Sonolta's blog

Sonolta Opens a Cool New Photo Site as the Director of Photography for the Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL)

Sonolta — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:08:37 -0500

CIFL launches new photo site - Tuesday, 31 March 2009

The Continental Indoor Football League proudly announces the opening of CIFLPhotos.com, which will serve as the official photo gallery of the CIFL.

CIFLPhotos.com will feature game photos, individual player photos, dance team photos and officiating photos. The site will also feature options for fans to upload their own photos, as well as an eCard feature that allows fans to send photos from the site to friends and family with a personal message attached.

“In the coming weeks, I will be filling out the home page, expanding the feature set and adding hundreds of CIFL images to the site,” said CIFL Director of Photography Don Northup. “We have commitments from several photographers from around the league, but we are still looking for photographers in each city so that we can get all of the games covered in the galleries.”

“To make the site as strong as it can be, we are looking for at least a dozen photo submissions from each of the staff photographers, editorial photographers or fan club photographers from each of the games played,” continued Northup. “We are also including a fan photo section, so that CIFL fans can participate and have their own gallery of photos hosted at the official photo site of the CIFL.”

CIFLPhotos.com is accessible by visiting http://www.ciflphotos.com, by clicking on the photo gallery graphic on the league homepage or by visiting the Photo Gallery link in the Fan Zone tab on the league homepage.

“When Don approached us with this idea, we were excited at the possibility of having a professionally maintained photo gallery site,” said CIFL Co-founder Jeff Spitaleri. “The fans are our lifeblood and this is another way for us to provide them with best experience in indoor football.”

Any photographers interested in submitting photos to CIFLPhotos.com are encouraged to contact Northup at don@ciflphotos.com. Northup designed, implemented and maintains CIFLPhotos.com, and also serves as the site’s main photographer.

The press release can be found here: http://www.continentalindoorfootball.com/newsite/

Sony Alpha A700 and the Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro - Cold As Ice!

Sonolta — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:01:38 -0600

A700 + Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro @ 180 mm ISO 200 f11 1/500 +0.3 Bridge/ACR

a700 + Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro @ 210mm f8 1/125 +0.3 ISO 1000 Bridge/ACR

A700 + Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro @ 135 mm ISO 200 f14 1/250 +0.3 Bridge/ACR

It made it to a record 25 BELOW ZERO Fahrenheit here in Rockford one night this month! It had warmed up to -5 when I took these snaps with the Sony Alpha A700 and the Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro!

-Sonolta

Sony A700 V4 Firmware Puts the Alpha On Par with the Nikon D300!

Sonolta — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 12:15:56 -0600

The Fizz ISO1600 1/20 f4

Red Rocket ISO3200 1/80 f2.8 +0.3

Dolph ISO3200 1/200 f2.8

Alphie II (Gugie Girl)ISO3200 1/80 f2.8 +0.3

Bobbie Girl ISO3200 1/80 f2.8 +0.3

Red Rocket ISO3200 f2.8 1/320 f2.8 +0.3

The Sony A700 V4 firmware upgrade puts the Sony a700 high ISO quality on par with the Nikon D300! These were the first few from my first 30 minutes of shooting with V4, and needless to say, the a700 is a whole new camera with V4 installed. To be quite honest, I could not be more pleased with the results as compared with V3 shots. MUCH more fine detail is preserved, and almost all traces of bogus watercolor smearing are gone. NR was set to off, no external noise reduction done other than ACR 4.5 default or less, and very minor other PP done. We now get very nice sharpness and sweet detail at 3200, 1600 is excellent, and now 6400 is usable in a pinch. I would have paid a good sum of money for this upgrade...thank you Sony for doing the right thing by releasing V4! SSS was also working well during this test as all of the shots you see above were made with the Minolta 135 2.8 in window light only. Finally we have a camera that gives D300 IQ all the way to the top of the ISO range! Very nice!
-Sonolta

Sports Photography Quick Tip - Indoor Football

Sonolta — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:51:02 -0600

Quick Sports Tip: Indoor Football

To freeze most indoor football action you will need to shoot at least 1/360, and many shooters stick with at least 1/500. I like to see some foot and hand motion in my shots so I use a lot of 1/360 and 1/400th. In addition, if you are shooting at say 300mm you will need at maybe t 1/360 to *safely* eliminate handshake blur. Put your camera in shutter priority at 1/360 or 1/400th minimum and open your lens all the way up and then set the ISO to the lowest setting that still gives you an adequate exposure. The indoor shots below were taken in very poorly lit arena without the aid of a tripod or a flash. For indoor sports your best bet would be to purchase an f2.8 lens or faster to allow usable shutter speeds. On the cheerleaders you can sometimes drop to as low as 1/200th and still freeze most of what needs to be frozen, but I would stay a little faster under most shooting conditions. The shots you see above were shot with the Minolta 135 2.8 on the A700 ISO 2500-3600 at about 1/400th Handheld.

-Sonolta

Cataloging Your Offline Image Archive - ACDSeePro2 Is Up To The Task

Sonolta — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:34:45 -0600

Let me very briefly introduce you to the ACDSee offline cataloging system. ACDSee is also a photo processor and a viewer as well, but I will only be addressing the offline cataloging system capabilities of the program in this article.

Notice the OffLine Media Option in the Folders menu.

Now I have clicked the Offline Media Option open exposing my MA disk numbers (Master Archive CD and DVD) which correspond to a number written on the disk itself. The physical DVDs and CDs are stored on spindles in numeric order so it is easy to find and pull the disk needed.

Now I have clicked on the disk MA-0001 and it exposes a thumbnail catalog of the images on that disk.

Shortly after clicking on one of the thumbnails of anything offline this window will pop up telling you what disk # to insert to access the file. Once the disk is inserted then all of the ACDSee thumbs are the linked to the actual images themselves.

In the screenshot below I have searched for that particular PICT0392 stored on MA-0001 disk above and ACD has turned up tons of photos with that file number on my system, and on my offline media. Notice EXIF and IPTC and other data are stored along with the thumbnail image in the database

Once you click that particular PICT0392 you are looking for this window pops up telling you to insert the correct disk to access the image.

With an offline cataloging system like ACDSee's no longer do your drawers full have CD's and DVD's need to sit unusable and unsearchable!

If you have a ton of photo DVD's and CD's archived that you need to catalog in a searchable fashion, ACDSee has provided photographers with good system at a very low price. ACDSee has been recommended by many reviewers and photography sites including the staff of DPreview.com and I certainly would not hesitate to recommend this program to anyone looking for an affordable image cataloging solution.

-Sonolta

The Sony a700 and the KM 18-70 Kit Lens Get The Job Done on Independence Day 2008!

Sonolta — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 11:07:23 -0600

Believe it or not I shot the entire fireworks 2008 firworks show was with the Sony A700 and the KM 18-70mm kit lens, manually focused in the dark, at f11 and ISO 100! My *target* shutter speed on the majority of the shots was 3.2 seconds, but the full range of speeds I used was from .5 seconds to 6 seconds. The focal lengths on *most* of the shots was between 18-26mm. The small bursts required the longest shutter speeds, for the grand finale I had to cut it down to .5 seconds per exposure. I believe around 4200 shells were launched during the 30 minute sky concert, and the cost of the show was near $70,000.

This was my 6th year shooting this show, and the A700 + 18-70 kit produced more keepers than my Minolta 7hi, Minolta 5D, and the Sony A100 efforts did in the past. My position was sitting on the bank of the river, with my tripod about 2 feet off the ground. I was so close to the river at one point I actually dropped one of my batteries and it slid into the river, luckily I leaned over the bank and retrieved it as it had fallen onto a rock outcropping protruding from the water. This year it was tougher than usual to secure a solid position for the night shoot as the masses had converged on the downtown area for a big outdoor rock concert prior to the show.

To view over 180 images and exif information from my 30 minute July 4th, 2008 shoot please click here.

-Sonolta

Cheap 100mm Macro Alternative - The Vivitar Plastic Fantastic!

Sonolta — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 10:54:22 -0600

The "Plastic Fantastic is a good enough optic but the build quality is about as bad as it gets. Mine still works after three years of light use, but it is as noisy as it gets, it wobbles a lot, it's built from the cheapest plastic you ever seen, and it feels like a toy! My Vivitar version of the lens at one time had a giant hair stuck in it that made it useless beyond f11, but the hair seemed to disappear over time so it is now functional again. Dealing with the 1:1 attachment is not convenient and macro shooting would be much smoother if you could use the full range of the lens without needing to add and remove the diopter. This older lens design may to lead to easier blowouts than most of my other lenses on digital, and of the 35 or so A-mount lenses I have owned, this lens is the worst built of all of them. However, the glass inside this lens is far from the worst, and the lens can produce some very good results for most folks. Do not use this lens in a dusty, dirty environments, or you will be sorry...If you are in need of a Macro lens on the cheap then the Plastic Fantastic (Vivitar, Cosina,) may be a useful purchase for you.

-Sonolta

Super Sexy Sony Alpha Cheerleader Gallery Now Open - Sony Alpha a700 Does the Crush Girls in Milwaukee!!

Sonolta — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:18:26 -0500

The Sony Alpha a700 DSLR performed beyond my expectations in Milwaukee while covering the Rock River Raptors playing the Boncerushers in CIFL indoor football action. The Bonecrushers have a stunning dance team, and I am very happy the Sony a700 was able to capture the beauty and the enthusiasm of this awesome indoor football dance squad adequately.

Click here to view the amazing Sony A700 Crush Girls photo gallery.

Click here to view all of the Sony Alpha photo galleries.

Click here to view all of the football and cheerleader galleries at RockRiverFootball.com

-Sonolta 7-17-2008

Sony Alpha a700 ISO 3200 No Flash Cheerleader Image Gallery is Now Open

Sonolta — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:12:28 -0500

The Sony a700 ISO3200 cheerleader images have now been posted to the Sonolta.com image galleries. The Sony Alpha A700 did a fine job under the challenging lights of the Rockford MetroCentre at ISO 3200. All photos were made hand held without a flash and the lens used was the Minolta 135 2.8.

Click here to view the Sony a700 cheerleader pictures from March 3, 2008.

Click here to view main page of the Sony photo galleries.

-Sonolta 3-12-2008

Sony Alpha A700 Working Review Firmware Version 3 - Professional Indoor Football ISO 3200 Sports Photos

Sonolta — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:22:37 -0600

Finally, the indoor football season has arrived. In the past years I have
used the Konica Minolta 5D as my primary camera, but this season will be
different. This year my primary camera (I shoot with two) will be the Sony A700. My
early testing seem to show it will bring home more keepers than the KM5D can at this
particular venue. The KM5D produced very clean ISO1600 output that printed very
well, but the Sony Alpha A700 is a completely different beast, and most of that
beast is a big upgrade from the KM5D. The Alpha A700 focuses faster, tracks
better, and provides a much higher frame rate, and all of that is very much
appreciated. Another great addition is the MF/AF button which I used constantly
througout the night. The KM had great color and clean files, but was a slow
dog in comparison to most "sports" cameras. The A700 is fast enough,
and gives adequate output even at very high ISO values.

The main faults of the camera on this shoot were as follows. The main dials
are very easy to bump which change the settings, several times I had
accidentally changed my aperture or shutter speed value during the shoot. The
tone curve and metering is significantly different on the A700 when compared to
the six megapixel KM5D camera. I had anticipated shooting at ISO1600,
using center weighted metering, and a color temperature around 4200 M2 like I
have in the past with the 5D, but on Monday night I ended up trying several other
settings, including shooting the majority of this gallery at ISO 3200, and using
a couple different WB and Color Temp settings.

All-in-all the camera performed well, but it does takes some getting used to
seeing the A700 100% crop watercolor look. This was only an exhibition game, and
when the season opens I will shoot in the ISO1600-2500 range, and use slightly
different metering and white balance scheme and the shots will get even better.
The camera JPGs at ISO3200 seem easier to work with than the Raw files and the
JPGs are what you will find posted here. The lens I used was the Minolta 135 2.8
and a few of the frames are slight crops of the original. No flash or strobe has
been used on any of the shots. The lighting was the nasty yellow stuff you
normally find in dimly lit arenas. The arena that this Continental Indoor
Football League game was played in was the MetroCentre in Rockford, Illinois

My home town team the Rock River Raptors got crushed by the defending
league champion Rochester Raiders 50-10 on this night. We will be
back....and I am sure glad it was only exhibition for the Raptors and my Sony
Alpha A700!

Click here
to enter this football game gallery.

Cick here to enter the
main Sony photo gallery page.

-Sonolta 03-06-2008