The fisheye as "sports lens"

[Nill Toulme]

I like the fish as a "people" lens, particularly in the sports context where I do most of my shooting. Although it obviously distorts straight lines, the tradeoff is, subjectively at least, it doesn't distort people at the edges of the frame the way a rectilinear UWA does.

Thoughts? Do you have a favorite "non-traditional" sports lens?

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

 

[Alain Briot]

Very nice. Wide angles are great to add dynamism and movement to compositions, so using them in combination with sports gives fantastic results. We feel like we are right there, sharing the moment with the people in the photographs! It's worth every distortion the lens may create.

 

[nicolas claris]

I really like your pics Nill and share Alain's comments…
I do to uses a lot the 12-24 Sigma lense @ 12mm when shooting interiors of boats but also when shooting powerboats from helicopter, as Alain says it adds a lot of power and dynamism... like these?
http://www.cata-lagoon.com/shoots/Diaporama_LagoonPower44_Tropics/pages/_G8A5964.htm

 

[Asher Kelman]

Very nice. Wide angles are great to add dynamism and movement to compositions, so using them in combination with sports gives fantastic results. We feel like we are right there, sharing the moment with the people in the photographs! It's worth every distortion the lens may create.

Alain,

Your description of the pictures sets the standard for what I perhaps couldn't present well enough in the "Photography as Art" forum.

The concepts of "dynamism", "movement" and "presence" that you so perfectly describe are the kind of facets of photographs that we would like to see recognized in photographs discussed by people in reference to peoples photographs.

Your remarks are concise, IMHO, accurate and express exactly what I feel and think.

I will cross post this to the other forum.

Thanks

Asher

 

[Alain Briot]

Asher,

I am pleased that I found the right words. Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't ;-) I'll try again.

What I find to really help is to have a few words by the original photographer about his/her work. That sort of sets the stage for me to comment and add my own views. I sort of "clam up" (so to speak) when asked "What do you think." Fact is, I don't think much. Mostly I feel ! And I really need a lead in regards to direction from the author of the images. Otherwise, as I often say, there's 1000 aspects I can comment on, and I can't possibly address all of them, nor are all aspects of interest to the author.

 

[Alain Briot]

Nicolas,

Maybe I should get a 12-24 for the 1DsMk2. I hesitated because I wasn't sure of the lens quality, and of vignetting, but seeing your images makes me think I was dead wrong!

 

[Nill Toulme]

Sacré bleu, Nicolas! If you shot those from a chopper at 12mm, I'm surprised the rotors didn't clip the mast! ;-)

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

 

[Asher Kelman]

Nil,

This shows how we can get caught up in ideas that such as lens is no good because of vignetting, lack of this or that, when the lens can do the JOB superbly!

When Nicolas first told me, I asked to see pictures and then realized how I had deprived myself of a great tool.

This thread shows that in practice, these under-used lenses do a great job for working photographers.

I have been using the Canon fisheye for a long time in weddings, especially for the dancing.

The Sigma was a real surprise!

Asher

 

[Alain Briot]

What Nicolas does is hold on to the chopper's skid with one hand while shooting with the other to get closer to the boat while preventing the rotors from hitting it ;-) I do it too when I photograph Condors' nests in Grand Canyon. But I only used a 17mm so far. I'll have to do some more training when I get the 12mm. It's fairly mild behavior for French photographers.

Just kidding of course, but I'm sure you know that by now.

 

[nicolas claris]

I guys, some tricks:
1. Sigma 12-24 is a great lense once you've got used to it, I even have huge format shot at 15mm with it wis outstanding result, Asher ha-ve seen some in Bordeaux a few weeks ago...
2. This lense is quite cheap (for a pro investment) but there are some dogs, don't order it online, go to a shop and make your tests...
3. In the shopper, at earlier times I effectively were standing on the skid.
Bad. not safe, not stable, wind of blades.
Now I stay inside, sat on the seat or on the floor, with harness, and talk to the pilot. We quite never stop the chopper, but turn slowly around our target so the chopper is not vertical and I can shoot avoiding (most but not all the time) the blades.
This is a stuning lense when you've got the habit to think about focal plane, then the distortion may be quite acceptable... if you shoot perpendicular to the plane (wich is almost impossible from a chopper) verticals will be straight and… vertical. Nice!

 

[Alain Briot]

Do what Nicolas says, not what I say regarding shooting from choppers. Stay inside, attach yourself, and use a neckstrap or cheststrap to keep your camera from flying out. Anything not attached to your body can and will become airborne.

 

[nicolas claris]

I would add to Alain's above comment, NEVER fly with a non pro pilot even your best friend. Too many deads for now.
BTW this pic is OT (no sport at all) http://www.claris.fr/Diaporama_EXPO_DUPON/pages/_G8A7507_150x225.htm but demonstrates the 12-24 @ 15mm capabilities… and you can see the making of here:http://www.claris.fr/video/test_Quicktime_making.html
sorry again for the OT post but I couldn't resist!

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

More OT like this is quite welcome. Have you ever done video documentation of your aerial work?

With regard to the yacht under construction having an early elegant dinner party -- how many weeks further were required before she was launched? And is that the same ship as in the earlier aerial picture?

scott

 

[nicolas claris]

More OT like this is quite welcome. Have you ever done video documentation of your aerial work?

With regard to the yacht under construction having an early elegant dinner party -- how many weeks further were required before she was launched? And is that the same ship as in the earlier aerial picture?

scott

Hi Scott
no we haven't yet done a video documentation about our aerial work, usually our video camera man (Romain Claris, my son) is shooting in video while I shoot stills, as we also produce video clips for most of our clients. So he's quite busy! This video on the makin of could be done because we had no video to shoot that day and as he worked as one of my assistant he had time when the set-up was done to shoot some video, a personnal initiative that I do appreciate!
This shoot is a second one of a serie of 3 (one per year) in order to promote the ship yard, the first shot was http://www.claris.fr/Diaporama_EXPO_DUPON/pages/_G8A3146_120x80.htm, the next though I know is not shot yet, it will end a kind of trilogy but can't tell more ;-) ...
The interior of yacht is in fact the future owner's cabin of a 58 metres motoryacht (190 feet!). The construction of these motoryachts lasts between 2 to 3 years long...
The aerial exterior shoot of powerboat sailing is a 43 feet catamarans, another world though they are all boats...

More videos?
http://www.claris.fr/video/test_Quicktime_67.html
http://www.claris.fr/video/test_Quicktime_500.html

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Nice. In the first shot of the trilogy, are the sparks there for the effect of fireworks, or does the shipyard usually bombard the hull like that?

I hope in the third shot of the trilogy there will be real guests, food and wine, all on a finished boat.

scott

 

[nicolas claris]

The sparks are for the effect of the fireworks but this is something you may also see during a steel hull construction, but not to bombard the hull!

3rd shot will be done in Feb 2007...

 

[Nill Toulme]

As moderator of this forum I hereby declare this entire very interesting thread to be on topic.

Speaking of which, Nicolas, could you change my status flag from "Member" to "Moderator" please? ;-)

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

 

[nicolas claris]

Speaking of which, Nicolas, could you change my status flag from "Member" to "Moderator" please? ;-)
Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

Done! Sorry, I wonder why this was not done before...

To try to get Nill's pardon, have a look on this 33 m (110 feet) motoryacht:

and it's engine room:

Any other moderator around lacking his title?
;-)

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

From the first picture, this is a 33m boat that flies like a 2m jet-ski. The engine room is apparently copied from the starship Enterprise. Are we looking forward or aft? Is propulsion through jets of water, or props? Are there conventional engines, with pistons that go up and down, in each propulsion unit somewhere?

Awesome!

scott

 

[Harvey Moore]

The 33m boat shots are fantastic. Me thinks that the money for fuel on a one day cruise would set me up with a Leica R9 DMR and an M8, both with full complement of glass.

harvey

 

[Alain Briot]

That is the cleanest engine I have ever seen!Beautiful. What amazes me with these boats is how the functional and the aesthetic aspects are seemlessly merged, at least that's the way it appears in Nicolas photographs. There is another photograph of a boat mast (on Nicolas site), made of carbon fiber. Where the mast goes under the deck, this mast appears as a modern art sculpture in the middle of the hallway ( there must be a nautical term for "hallway" but I don't know what it is). Stunning.

 

[nicolas claris]

From the first picture, this is a 33m boat that flies like a 2m jet-ski. The engine room is apparently copied from the starship Enterprise. Are we looking forward or aft? Is propulsion through jets of water, or props? Are there conventional engines, with pistons that go up and down, in each propulsion unit somewhere?

Awesome!

scott

Hi Scott we're looking forward, engines are MTU 16V 2000 M93 (2434 hp each) and pushes the yacht to up to 33 knots which is very fast for a Yacht of that size. And yes there are pistons, 16 per engine....

 

[nicolas claris]

The 33m boat shots are fantastic. Me thinks that the money for fuel on a one day cruise would set me up with a Leica R9 DMR and an M8, both with full complement of glass.

harvey

Harvey, sorry, you're wrong, one day fuel could pay for an entire studio equipment...

 

[nicolas claris]

What amazes me with these boats is how the functional and the aesthetic aspects are seemlessly merged, at least that's the way it appears in Nicolas photographs.

Alain,
I know you know, it's because I love them! (not kidding!)

 

[nicolas claris]

Thanks all for your kind comments.
I posted these 2 pics to show 2 different kind of shooting with the Sigma 12-24 @ 12mm

I would like to add that these 2 pictures have not been post processed, raws have been batch converted with C1, though the lighting of the running shot needs to be tweaked (vignette and overall balance of light) DXo would do a fantastic job on this.

For Alain: vignetting appears with this lense when, exactly like this running shot, you have very light subject on the center of framing and being surrounded with dark...

I think I may ask now some other good lenses to Sigma, I talk so much about that lense... (kidding of course!)

 

[nicolas claris]

this mast appears as a modern art sculpture in the middle of the hallway ( there must be a nautical term for "hallway" but I don't know what it is).

Yes, all this boat is magnificient, you may see more on the pdf of the book that we have published and that you can download from our site.
The nautical term you're seeking is "gangway"

 

[nicolas claris]

To get closer to the original post ;-), I'll post another 12 mm shot:

still a batched, non post processed image…

 

[scott kirkpatrick]

Yes, all this boat is magnificient, you may see more on the pdf of the book that we have published and that you can download from our site.
The nautical term you're seeking is "gangway"

I'll definitely look for the book. But I think the passageway between cabins is called a "companionway" and the bridge that you throw across to a dock is the "gangway." So "gangway!" is the sound that sailors make going ashore on liberty. (Peut etre pas en Francais.)

scott

PS: One question on the last shot. Did you use C1's horizon leveller, or do you have an internal gyroscope for this kind of shooting?

 

[nicolas claris]

Hi Scott
you're right about the companionway, gangway is the "passerelle" in French. Talked too early in the morning, too fast!

Though I oftenly use the horizon leveller in C1, this was not the case for this picture. It was shot from another boat, not from a chopper.
I never use a Gyro. Too expensive, and it's also diifficult to find in some areas.

But with such (amount of) light and ultra wide angle, you are very stable.

This was shot at:
13 mm
ƒ18
1/160s
ISO 200

Below, the same pic, "derawtized" with DXo in 10 minutes (approx):

 

[nicolas claris]

Harvey, sorry, you're wrong, one day fuel could pay for an entire studio equipment...

some more info:
I was a bit *optimistic* but you still better cruise around the Emirates or Saoudi Arabia, these engines drink 387 liters of Diesel per hour (102 Us Gallons) when at full speed! Cheers!
There are 2 x 5 blades propeller in semi tunnels.
This yacht can store 20 000 liters (5300 US Gal) of Diesel in tanks.