Photography Blog by George Ross

New England Runner Magazine May/June Cover

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 02:36:37 +0000

The current edition of New England Runner Magazine feature’s one of my shots from the Jamestown Bridge 10K. This was taken hanging out of the window of the lead pace car…it was uncomfortable but I nailed the shot!

New England Runner, May June 2012

Body: EOS 1d Mk IV

Lens: EF 70mm-200mm L series

Life sometimes gets in the way of the sports photographer

admin — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 02:16:28 +0000

No matter how carefully you plan to have the perfect shoot ‘life gets in the way’. Over the years I have experienced setting up the perfect shot then:

Someone walks in front of you
Some one bumps into you as you position for a shot
Some one uses a strobe beside you and blows your exposure
Other athletes block your target athlete
The race director forcefully insists that you take a shot and you miss the tape shot
Your camera freezes (This is why I always have two bodies set up)
and the list goes on and on.

Will Sanders

At today’s Rhode Island State Police 5K, I set myself up behind the finish line to shoot the winner coming down the chute. What could possible go wrong? Today, the pace car decided to drive through the finish chute blocking the winning runner.

Stuff happens! Still, I manage to frame this shot using a single point of focus. Oh, well!

Processing ISO25600 images – before and after

admin — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 03:15:38 +0000

When I shoot Roller Derby bouts in the Ocean Skate facility in Narragansett I am forced into shooting at ISO25,600 @ f/2.8. I say forced because the only way I can obtain a 1/500th shutter speed is to shoot at such a high ISO. My preferred camera body is Canon EOS 1D Mk IV whose noise performance in exceptional. My back-up body is an EOS 7D which, while a good back-up body, is pretty much useless in this environment for general shooting so I relegate the 7D to panning work.

I have attached two 300 pixel x 300 pixel 100% crops… the first is directly out of the camera and the second has been post-processed to removed the ‘film’ noise. As you can see there is a considerable improvement ‘before’ and ‘after’.

Typically, after I remove image noise I apply an Unsharp Mask to bring back some of the edges lost through the smoothing processes. The finished processed image is greatly improved but typically have flaws as some pixels get blown out during post-processing. The finished image can be seen below on the right, the image on the left is the original.

2012 Boston Marathon: Joan Benoit Samuelson and Daughter

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:23:25 +0000

Amongst all of the action at a major sporting event there is often a candid shot which is a standout image and at this year’s Boston Marathon this was my shot.

Joan Benoit Samuelson, winner of the first ever Women’s Olympic Marathon in Los Angeles in 1984 and who continues to break records as a Master and now Senior, is seen here at the finish line of the 2012 Boston Marathon showing delight for her daughter Abby.

The mother/daughter team ran together and crossed the line in 3:28:08

Roller Derby Rolls on

admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:56:27 +0000

Enjoy some of my Roller Derby shots in this month’s East Side Monthly

2011/2012 RITCA High School Girls Indoor Track and Field Slideshow

admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:12:33 +0000

The following slideshow was shown at the 2011/2012 RITCA high school girls annual indoor track and field banquet held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Warwick, Rhode Island on 3/19/2012

A video look at some of my favorite subjects: Providence Roller Derby

admin — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:02:26 +0000

Shooting black products on a black backdrop

admin — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:49:40 +0000

I support several clients who manufacture sheet metal components and extruded aluminum products and these are very difficult to shoot because they have multiple surfaces, all which a reflective and require complex light set-ups. There is no easy way to shoot reflective metal components, the process consists of setting up, check the image through the viewfinder and then adjustments will be made to the angle of light, the position of the product and it’s relationship to the camera. It is a process of iteration until the successful combination of product angle and light source is achieved. Shiny objects present challenges to the product photographer but there is another combination which some may consider even more challenging and that is shooting black product on a black background. The results can be quite astounding.

Kingston Volunteer Fire Company Helmet

In this example, I found that direct light sources, whether strobe or continuous, simply would not provide the effect that I, or my client, were seeking. After a little experimentation, I opted to use dull ambient light in the studio and a long exposure. The highlights on the left of the helmet were achieved by use a 6-lamp continuous light soft box with only one lamp in operation directed at a reflector. (It was very easy to over power this item with light)

The image was taken with a short depth-of-field to isolate the station badge. The helmet was staged on a table with a black muslin backdrop position about 4 feet inform of the main backdrop.

SETTINGS:

Camera: EOS 1D MkIV

Lens: ‘L’ series f/2.8 24mm -70mm

ISO100

Exposure: 1.3 seconds @ f/2.8

New product photography brochure now available

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:28:31 +0000

Contact George Ross, to request your copy.

Rhode Island Commercial, Industrial and Product Photography

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:12:07 +0000

Enjoy this selection of my commercial, industrial and product photography.