Canon EOS-1D X Mark II Autofocus Talk

[bdunbar79]

I've almost always gotten time to edit during halftime/post game and transmit wirelessly from a laptop, but it sure is crazy running to a laptop and having a few minutes to organize your best shots, pick out the best of the best, figure out which players are in the shot, then caption them, and ultimately transmit them. You get used to it though, and I'm thankful it keeps me able to edit RAWs and not have to transmit unedited JPEGs.

Totally agree. I am required to stop several times during a game or match and upload photos to an FTP site. They prefer 12-15 each time. I agree it is very hectic because you have to sort quickly. Like you said though, once you get used to it and get a workflow down, it isn't as bad.

 

[PureClassA]

I've done big shoots like that but never had to sort and upload at an intermission. I'm curious, do you guys shoot tethered in tandem with cards? Just cards? Just tethered? I have to imagine offloading those images from CF to laptop is several precious minutes alone, forget sort, edit, export and upload to FTP... That sort of thing amazes me

I've almost always gotten time to edit during halftime/post game and transmit wirelessly from a laptop, but it sure is crazy running to a laptop and having a few minutes to organize your best shots, pick out the best of the best, figure out which players are in the shot, then caption them, and ultimately transmit them. You get used to it though, and I'm thankful it keeps me able to edit RAWs and not have to transmit unedited JPEGs.

Totally agree. I am required to stop several times during a game or match and upload photos to an FTP site. They prefer 12-15 each time. I agree it is very hectic because you have to sort quickly. Like you said though, once you get used to it and get a workflow down, it isn't as bad.

 

[sportskjutaren]

I've done big shoots like that but never had to sort and upload at an intermission. I'm curious, do you guys shoot tethered in tandem with cards? Just cards? Just tethered? I have to imagine offloading those images from CF to laptop is several precious minutes alone, forget sort, edit, export and upload to FTP... That sort of thing amazes me

It´s a lot about experience and workflow.
(Experience is about what images that are the most important).

When i shoot a game. I always "tag", I.E. write protect the most important images during the game.
Then i "ingest" all images. I.E. Download them to my computer, using card readers. And a special software. More exactly Photo Mechanic (PM).
http://www.camerabits.com/

When ingesting with PM, it always starts with the "taged" images (the ones that are write protected).
And also, with a keyboard shortcut, it allows me to only see those images that are "taged".
PM are also extremely quick for viewing RAW-files. And have some great tools for sorting, chosing and writing captions and keywords.

Therefore i do all sorting, and metadata work (I.E. writing captions and keywords) in PM.

PM has a awesome tool. That allows you to use short codes, using the players number, to get their correct names into the caption.
It's called "code replacement".
And you can read more about it here:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/1951

When that's done. I import those images that are "captioned" into Lightroom. Using presets for developing. Which means that inside LR, i only have to do some small adjustments, and cropping.
When done, i do export directly from LR, using a plugin that's supports uploading thru FTP.
Usually, unless i encounter some unexpected problems. (Which happens very rarely). I can select, edit and transmit at least 10 images in 10 minutes sitting at my laptop.

I hope that this can be useful to somebody reading this.

 

[bdunbar79]

I've done big shoots like that but never had to sort and upload at an intermission. I'm curious, do you guys shoot tethered in tandem with cards? Just cards? Just tethered? I have to imagine offloading those images from CF to laptop is several precious minutes alone, forget sort, edit, export and upload to FTP... That sort of thing amazes me

It´s a lot about experience and workflow.
(Experience is about what images that are the most important).

When i shoot a game. I always "tag", I.E. write protect the most important images during the game.
Then i "ingest" all images. I.E. Download them to my computer, using card readers. And a special software. More exactly Photo Mechanic (PM).
http://www.camerabits.com/

When ingesting with PM, it always starts with the "taged" images (the ones that are write protected).
And also, with a keyboard shortcut, it allows me to only see those images that are "taged".
PM are also extremely quick for viewing RAW-files. And have some great tools for sorting, chosing and writing captions and keywords.

Therefore i do all sorting, and metadata work (I.E. writing captions and keywords) in PM.

PM has a awesome tool. That allows you to use short codes, using the players number, to get their correct names into the caption.
It's called "code replacement".
And you can read more about it here:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/1951

When that's done. I import those images that are "captioned" into Lightroom. Using presets for developing. Which means that inside LR, i only have to do some small adjustments, and cropping.
When done, i do export directly from LR, using a plugin that's supports uploading thru FTP.
Usually, unless i encounter some unexpected problems. (Which happens very rarely). I can select, edit and transmit at least 10 images in 10 minutes sitting at my laptop.

I hope that this can be useful to somebody reading this.

That's actually a very, very good workflow. Mine is very similar.

 

[H. Jones]

I've done big shoots like that but never had to sort and upload at an intermission. I'm curious, do you guys shoot tethered in tandem with cards? Just cards? Just tethered? I have to imagine offloading those images from CF to laptop is several precious minutes alone, forget sort, edit, export and upload to FTP... That sort of thing amazes me

I've almost always gotten time to edit during halftime/post game and transmit wirelessly from a laptop, but it sure is crazy running to a laptop and having a few minutes to organize your best shots, pick out the best of the best, figure out which players are in the shot, then caption them, and ultimately transmit them. You get used to it though, and I'm thankful it keeps me able to edit RAWs and not have to transmit unedited JPEGs.

Totally agree. I am required to stop several times during a game or match and upload photos to an FTP site. They prefer 12-15 each time. I agree it is very hectic because you have to sort quickly. Like you said though, once you get used to it and get a workflow down, it isn't as bad.

I shoot just cards for my work. I use a 500 mb/s CF reader with a 160 mb/s CF card and a very fast laptop, so normally there's no issue loading the files extremely quickly and I tag the key shots in camera, like Sportskjutaren. I use Canon's Digital Photo Professional to quickly grab the shots I need and then I throw them into Lightroom and edit/caption/export from there.

When I think about it, it is a lot of work, and I could probably do it better using different programs(like Photomechanic--sounds like a great program), but I'm so accustomed to my workflow that it happens extremely quickly and lets me get shots out over intermissions.

The worst thing though is going to football stadiums where the press box is a million miles(not literally!) away from the field and has a bunch of barriers to go through. That wastes so much of my time. Basketball is nice, on the otherhand, since I can typically keep my laptop very close to the court.

 

[Jack Douglas]

Once again, very enjoyable to hear how all this happens - wow!

Jack

 

[PureClassA]

Thanks for the feedback on my question everyone! Very fascinating

 

[bdunbar79]

I shoot strictly cards for my work as well. It takes time away, but every so often if I have some good shots, I'll upload the card to my laptop. Then with the other card I'll continue shooting but only under the following circumstances: I keep my cell on me and the individual from whatever school or organization will text me when they need/want photos. I'll stop, upload and sort them out by rating (best to worst) and give them 10-20 total through an FTP site. It does take time away from shooting, but you just have to do it as quickly as possible and get back to shooting as quickly as possible. Usually I just go by the flow with text messages of when and what. For instance, shooting for Ohio State once a player drilled a critical 3-pointer and my cell phone goes crazy that they want that shot if I have it. I stop immediately and upload, sort, crop to their specified dimensions (usually 3x2 or 4x3 is ok) and send. It's on-demand and you don't go in planning to cover everything and get every single shot. You get what you can and what they want. Sometimes the Big Ten rep will text or email wanting a certain player or shot. You have to get it then and forget the game.

Football/soccer is annoying yes, because you have to go way up to the press box. I hate that. There's no work-around for that and you can lose critical minutes going there.

 

[PureClassA]

Im surprised they wouldnt want an ethernet hub right on the field/court you could tap into with a laptop

 

[bdunbar79]

Im surprised they wouldnt want an ethernet hub right on the field/court you could tap into with a laptop

All you can really do on the sidelines is delete and rate photos in your camera outside. For basketball, you can keep your laptop with you and use the Wifi. For outdoor sports you have to use the pressbox.

 

[PureClassA]

Seems like they could set up a tent station or something for field journalists to use. Can't be all that hard to do

Im surprised they wouldnt want an ethernet hub right on the field/court you could tap into with a laptop

All you can really do on the sidelines is delete and rate photos in your camera outside. For basketball, you can keep your laptop with you and use the Wifi. For outdoor sports you have to use the pressbox.

 

[Cthulhu]

Shooting NCAA basketball I've often walked away with about 2,000 shots for one entire game, and I'm rather picky about what action I shoot and time my shots.

My hope for the 1D X Mark II is that it can completely replace my 5D mark III for everything. 22 or 24 megapixels is perfect for me since I am very happy with the 5D3's 22. The 5D3's silent shooting would be fantastic, and I find the silent shooting to be perfect for when I'm covering news and want to capture truly candid shots without catching my subject's attention. I also really appreciated silent shooting when I photographed a memorial for a fallen firefighter recently, which would have made my mirror-slapping very inconsiderate in the quiet environment that it was-- silent shooting saved the day.

It is not silent like the 5d3, it's actually louder than the regular mode on the 7d mk2, but it's pretty quiet compared to the original 1dx.

As far as mps are concerned, I'd still use the 5d3 for when I want detail, there's a bump from the 1dx in that area but it's very modest

 

[sportskjutaren]

Im surprised they wouldnt want an ethernet hub right on the field/court you could tap into with a laptop

Old thread i know.
But during the EURO 2016 all photographers att the pitch had access to one electrical socket and one Ethernet cable.
Sadly this is really unusual.
Also, during the EURO 2016, most games there was more than 100 photographer on the pitch. During the opening game and the final game we were 160 photographer att the pitch.