ELynah Forum

Quote from: ajh258

Quote from: Andy DoddI mean, it should be obvious if you take any time to listen to cowbell that it is a constant-tempo cheer and that if you don't hear the cowbell speed up, you probably shouldn't either - However section F would always speed up their clapping throughout the cheer last year.  (One of my coworkers described it as "sever clock drift" - we're both engineers...)  Not being able to hear the cowbell wasn't an excuse for them, I was able to hear the cowbell clearly in section G.  Being lagged/out of sync is excusable (speed of sound - always a challenge for musicians which is why you're supposed to always watch the conductor in a band, but F can't see B), but F's tempo increase is not.

I'll work on increasing the cowbell's speed of sound in the upcoming weeks! I'll keep you posted! ::crazy::

Dude, watching hockey while underwater would be interesting but not fun!  

Anyway, even if you solved the classic lag problem (and made millions in the process), there is the fact that in F they just plain ignore your tempo and clap faster anyway.  (At least last year they did. )

I'll admit, I probably would have missed a pregame announcement in most cases - I often wind up late to my townie seats (Work on Friday + 45 minute drive = dammit! )

I agree - the refs were incredibly lenient.  It's almost expected they'll let it slide during the traditional time (traditions + army of cleanup crew ready to go + plenty of time for the cleanup crew to finish without actually delaying the game), but after the first and second goals, fish were thrown that WERE game-delaying, we got lucky not to get a delay of game called for those.

Crud.  Of all the nights to forget my medicine, it sounds like last night was a good one.  (I made it up to Ithaca, ate dinner, and realized I had to head straight back home because I forgot something.   )

Hmm, yeah, you're right - it isn't as clear as I thought that I sit in M.  Sorry about that!

I think it would be possible for them to avoid the fish and not board-hug - the arms of those in the student section aren't THAT strong!  But still, they board-hug which is somewhat undignified compared to just keeping about a half-rink distance (far enough from the students to avoid the majority of fish).

As far as whether the degradation in atmosphere is due to the team's performance or not - I don't think it is just about their performance.  They were performing OK last year and there were still deficiencies in the student sections.  There seems to be a lot less communication and far more people unfamiliar with the traditions and cheers, regardless of energy level.  I mean, it should be obvious if you take any time to listen to cowbell that it is a constant-tempo cheer and that if you don't hear the cowbell speed up, you probably shouldn't either - However section F would always speed up their clapping throughout the cheer last year.  (One of my coworkers described it as "sever clock drift" - we're both engineers...)  Not being able to hear the cowbell wasn't an excuse for them, I was able to hear the cowbell clearly in section G.  Being lagged/out of sync is excusable (speed of sound - always a challenge for musicians which is why you're supposed to always watch the conductor in a band, but F can't see B), but F's tempo increase is not.

I think Friday's penalty was just yet another symptom of a large number of people in the student sections who just don't understand what is and isn't supposed to happen for whatever reason - In the past, it was pretty clear - fish before the game, NOT after play starts.  Now that isn't the case.  Unfortunately it's hard to communicate such things reliably, since in any official channels of communication, Athletics has to take a position against any fish in any situation.

Quote from: redice

Quote from: Andy Dodd.....a barrage of fish demoralizes them.....

No offense, Andy...But, anyone who could believe that has a misplaced sense of their own importance in the grand scheme of a college hockey game...Some of those Harvard players had smiles on their faces...That belies any indication of being demoralized...

Quote from: Andy Dodd.....usually the "extended attempt at awesomeness" is just lame and hurts us.....

Now, there's something upon which we can agree:  LAME!!!

How in the world would this indicate a sense of my own importance?  Yes, I support the fish tradition (in the very respected sense of the actual *tradition* - pre-game, well before play starts, but NOT during the game), but I don't participate in it.  If you had bothered to read the remainder my post, you'd see that I sit in Section M, and I readily admit, compared to the student sections we are of little importance in the grand scheme of a college hockey game.

I can't comment as to whether they were smiling or not - from my seats in M you can't really see what is going on immediately adjacent to the boards, which the Harvard team was busy hugging as hard as they could instead of proudly and defiantly skating onto the ice right in front of Section A like most teams do when they get onto the ice.  If that isn't undignified and demoralizing I don't know what is.

If they were smiling during the final fish-throwing incident I wouldn't be surprised, what was going through their minds was likely on the order of "Sweet, that Cornell student just gave us a power play!"

To Polar - I wouldn't consider it distaste and disdain.  Disappointment, maybe - despite the great efforts of many loyal students (such as yourself) who contribute to the great energy and atmosphere of Lynah, for whatever reason, the student sections just aren't what they used to be.  Why - I don't know, but it is telling that the student season tickets do not sell out any more (or at least did not last year - My "nonpermanent" townie seats last year in Section G were unsold student tickets according to Athletics when I spoke to them this fall.)  I've seen comments that supposedly Athletics jacked up the prices of student tickets significantly (I've seen news articles claiming the $247 price a few years ago was a significant increase, but not what that was an increase from), which would probably change the dynamics of those sections - Instead of being gated by who is willing to spend time camped out in line, it's by who is willing to spend the money.  There are still plenty of great dedicated student fans, but that change allows people like our favorite bottle thrower to somehow attend the Harvard game, and all it takes is for a few bad apples to drag things down significantly.  

Edit:  One other interesting anecdote - When I was leaving after the Clarkson game, I heard one of their tuba players commenting, "This place used to be really scary.  It just isn't any more."  Things have definitely changed, and the opposing team fans are noticing.  

In terms of the fish - At the very beginning of the game, when Harvard is entering the ice and it is a long time before play starts, a barrage of fish demoralizes them and isn't going to impact the game significantly in terms of delay - there is plenty of time to clean the fish up before play starts.  Have the refs ever called a penalty for initial fish throwing?  It seems like the refs are prepared to let it slide at the beginning, but it was clear that they were sick of it repeating over and over throughout the game, including in cases where they wanted play to immediately resume.

The problem is that ove the past decade or so the fans at Lynah seem to have developed this "This is awesome!  Let's extend it and add more aweseomeness!" attitude with some traditions - The result being that the initial "awesomeness" is greatly reduced in impact (fish-saving) and usually the "extended attempt at awesomeness" is just lame and hurts us (such as puny 3-4 fish throws after goals).  Just like the beginning of the death of the Black Hole cheer.  When I started as an undergrad (1998), Black Hole ended with a single "You just suck!" punctuated by deafening, unnerving silence.  It had IMPACT then.  At some point shortly thereafter someone decided to extend it by repeating "You just suck!" over and over again, with no real defined end so it just kind of trailed off.  Black Hole lost its impact after that - I don't think I even hear it any more, it seems to have been replaced with the even less effective "mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble You Suck!" cheer coming out of somewhere in B.  (If someone sitting almost directly across from you in Section M can't hear you, probably a sieve who has his ears covered with a helmet can't hear you either.)

That shocks me - I know after the penalty the ushers were lined up and ready to go for the next offense across the rink in the aisle between A and B, I'm surprised they didn't boot the guy.

I'm pretty surprised that with fish being a lot harder to smuggle in that anyone would save them beyond the traditional beginning throw.

How could you tell which item of FOD was the cause of the penalty?  Bottle or no bottle, we probably would have gotten the penalty for the fish alone.  Still, someone who threw a plastic bottle onto the ice should not only have been booted from the game but their season tickets revoked.

In that case, it's probably a combination of slight WB errors and slight underexposure (cameraperson might have used autoexposure, not manual tweaked so white was as bright as possible w/o getting blown out).  I'd have to check a histogram of the image to see for sure.  Underexposed red is probably going to look crimson-ish.

Yup, exactly Bill.  (by the way, I saw your pictures from Albany, they were excellent!)

Fortunately at 1/250, while the color shifting with time starts being noticable, it's not horrible.  (unlike those 1/500 bursts above).

The question, of course, is how much worse it gets going from 1/250 to 1/500 in Lynah - Lynah's lighting may not shift as much as the lighting of the example given above.

http://andydodd.smugmug.com/Cornell/Hockey/ECAC-Quarterfinals-vs-Harvard2/11596081_JnqxC#817194360_3WUdu - Saturday 3/13 game.

Sharper shots in general, but I think I caught some better "moments" the night before.  As you can see, the WB is starting to vary a little at 1/250.  Worst is one of the pictures of the nearest leftmost corner of the rink, caught the light at a really reddish point in one picture.

I always shoot RAW, but to at least get the viewfinder looking good, I set the camera WB.

For those, I took a WB sample using ufraw's dropper tool off of the ice.  Unfortunately I can only do single-pixel dropper or full-image automatic.  I need to request "area" WB sampling as a feature or ufraw.  

For the second game, taking a camera WB sample off of rough ice at the beginning of the game seems to have given good enough results even moving the shutter speed up to 1/250.  I COULD tweak things a bit more per shot, but using the same WB for everything gave acceptable results.

Friday was my first attempt at hockey photography - I have a LOT of practice (and experimentation) to do, and also really need a 70-200/2.8 lens.

Two tricks that helped a lot:
1)  With the exception of the edges of the rink, illumination was reasonably constant.  I set the camera to manual exposure at the smallest aperture used by my lens to avoid having to compensate for it being variable aperture.  Unfortunately this meant sitting at f/6.3
2)  Aforementioned WB settings

I keep forgetting to start the upload of Saturday's pictures before leaving the apartment.  

I finally uploaded Friday's pictures - http://andydodd.smugmug.com/Cornell/Hockey/ECAC-Quarterfinals-vs-Harvard/11533582_5SpmW#812068961_mLfZe

I didn't spend too much time sorting through them, so there are a reasonable amount of dupes/uninteresting pictures.  The white balance came out quite well, at least when at 1/160

I'll try to have Saturday's up tonight.  I was at 1/250 shutter speed most of that game, and there were some noticeable color shifts but nothing especially bad.  Probably only 200-300K +/- variation.

I definately need a lot of practice and a better lens next year.

Can't think of any other reason for strobes to be popping in a hockey arena.  The "randomness" is whenever the photographer is taking a shot - most likely they use the aforementioned Pocket Wizards, although one transmitter on the camera and one receiver connected to a common trigger for all strobes.

Hmm, I wonder how many WS you'd need to cover an entire arena...

At 1/250 it is not even remotely close to a bad as the examples above.  It becomes noticeable, but not awful.

Going to start my first SmugMug upload when I go to bed tonight...  Stupid slow Time Warner upstream!

John Spencer?  (Oh, the offtopic forum...   )

As to the "remote portable strobes" approach - TTL seems like asking for trouble in a "tough" exposure situation (Because the brightness was reasonably consistent to around +/- half a stop except at the very edges of the arena on the ends, I shot in manual exposure mode for the entirety of both games.)  Remove TTL from the picture and the price per strobe for 60WS units drops to a shade over $100.  I actually own three hotshoe strobes (One fullblown TTL one, and two $100 manual-only specials) and radio triggers for them (although they're the first-generation "poverty wizards" from China.  The latest generation perform MUCH better, almost as good as PWs based on reviews I've read.)  However I think that setup is a good way to get the boot from Lynah.  

I would have thought that getting the strobes away from the athlete's sightlines would be more important than limiting flash duration - Even 30WS in your eyes is going to be pretty damn distracting.  Well, those are the rules.  Right now from looking at monoblocs, most actually get slower as you drop the power (since unlike hotshoe flashes that use a quench circuit, monoblocs usually change the charge level itself).  All this is of course theoretical, I'm assuming anyone here is going to be stuck with available light.

Yeah, the higher shutter speed (and slightly greater noise) from the second night worked far better in terms of keeping things sharp.

Color shifting at 1/250 isn't too bad.

I'll need a faster lens to consider higher shutter speeds though.  I have been tempted off and on by the Sigma and Tamron 70-200/2.8 lenses, but Sigma just announced that they're refreshing their 70-200 by adding optical stabilization so I'm going to hold off even longer.  While I do get sensor-shift stabilization with any lens on my body (Pentax K20D), in-lens stabilization is very nice for framing and focusing.

I have seen that some arenas have ceiling-mounted strobes.  I know Princeton had it at a game many years ago.  I think it might be a permanent fixture, as it wasn't a playoff game or anything like that.  That (or upgraded high frequency ballasts for the existing lighting) would be nice at Lynah.  Since most of us mortals couldn't use the strobes, HF ballasts will at least be an improvement.    Cornell could do it under the auspices of "going green" since if I recall correctly, newer ballasts also have power factor correction.

Quote from: CowbellGuyThat's about the worst thing you can do, since the white balance can change completely from shot to shot depending at where in the phasing the light that happens to be most prominent in your shot is. Whether you want stuff that night or next year, do what I said and set your white point to around 5000K. And neutral grey's won't make a damned bit of difference since it's always changing. If you set it on a neutral grey it will be based on whatever the light is doing at that instant.

Maybe I need to readjust my monitor's color temp settings, but 3900-4000K seems to be far closer to the mark.  That's taken from rough ice (NOT smooth!) at a slow shutter speed to average out the fluctuations.

At 1/160 (again, I need a faster lens...), I think I didn't see many problems due to that being only slightly shorter than a complete half cycle of AC.

I decided to trade noise for shutter speed and go up to ISO 2000 on Saturday and underexpose slightly to get to 1/250 - I was seeing some mild color variations of the lighting at this point, although not too bad (still at 1/4 of an AC cycle...)  Still it was varying around a center of around 3900-4000 or so, not 5000.

The uniforms come out to around 4200-4250, but if you set white balance on them EVERYTHING else has this sickly looking tinge to it.  If you set WB off of rough ice, the uniforms are slightly bluish but not too bad.  My guess, as before, is that they're using one of the many detergents out there that fluoresce slightly to make clothes "extra bright" to the human eye (but completely throw off cameras).

I'll start uploading to my SmugMug account tonight.