Internship Week 4 - Game 1 - Renting if you don't own

Game 1 - Jackson Silverhawks lose to Lima 78 - 0.

Well the above photograph shows how our first game of the 2015 season went.  The  team has had a struggle having to start over with new team members when almost half the team left before the season officially started.  This game's score reflects the team trying to get to know new players and the task of struggling to learn to play as a unit.

So rather then talk about anything regarding the game I wanted to touch base on what to do if your internship requires equipment you don't have.  In some situations your employer may elect to rent or purchase equipment for you to use while you are in their employment.  Often times your equipment will be your responsibility.

Coming into this week's game I knew that as good as my Nikon D7000 is, it can't really handle a night shoot.  Now I could have just gone with my standard equipment to the game and shot as long as I could shoot.  I could rent a lower light lens like the 70 - 200 F/2.8 Nikkor lens that is a typical low light favorite.   Or I could rent a new camera.

The decision on what you need to do if you run into a situation like this is your decision however, it can be one that your employer can help you decide.  In my case, I knew that I'm about to be at a point to upgrade several lens and get another camera.  So for me renting equipment is serving a double purpose. It is helping me to make a decision on what to pick up first another camera or a lens.

Since I knew that I am going to be upgrading my camera in the next two months I decided to start with a camera rental.  I only rent from Lumoid because I love their customer service.  I can't ask Zachary in the buying department any question and he will give me an honest answer on what is best. He has honestly told me not to buy a camera that he could have sold to me for about $3500 vs. the camera I rented which I could buy for about $2000 from him. I told him that my two favorite things to shoot are bands and sports. I had already done my research to realize the Nikon D750 was an excellent low light fast camera. When I told Zachary what I shot he agreed the D750 is best with only the Nikon D4 (Which will cost me about $5000) being the very best.

I elected to follow his advice and I rented the D750 to shoot the game.  I am going to give you 3 different types of photographs to show you what this camera can do. I really pushed it to the limits shooting 3 different situations. With each situation I used the same lens a Nikkor film lens 70 - 300 mm F/3.5.  I purposely did not use a low light lens.  I have some future test I want to do with my D7000 and low light lens.

First the Art Skateboarding show. This gallery is where the skaters are actually skating. The gallery is in a large and very dark warehouse. I wanted to check the low light capabilities and also the cut off point where I would start to see noise when I do not use a low light lens.  You will see noise in the shot but it can easily be cleaned up in Lightroom. By the way the ISO..it is at 12,500.  Up to an ISO of 10,000 with a standard lens had almost no digital noise.

                                                         A skater at the Nosegrinders Skateboard Charity Art Show Opening.

Now there are many things I could have done to make it so there was less noise in this photograph. However, the point is if you are renting something for your internship make sure you get your money's worth. So this was 100% about testing how the camera could do before the shot was noisy.

The second thing I shot was our game.  At the game I used my normal camera until it got dark and then switched to this one. What I wanted to play with in this situation was the ISO Isolation that this camera can achieve.  It can pinpoint one person and make that person crystal clear and the other people or background around it blur.

                              The Lima Warriors were single minded in their pursuit to win against the Jackson Silverhawks.

The ISO Isolation is really cool...when it works. It is something that will take a bit of playing with to always get it to work the way you want it to. When you try it and it doesn't work you blur the entire picture. It will be the reason this camera is one of my next purchases.

Finally I took my kids to the park.  It was daylight so I wanted to see what it could do in average sunlight.  

The only way to use a teeter todder - Brother power.

In the end the important thing to remember is an internship is a job. Just like you should have the tools you need for your own business you need to make sure you have the tool your internship needs.  If you do elect to rent something have a plan to make sure you really get your use out of that rental! 

Game 2 is against the one top team of the PAFL the Ohio Golden Knights.  Can the Silverhawks with a much smaller team come back from their 78 - 0 loss? Only time will tell.

Jessi

Internship - Week # 3 - Community Involvement

                      One of the "future" Silverhawks at the football camp hosted by the team.

Since the official season doesn't start for my team until June 6th, I thought I'd share with you what we did to give back to the community.  Last Saturday we hosted a football camp for one of the local youth football organizations.  Several of our players and the owner of our team all started in this organization so hosting this camp is a great way to give back to the community.

I did not have to shoot this event at all.  It wasn't required and I didn't need to get the hours in for my internship as my time shooting during the season will equal more than the 110 hours required for my internship.  However, I very much believe that art is supposed to give back.  So I volunteered to come out and shoot the youth camp for the team.

There are so many opportunities that can come up just by giving back to your community with your craft.  For instance this camp gives these boys a chance to see that if they love football they can still play even later on in life. They can coach. They could play semi-pro.  They could help out eventually with the same youth football league that helped them become the players they will be one day.

The players who came out to assist really enjoyed sharing this camp with the boys. While it was hard work with lots of drills it was also fun!  Even as a photographer the expressions and honesty that the boys get on their faces when they play were great to see and shoot.  Sometimes at the Semi-Pro level the guys keep more of a poker face so you can't see the determination, the frustration and or sheer happiness that happens when you shoot children.

              While this was just one of the drills you can see that both boys took it very seriously!

In a matter of 2 hours I shot over 1200 shots and I could easily have shot more.  I know that when we finally share these images with the players, their parents, and coaches they will appreciate them in a different way than my older players do.  It opens up a new market for me to shoot in shooting youth sports as well as Semi-Pro  I honestly wouldn't have tried to shoot youth sports before doing this camp.

It also shows the players who came to help out at camp another future. One where they are the coaches and not the players.  So some of the photographs I took highlighted them in coaching or mentoring roles too.

Not everything that you during an internship has to be expected or the bare minimum that you can do as I have said before.  The more that you take what is given to you in your internship and make it your own the more you will get from your internship!

Next up! Tomorrow.  We travel 3 hours away to play the Lima Warriors Football team.  I'll save what I did to make sure I was ready for this first game that starts at 7 PM for next week!

Any questions please let me know!

Jessi