Photo strobes in a sports arena? Really?

[crimbfighter]

Let me start by saying, it was incredibly annoying! So, I occasionally work at our universities indoor sports arena. It hosts everything from hockey, basketball, presidential visits, bands, ect. It's medium sized with a seating capacity just over 17K. I think it's the second largest indoor arena in the state.

Anyway, when I worked a hockey game in it the other day, I started seeing these incredibly bright flashes, and was actually starting to think something was wrong with me! The flashes were so bright they were making me wince. Then, I saw them. Four incredibly powerful photographic strobes that were mounted to the structural trusses on the ceiling, somewhere between 80-100 feet off the ground. It took me a few minutes, but I eventually found the photographer who was triggering them, down by the ice. I'm assuming he was a photographer hired by the university, but don't really know for sure. It looked like he was using a Pocket Wizard to set them off. I know these strobes were a recent edition, because they weren't there as recently as last week when I worked another hockey game. And I'm really not exaggerating when I say they were so powerful, they filled the arena with light to spare...

My question is, has anyone else seen a setup like this? Has this been or is this becoming a trend in other arenas? It's surprising to me they were even installed. I'm sure the cost of purchasing and installing them far exceeded the cost of a good body/lens combo capable of capturing the event. Plus, there was already tons of light from existing the arena lighting. Enough to where my cell phone was able to capture action shots. Granted the hockey ice helped, but regardless... These strobes were so annoying, if I were a paying attendee, I would have complained about them. The only other thought I had, was the university might rent the usage of them to agencies or team photographers? I don't know, just a thought.

Has anyone else seen this before? Or used a setup like this?

 

[Village Idiot]

It's rather common place.

Dave Black Photography - Sports Photography Worldwide

 

[Big Mike]

Yes, very common.

There was a good article floating around several years ago, about all the strobes that had to be installed for the Final Four college basketball tournament.

I'm sure the cost of purchasing and installing them far exceeded the cost of a good body/lens combo capable of capturing the event.

It's not as simple as that. Even if a pro has a 400mm F2.8 lens, they may not want to shoot wide open because of the thin DOF. And as much as newer cameras can look good at really high ISO levels, consider the quality needed by the high end pro photographers....shooting at ISO 3200 may not be good enough when the photos may end up on the cover of SI, or on the side of a bus etc.

The thing I've noticed about strobes in arenas, is that you don't notice them...until you notice them. And once you are watching for them, they do get to be really annoying.

I split season tickets for the Edmonton Oilers and there are always strobes going off in the rafters of the building...but when I'm looking down at the ice, I don't notice at all.

 

[ghache]

I never seen them before because i dont shoot sports really but i think its pretty cool. They probably use that setup for big events.

 

[crimbfighter]

Big Mike, VI, thanks for the info. Big Mike, you're definitely right, now that I know they're there, they're going to annoy the hell out of me... I also can't help but wonder if on this particular day this photographer didn't know what he was doing, or maybe didn't realize he had a setting wrong, and had the output way too high. I only think this because I know the sports teams (college level anyway) will sometimes just hand a camera to one of the support members who "knows a little about cameras" and tell them to go shoot away. And I've worked probably 100+ events there and never seen them before. Eh, well.

The funny part, is now everyone who's read this thread will be looking for the strobes every time they go to a sports game from now on!

 

[Big Mike]

Of course, the funny (and jerk-like) thing to do, would be to bring your own pocket wizard and start setting them off randomly.

 

[gsgary]

When i'm shooting indoor events i will use 1 or 2 lights if there is room
a shot with 1 light aimed at ceiling

 

[davisphotos]

Very standard-Speedotron and other strobe manufacturers have specific 'sport' reflectors-I own a couple for my Speedo heads, one a 11", the other a 20"
I don't shoot much sports, but I've done some college graduations where I was able to set up a couple strobes to fill in some shadows-even though the stage lights were giving me f4, 1/60 second at ISO200, the raccoon eyes and color balance issues were pretty bad.
The color spectrum of arena lighting is another reason to use strobes for sporting events-a lot of the sodium vapor lights in spaces like that don't emit the entire spectrum, and you can wind up with really funky colors.

 

[DC-Photog]

That's why Pocket Wizard makes flash triggers with 30+ channels. Every photographer can trigger their own set of strobes.

 

[Josh66]

That's why Pocket Wizard makes flash triggers with 30+ channels. Every photographer can trigger their own set of strobes.

Even with 30-40 channels (not sure how many they actually have), it wouldn't take someone long to set there's to the same channel...

 

[DC-Photog]

@Josh

Photographers have their own pre-game meeting to figure out who's on what channel. If someone screws with yours, they might discover that a 300mm really hurts when it hits the back of their head...

 

[Big Mike]

That's why Pocket Wizard makes flash triggers with 30+ channels. Every photographer can trigger their own set of strobes.

Plus IIs (which I think are by far the most popular model out there) only have 4 channels, don't they?

 

[DC-Photog]

@Big Mike

The Multi-Max has 32. Never used the Plus II. Went from PW Classic to the MM.

 

[Josh66]

@Josh

Photographers have their own pre-game meeting to figure out who's on what channel. If someone screws with yours, they might discover that a 300mm really hurts when it hits the back of their head...

I was talking more about someone in the crowd - where it would be virtually impossible to figure out who it was.

I could see that being very frustrating for the pros.

Hmm... Maybe that's why you're usually not allowed to bring 'pro' cameras in there...

 

[table1349]

Trust me, if that happens event staff would be all over the arena. They would most likely find the culprit and toss them out on their ear. At big events were there are multiple photographers and multiple light setups everyone has their own channel so as not to interfere with each other. They are usually all listed on a board somewhere and channels 1,2,3,&4 are the last channels used for the obvious reason that PW II's also use those channels.