Both Fumie and Anthony have been down with the flu lately, so not much posting on my part, but seeing today the announcement of Sigma's 200-500mm F2.8 zoom, I had to at least mention it so that everyone would know to add it to your “things to buy for Jeffrey someday” list. 🙂
photo from Digital Photography Review
Too bad it doesn't have Optical Image Stabilization. Not having it reduces the lens' appeal for handheld use. (That's a joke — the lens will likely weigh 20 pounds.)
The press release doesn't mention a price. My guess is $6,000.
UPDATE: six nine months later, the lens still does not appear on Sigma's list of lenses,
so perhaps it's vaporware...
UPDATE #2 (Feb 27, 2008) — I just noticed that it is now on Sigma's website. I don't see it on a US retailer's site, but I see it on Yodobashi Camera's site for twenty-five thousand dollars!
Anthony takes a preschool “Jumping Gymnastics” class once a week, which is really little more than somewhat structured running around and burning off some energy. The kids have fun, and learn some great lessons (it's good to stretch, good to try your best, good to take turns, etc.).
Classes start with a bow and a short discussion as each kid introduces himself and answers the question of the day (such as “what's your favorite food?”), and then some running, stretching, and something special for the day (balance beam, jumprope, etc.).
Today's special thing is the Japanese equivalent of the vaulting horse....
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Awaiting Their Turn
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/160 sec, f/3.2, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
With tongue sticking out, Anthony begins his approach run
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/160 sec, f/3.2, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Preparing to Vault!
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/180 sec, f/3.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Splat!
In my previous post, Volleyball Is a Difficult Sport to Photograph, I briefly mentioned a few of the troubles I encountered in trying to photograph a volleyball tournament the other day. I'll expand on that a bit in this post.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 28mm — 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 800 — map & image data — nearby photos
To the tune of “I Believe I Can Fly”....
Here are a few of the considerations that the photographer must balance....
Stand close or far? When standing courtside, the action moves very dynamically, swinging from the far left to the far right, from very close to very far, making it difficult to follow and focus.
Standing far away and using a big zoom makes it much simpler to follow the action, since the entire court falls within a small angle of view. It also makes focusing easier because the action is all the same general distance away. However, being far away reduces flexibility, creates the risk that someone will get in the way.
Fast shutter or slow? Fast freezes the action, leading to crisp images but no sense of movement. Slow yields a sense of movement that can be very nice when it's nice, and very blurry all other times. A slow shutter speed also opens you up to camera-shake-induced blur, which is never nice.
Manual focus or automatic focus? If Automatic, which of the D200's four AF-Area modes? With a dynamic back-and-forth, close-and-far game like volleyball, AF can often lock onto things you don't intend (such an intervening net or stray arm of a player in the foreground), or miss the subject or be too slow to capture the moment.
Large aperture or small? A large, open aperture (low f number) yields a shallow depth of field that can put a distracting background pleasingly out of focus, and it also allows more light (thereby allows for faster shutter speeds and/or lower ISO levels). However, a larger aperture puts a higher demand on pinpoint focusing.
Stopped down (high f numbers) lets more things be in focus, which reduces the demand on focusing accuracy, but also lets in less light, thereby requiring slower shutter speeds or higher ISO levels.
Stand, Kneel, or Sit? Each gives a different perspective, especially when you're close to the court.
High ISO sensitivity or low? The higher the “ISO” (sensor sensitivity setting), the less light is needed for a picture, allowing faster shutter speeds and/or smaller apertures. Images at a high ISO tend to suffer from a grainy effect, which on the D200 starts at about ISO 800 and quickly becomes oppressive.
Zoom in or pull back? Should I try to get the action to fill the frame, or pull back to capture more of the general scene. Getting the shot framed properly the first time yields better quality, but places the demand that the shot indeed be framed properly. A shot of a spiker going up for the kill loses all its impact is the ball is not part of the scene. Pulling the zoom back allows more leeway, but means that the image will need to be cropped for proper framing, and cropping means throwing away data (that is, lowering the quality).
Not zooming in completely also allows room to straighten a crooked image. I seem to have a real problem holding the D200 level... it always just seems to want to be tipped sideways a few degrees, so I need to frame things wide to allow for the rotation.
Follow the action? Especially if you're close to the court, it's totally impractical to try to follow the action with the camera, so that leaves two approaches I can think of: camping and predictive. With camping, you focus (literally and figuratively) on one person and wait for the action to come to them. With predictive setup, you use your understanding of the game to predict where the action will arrive in the next few seconds, and set up for a shot and hope you're correct. (For example, set up on a spiker as the ball is on its way to the setter.)
Camping yields higher-quality images, but you'll miss a lot of opportunities as the action goes on elsewhere. But predictive setup can get very “busy,” leading to camera shake if you're not careful.
Tripod? Monopod? Handheld? I don't have a monopod (UPDATE: I do now), but that might be the way to go. I imagine that a tripod would not be practical except for camping or for far-from-the-court shooting, because predictive setup requires too much side-to-side, and it would be too clumsy, I suspect, to do that while pivoting your body around the tripod's center of axis, rather than swing the camera around your own.
As it was, the tournament was in a small gym, so standing far away and using the my big Nikkor 70-200VR f/2.8 Zoom wasn't an option. Rather, I used my Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 (non-VR) the whole time. I don't have the steadiest of hands, and it was a typically poorly-lit gym, so could have used VR (anti-shake optical image stabilization technology built into some of Nikon's longer lenses).
For the most part, I was on my knees so that the players would be above me, which yields a more impressive perspective, I think:
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/160 sec, f/5, ISO 1250 — full exif & map
From a low angle of attack, so to speak
(The lady spiking the ball in this shot didn't jump as high as some of the others, but she had positively the most powerful, violent spike. She floated up like a butterfly, and then her arm just exploded out of nowhere to crush the ball.)
Anyway, I started out with a relatively fast shutter, using Auto ISO mode to have the image sensor sensitivity bump up when needed, opting to preserve a fast shutter at the expense of graininess. At 1/160 and 1/200 second, I say “relatively fast” because they're still too slow for really crisp shots, but there just wasn't enough light to go faster. James Carroll recommends at least 1/400 second. Concerning 1/250 second (which is still faster than I ever went), he says “too slow, use only in extremly low lighting. Do not expect good results.” No kidding!
The first game I tried to photograph was one with Doshisha, so it was a bit slower paced and more relaxed than ones I would try later on. Still, I had mostly bad results using auto focus. I tried using the AF-Lock thumb button on the D200 to hold a focus for a bit while doing predictive setup, but either it's a losing proposition all around, or I'm simply not good enough to do it well.
I tried using manual focus, and stopping down on the aperture a bit, but eventually moved to camping mode, where I could get pretty good results with manual focus.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Fast shutter: no sense of movement
#1 on the blue team had a very powerful spike, but it doesn't look it here.
The next two shots are of the same situation (which came up often between these two teams), one with a fast shutter and one with a slow, 1/25th-second shutter....
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 19mm — 1/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Here's one with a very slow, 10th of a second shutter, mid spike:
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/10 sec, f/11, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Very slow shutter yields too much(?) movement
Especially when watching the teams toward the finals, I was really amazed at their defense. It seemed that the back line of both teams could return pretty much anything sent their way, but how could I capture this defensive play in a way that communicates the great athleticism and skill behind it?
The blue team (Moms from Kyoto's Himawari preschool) had a four-up two-back defense, which meant that two people had to cover most of the court at each spike. Much of the skill shown by the two in back was simply knowing where to place themselves, but that doesn't make for very interesting shots....
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/20 sec, f/6.3, ISO 400 — full exif & map
In the right place at the right time, not coincidentally
I'd come to the conclusion earlier that a fast shutter speed didn't make for very good shots of defensive plays. Here's one of the Doshisha mommies making a great defensive play, but at 1/160 second, it lacks enough movement to be interesting.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 55mm — 1/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — full exif & map
Fast-Shutter Doshisha defense
Here's one with a shutter speed four times longer (1/40-sec) :
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/40 sec, f/7.1, ISO 640 — full exif & map
Slow-shutter Doshisha defense
When watching the finals, I did a bit of predictive setup to try to capture some of the defense: when a team was setting up for the spike, I focused on the other team's defense, and awaited the spike, hoping to capture something interesting.
She wasn't successful making a save in that last one.... she got a hand on the ball, and it went flying into the crowd. Still, most people at this levels — remember, these are just a bunch of moms of preschooler kids — most people would have just stood there watching it go by.
I know I would have! ( I might have taken a picture of it as it went by, though 
)
The preschools in this part of Kyoto had a Momma Volleyball tournament yesterday, and I went along to try my hand at some sports photography.
It's really really difficult to photograph volleyball well. I knew it would be difficult, but it turned out to be difficult on so many more levels than I had imagined, and I came away with 6 gigabytes of mostly throwaways.
I hope to write about it more in the future, but until I find the time, just a few shots that came out okay.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 30mm — 1/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — full exif & map
Doshisha Mommies giving Moegi's “A” team some love
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 26mm — 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 640 — full exif & map — nearby photos
Moegi's “A” team giving some back
I really love the pose of the spiker in the shot above, but the shot lacks a sense of movement. She's rising up to meet the ball coming down toward her (she doesn't make contact with the ball until a full third of a second after this shot was taken), and she ends up just obliterating the ball into the feet of the Doshisha defender at the far right. She was an excellent spiker on a team full of them.
A post-contact shot like the first one above shows more movement, but then you don't get the great “spike” pose like in the second.
The two shots above are from Doshisha's (Anthony's preschool) first game, against the Moegi preschool's “A” team (of the 10 preschools that participated, eight fielded two teams). Doshisha is so small that we could just barely field one team.
Moegi's “A” team apparently takes a while to warm up, because they allowed us to score 6 points in the first game. (Games are to 15). Many games later, they made it to the finals and were playing on a much higher level such that there's no way we would have scored a single point. Not even close.
Their opponent in the finals, Himawari's “A” team, was equally up there, and points were exciting minute-long affairs of pounding spike followed by amazing defense leading to a return spike, repeated over and over. The final went to an overtime tie-breaking game that Moegi's “A” team eventually won.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 30mm — 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 500 — map & image data — nearby photos
A Future in Beach Volleyball?
I experimented with really slow shutter speeds, to get a sense of movement, and with fast ones to try to make things really sharp. Generally, I wasn't able to get either to work well, although I suspect the slow-shutter-speed approach would have been a lot better if I'd had a tripod, a steadier hand, or less a sense of panic about how to get a good shot.
Here's one of the faster shutter speed ones, Doshisha's team captain going up for what would become a game-winning spike.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/200 sec, f/2.8, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Game Winner
A couple of things of late has made me notice just how behind the times Japanese can be. It's not like I didn't already know, but sometimes, even Japan can shock one desensitized to shock.
The first event was at a restaurant the other day. Not long after sitting down at the counter, a smartly-dressed 20-something woman came in, sat near me, and (of course, this is Japan) lit up a cigarette. I'm used to inconsiderate smokers in any country, and so it wasn't shocking that she ignored the fact that I was a mere five feet to one side, and a toddler and his dad were five feet to the other, and that no one else in the entire restaurant was smoking. It was her legal right, and so to her, that made it right.
Anyway, I moved away and ignored her, until I heard someone congratulate her, to which she smiled, patted her belly, and said “about four months, now.” Now, I'm sure that a lot of people do stupid things when they're pregnant, such as smoke and drink and do drugs and have anonymous unprotected sex, but I normally don't mingle in the circles where such people might be, so I was genuinely shocked.
When she lit up again later, I had to ask how she could do something so dangerous for her own child, to which she smiled between puffs and said “not everyone believes that.” I wanted to cry for the poor kid, getting stuck with a mother who is not only inconsiderate, but shockingly stupid.
The other event had to do with an automotive test drive. Taking a test drive in America is pretty simple: just show a driver's licence, let them make a photocopy of it, and you're off. In Japan, it's even easier: just show up.
In initially shopping for a car a few years ago, we did a number of test drives, and was always in wonder how they just let me drive. Having just moved here, I don't even know whether we had a real phone yet. I know that I didn't have a Japanese driver's license yet, or even the alien registration card that would indicate I was here for a longer term than, say, a vacation.
We ran into the same thing the following year when looking for a second car. Often, they'd ask us for our contact information so that they could follow up later, but that's it. (Japanese car salesman can be very persistent; they'll travel all the way across town to drop additional sales literature into your mail slot the following day.)
So, fast forward to earlier this month when Fumie gets wind of an uber-cute car, a Peugeot 1007, and just had to try it.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 17mm — 1/100 sec, f/5.6, ISO 500 — full exif & map
Fumie checking out a Peugeot 1007
Parking spaces can be really cramped in Japan, so the dual sliding doors are very appealing. Anyway, it turns out that they had a “24-hour test drive” kind of thing, where you can use the car for a day. That's a really excellent way to get to know a car, so we did it. The guy drove it from the dealership to our place (a 45-minute drive), the three of us drove around our area for a bit, then we dropped him off at a train station.
The shocking thing is that he knows nothing about us other than what we told him. He knows that we were waiting outside when he arrived at the address we gave him, and he knows that we respond when he addresses us with the name we told him, but that's it. He just let us drive off with a $20,000 car on the basis of a smile and a bow. This harks back to the time in America — a time I've heard of in countless country-music songs — where one's word and a handshake was all that was required in conducting business.
Yup, Japanese can sure be behind the times sometimes, in this case, for the better.
Car Epilogue
Fumie decided against getting the Peugeot because its funky “2-tronic” semi-automatic transmission really lurched when switching from first to second gear, and even I couldn't get it much smoother when trying in manual mode.
Then she heard about another cute car, a Lancia Musa. I'd never even heard of the maker, Lancia; it's apparently Fiat's higher-end brand. They're not officially sold in Japan, but some places import them. We took the occasion of seeing one today to take a pleasant drive two hours north through the mountains to the city of Fukui.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 20mm — 1/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 250 — full exif & map
Fumie test driving a Lancia Musa
She also decided against this car, both because it also lurched a bit, and had a generally “cheap” feeling (not to mention not having sliding doors, and having the steering wheel on the wrong side). I was happy to hear this, because I think it's a bit pricy at $25,000.
When it comes to Peugeot and Lancia, Peugeot wins hands down in one category: kid appeal.
The Peugeot dealership in southern Kyoto had a nice little kid's area, and Anthony was more than happy to spend his time here while we looked at the cars.
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f/2.8 @ 30mm — 1/160 sec, f/6.3, ISO 500 — full exif & map — nearby photos
Peugeot Kid's Area
In sad comparison, the Maserati dealer selling the Lancia had squat:
While waiting, Anthony didn't have much to do but to play with a sticker book we brought along, and lick the window glass.