canon 5D Mark II. 10mm on the D300 (the 1.5x sensor crop factor makes it a 15) and the 17mm on the Canon full frame sensor were roughly equivalent.

Each camera was set up using intervalometers to take pictures at 1 minute intervals. The Canon was using a TC-80N3 intervalometer. The Nikon used its own built in intervalometer. It’s a cool feature but tricky to use – they should have made it easier. Pocketwizards wouldn’t work at that distance from inside of Beaver Stadium. I’m thinking of rigging it next time so that one camera is triggered by an intervalometer which in turn triggers the other camera with a Pocketwizard – that would make it so that the images were taken at exactly the same time.

Each camera took a photo every minute and I chose 2 good ones to stitch together. Check out the image above. Make sure to click on it to view it bigger.

I also took all of the photos from the 5D and compiled them into a movie. Here it is below.

As this was just a test, there are some things to be improved upon. I will pre-set the exposure next time. I had the cameras on Aperture Priority thinking it was a good idea because the clouds would mess with the exposure. Bad idea. The exposures were less consistent, causing some flickering in the video, which I did my best to eliminate. Also, this made it a bit trickier to stitch the two camera’s photos together since Canon and Nikon aparently have totally different ideas of what a correct exposure is. Also, I’m going to try to secure the clamps more. It’s incredibly windy on the roof and even the super sturdy magic arms moved a little in the wind, causing some shaking in the video.

Next year, for football season, I’m going to do a lot of these types of shots and going to do some timelapse videos of in and around the stadium for the whole day.

This is from one of the walls around the air handlers on top of the BJC. We had to pull this ladder up the 3 various ladders and hatches up onto the roof.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/1600, f/4, ISO 200)

Here are the two magic arms overlooking the stadium and tailgating grounds. Quite a view from up there.

(Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 17mm, 1/1000, f/4, ISO 200)

Here are the cameras shot from the ground with my 1D before the game. You can see how they were pointed in different directions to make it possible to stitch the images together for a panoramic.

(Canon 1D Mark II, 300mm, 1/6400, f/4, ISO 400)