Women's Swimming vs Richmond

Oct 25 2008

Today I shot swimming for the first time. I was expecting a really dark, terrible shooting situation but it turned out to be pretty good. It was plenty bright and the backgrounds were really clean since you usually shoot down into the water. Got some pretty cool shots, pretty satisfied with them…except that it makes me want some new lenses.

I spent more than half of the time trying to get a panning shot with my 135mm f/2 lens which doesn’t have IS. The 70-200 2.8 IS would be great for this application and I’m so disappointed that I went cheap and bought my 70-200 without IS. Also, definitely want the 200 f/2.0. It’s a beast and over $5,000 but that extra stop over the 70-200 and the extra length over the 135 would make such a difference for indoor shooting situations.


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/800, f/2, ISO 1600)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/800, f/2, ISO 1600)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/800, f/2, ISO 1600)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/800, f/2, ISO 1600)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/800, f/2, ISO 1600)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/800, f/2, ISO 1600)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/1000, f/2, ISO 1600)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/10, f/13, ISO 320)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/10, f/10, ISO 320)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/10, f/10, ISO 320)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/30, f/5.6, ISO 320)

Football Remote Cams

Oct 19 2008

Dan and I got to the stadium a few hours early yesterday to set up some wireless remote cameras to shoot during the game. We set them up with some pocketwizards and various Bogen mounting equipment.

I used an old Digital Rebel XT with a 17-40mm f/4 at 17mm to get a tighter shot of the stadium while Dan threw a fisheye on his D2Hs. We set both our cameras on aperture priority, center weighted average, because the game started at 4:30 and would transition from a day game to a night game so we couldn’t lock down our exposures. Throughout the game, we switched off who had the transceiver to fire the cameras. I ended up putting it in my hot shoe and turning it on/off when I wanted to fire a picture; that way I could also take pictures on the field and with the wireless cameras at the same time, or I could fire it separate from my main camera.

Dan’s is so much wider and makes me wish I had a full frame camera.


Our cameras:

We set up under the scoreboard, where the two teams film their tapes. Circled in red are our cameras.



Click here for Dan’s shot

Football vs Michigan

Oct 19 2008

Yesterday, I shot the Penn State football game against Michigan. It was a pretty scary first half but we played well during the second. Good game, fun to shoot.

Daryll Clark fumbles on the second drive.

(Canon 1D Mark II, 420mm, 1/500, f/5.6, ISO 400)

Evan Royster breaks through the pack to score

(Canon 1D Mark II, 420mm, 1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 400)


(Canon 40D, 200mm, 1/1000, f/2.8, ISO 200)

Click the link below to see more pictures.

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Homecoming Pep Rally

Oct 17 2008

Tonight I shot the Homecoming Pep Rally. I had some fun with the PJ Maierhofer’s light-up batons.


(Canon 40D, 50mm, 1/3, f/2, ISO 1250)


(Canon 40D, 50mm, 1/3, f/2, ISO 1250)


(Canon 40D, 50mm, 1/3, f/2, ISO 1250)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/1000, f/2, ISO 800)

Derrick Williams plays his harmonica at the Pep Rally.
(Canon 1D Mark II, 135mm, 1/320, f/2, ISO 1600)

New Canon 1D

Oct 5 2008

I just got my 1D yesterday. It’s a sweet camera. Tested it out today at the Penn State Women’s soccer game vs. Wisconsin. It focuses so much better than my 40D and is so much faster. Many more shots to come.


(Canon 1D Mark II, 420mm, 1/640, f/5.6, ISO 200)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 420mm, 1/1600, f/5.6, ISO 200)


(Canon 1D Mark II, 420mm, 1/2000, f/5.6, ISO 200)

(Canon 1D Mark II, 420mm, 1/1250, f/5.6, ISO 200)

Soccer Remote Cameras

Oct 3 2008

I’ve been experimenting a lot lately with remote cameras. Bought a few Bogen Magic Arms, super clamps, and various other Bogen camera mounts. After probably 5 Women’s Soccer games, I finally got some moderately cool shots. I’ve been shooting a ton of sports lately; expect more football shots to come soon.

Remote setup for Women’s Soccer vs. Northwestern:


(Canon Digital Rebel XT, 50mm, 1/200, f/4, ISO 800)


(Canon Digital Rebel XT, 50mm, 1/160, f/4, ISO 800)

Not a remote shot but nonetheless, very cool.
(Canon 40D, 300mm, 1/320, f/4, ISO 3200)

Panoramas are fun!

Aug 13 2008

So I was playing around with this software called SPi-V. It’s a web-based, video-accelerated engine for viewing panoramic images. I loaded in one of the panoramic images I shot this past spring in Arizona, from Monument Valley. After some Photoshop work to get the edges to line up, I was able to create a cool little page to display the huge image (over 19 megapixels after resizing to a workable resolution) in an interactive manner. You can see Dan shooting pictures of The Thumb if you look close enough. Check it out.

(It requires Adobe Shockwave which can be downloaded for free here: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/)

Back from Europe

Jul 6 2008

I got back from Europe about a month ago…it’s been a long time coming with the photos but I’m finally done. Below the jump are some photos and the full album from the trip is at photos.maxwellkruger.com/Travel/European-Delivery-2008/.

We started in Munich, went east to Freiburg, to visit Chris and Berni at the university there, then went down through eastern Switzerland and also hit up Austria and Italy. Then we got news that we could visit Chateau Miraval, the Chateau that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are renting out and going to buy for $70M, if we could make it down to the south of France by the next morning. We drove through the night, got a few hours of sleep, and visited the next day. Did wine tasting and also got a tour of the studio there that such albums as Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Rammstein’s Mutter were recorded. Got to listen to the albums in the same space they were originally recorded! Then we headed down to Cannes and Nice and spend two days there, each. On the last day, we took 3 hours before we had to turn the car in and drove the Col de Turini. Amazing road, wish that we had spent more time on it!

I carried a small GPS receiver with me which recorded the route. I’ve downloaded the trip files and wrote a little web app to see the route that we took. Check it out here – home.maxwellkruger.com/europeandelivery/. If you turn on high detail, you can actually zoom in and see to the foot exactly where we were at most stages of the trip. If it’s running too slow for you, try to turn down the detail. Also, this means that most of the photos are geotagged so if you open them up in the gallery, you can view them on a map.

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