Scott Roeder Photography | Local & Destination Wedding Photographers located in the San Francisco Bay Area
There is a body boarding/surfing spot in Newport Beach called “The Wedge”. I’ve been told about it several times since starting school at UCI. I finally made my way over there a few weeks ago. This was my first time shooting any type of water sport and it was pretty fun.
Hopefully one day I’ll get up the nerve to shoot from in the water.
Long Day. I got to the Bren Events Center 4 hours before they let anybody in. I ran into a bunch of problems while trying to lag multiple remote cameras + strobes and ended up without the setup I had planned out. I’m still a little disappointed that I didn’t get it all working but I definitely haven’t given up.
First up: Shocktoberfest. This was the first concert I’ve ever shot. Performers consisted of: Three Six Mafia, Matt Costa and Kaba Modern.
Then there was the Midnight Magic Dunk contest. I didn’t get to shoot it last year and was pretty excited to finally get to shoot it.
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Hello
shexy
haha..nice upskirt shot of the cheerleaders. You dirty boy
I finally got my strobes setup in the Bren Events Center at UCI. Only two but better than none. I cant wait for Basketball season!
This is what I used:
This equipment does not include the Pocketwizard remotes needed to fire everything.
Anyways, here are some pics from the day that I set them up. A journey into the catwalks…
Most people don’t know about the secret door that goes to the catwalks. This is what it looks like when you open the door (location of the door is still secret).
One you go up the stairs there are more stairs.
Then you have to duck to walk under and around a few ventilation ducts.
And yet another door.
Once through the door, you are overlooking the whole arena.
But wait! There are more stairs.
And more stairs…
We are now approaching the top.
The view from the top. There are only a few dim lights on in the arena at this time, which is why its so dark.
Here is one of the lights that I installed. As it says, its a White Lightning UltraZap 1600. All plugged in and ready to go!
Here you can see a sync cord that runs from the strobe to an add-a-tap that hooks into the brown zip-cord that is used to sync all my strobes together. It took me awhile to figure out exactly how it worked, but trust me, it makes sense and works.
Here I have a miniphone-to-household cable running from a Pocketwizard remote (set to receive) to an add-a-tap that hooks into the zip-cord sync line. So basically, when I send a signal to this pocketwizard it sends out a pulse to both of the strobes that are connected to the zip-cord sync line, and makes them fire. The Pocketwizard remote is also extended out from the metal railing to reduce signal interference.
As you can see, there is a sheet of plexiglass attached to the front of the reflector. This is a safety precaution just in case a bulb breaks. It would be bad if a bulb overheated and broke and fell all the way down to where the fans were sitting…but I got it covered. Literally. There are also holes drilled in it so that the bulb can cool better.
Home made safety cables made from supplies found at a local Home Depot can support up to 250 lbs and only cost about $2ish to make. Once again. Light falling 100+ feet down into stands = bad news.
250 ft. spool of zip-cord. Since I only had two lights, I only had to go half way around the court. I ended up with a lot to spare.
Using only the strobes, this is how bright it is.
Two strobes does a very good job of lighting half of a court.
Little orange wire-holder clips from Home Depot. I like.
I did a bunch of research before installing these strobes. Here is a small list of resources that helped me:
I also attended the Sports Shooter Academy V (SSAV) photography workshop where I took an arena lighting class taught by local freelance photographer Matt Brown.
Goodbye ISO 3200.
Sheeeeyit. I can’t wait to see your photos from the games now.
“Little orange wire-holder clips from Home Depot. I like.”
I like.
I emailed Hidden Valley about them sponsoring our Ultimate Frisbee team. It didn’t go as well as I expected:
Original email:
“My name is Scott Roeder and I am the Captain of the Men’s Ultimate Frisbee Team at the University of California Irvine (UCI). I am contacting your company because we are interested in pursuing a sponsorship from your company. We are a competitive club sport and play teams from all over the country. We were having a team dinner the other night and it came up in conversation that we all happen to like ranch dressing on pretty much everything we eat. We would are willing to have your logo printed on our jerseys and represent your products.
Thanks,
Scott Roeder”
Response:
“Dear Mr. Roeder,
Thank you for contacting us.
Although we realize the worthwhile purpose behind your request, I’m sorry that we cannot honor it at this time. As I’m sure you understand, we receive a great number of requests similar to yours. Hidden Valley is a subsidiary of The Clorox Company. Because of the difficulty in controlling the selection of organizations to receive contributions, The Clorox Company has chosen to contribute a quantity of its products for natural emergency situations. For example, in the aftermath of natural disasters, such as hurricanes, Clorox has donated large quantities of bleach to help with massive cleanup and disease control efforts. Clorox has also contributed charcoal to aid stricken areas without electricity for food preparation.
Again, thank you for contacting us.
Sincerely,
Rose Hill
Consumer Response Representative
Consumer Services “
Maybe next time….
why did you want to be sponsored by Hidden Valley? do you think we eat lots of salad or something? wouldn’t it make more sense to pursue sponsorship from, say, VC ultimate?
Why the hell did they start talking about giving bleach to natural disaster victims? So weird.
well i like ranch, and at the time it seemed like a good decision.
often times during a natural disaster, many people are left without a source of clean drinking water that then ends up resulting in many more deaths than the initial disaster. just 2 drops of common household bleach can be used to disinfect water. BIOTCH!!!
Well, i used to love ranch dressing…
Keep tryin man, where else have you tried?
I haven’t tried anywhere else yet but I am planning on trying a lot more companies. I’m open to any ideas.
I just updated the tearsheets on my website. I now have about 100ish published photos.
http://scaughtyphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/3947070_2TvHw#398142812_Pu8Rd
I meant to post this photo in my last post. I took an assignment to shoot the ASUCI President, who is also a player on the Women’s Waterpolo team. I always wanted to do one of those shots where you build a plexi-glass box and have them stand on top. It just happened by luck that I was walking through the arts school at UCI and found a huge piece of plexi-glass laying around. Anyways, here’s the shot…I wish there were clouds in the sky to make it a little more interesting but I still like it.
LOL Who leaves plexiglass lying around? That would’ve been something good to take back home.
I would have taken it if it wasn’t so heavy. It weighted a ton and took a few people just to carry it a few feet. It was pretty thick and was bigger than a door.
lol you could photoshop clouds into the picture, but you probably shouldn’t =P
DeWalt - Those are pretty damn good pictures. Wait to go back until around March or April when the 13-20 ft sets start rolling in. Look on the surfer’s reports for a south swell and then get there and shoot. You won’t be the only one with a camera I promise you that.