Shooting through Chainlink fences???

[gsgary]

So no help with my situation huh? No one???

Help with what? A smaller lens? Did you read my reply? You can have a smaller lens by stopping down a larger lens. It's the exact same thing optically speaking.

The old rules actually work. Whenever one needs to shoot through bars, dirty windows, chain link, or any type of obstruction the WIDER the lens's aperture, the better. The longer the focal length, the better. The closer the lens is to the obstructing cage,wire,or glass, the more out of focus the chain link or other foreground obstruction will be rendered.

If you merely place the front of the lens right on the chain link fencing, at 135mm to 300mm at the widest aperture your lens has, there will be almost no chain link visible. The last softball/baseball game I went to, I had my 5D and 24-105 f/4 L with me,and that was easily able to shoot through the chain link for a couple of snaps of my friend's son. What you will get sometimes is a bit of odd distortion at the edges of the frame, where the chain link wire is obstructing the light, but if the lens is close to the wire, most of the light will pas around the wire,and form an image on the film.

Here are a couple examples, the first at 105mm and f/5 shooting throughnbthe chain lnk down at 3rd base, the second as her son ducks down to avoid being smashed in the head by a high pitch.

_MG_0718_Justin_eMail.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com
_MG_0736_Justin_eMail.jpg photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com

and here's a softball shot from five years ago, done at 160mm at f/4 with the Nikon 70-200 jammed right into the chain link fence

Why is the catcher pitching

 

[AliasPros]

Problem solved! I got the 5DmkII with 24-105 f4L also, I will give this technique a try, this is why I am a rookie, thanks fellas! I will post some pics in 2 weeks with this technique unless I make a practice before that... Screw cheapo glass with 58mm filters! LOL I knew I couldn't give up this angle and I figured out how to keep it here at TPF that's why I am a supporting member... You all just saved me some money and helped me make more money this year! Thanks :thumbup:

 

[gsgary]

Problem solved! I got the 5DmkII with 24-105 f4L also, I will give this technique a try, this is why I am a rookie, thanks fellas! I will post some pics in 2 weeks with this technique unless I make a practice before that... Screw cheapo glass with 58mm filters! LOL I knew I couldn't give up this angle and I figured out how to keep it here at TPF that's why I am a supporting member... You all just saved me some money and helped me make more money this year! Thanks :thumbup:

Why do you keep going on about using the 5D when the tool for the job is the 1Dmk2

 

[AliasPros]

Problem solved! I got the 5DmkII with 24-105 f4L also, I will give this technique a try, this is why I am a rookie, thanks fellas! I will post some pics in 2 weeks with this technique unless I make a practice before that... Screw cheapo glass with 58mm filters! LOL I knew I couldn't give up this angle and I figured out how to keep it here at TPF that's why I am a supporting member... You all just saved me some money and helped me make more money this year! Thanks :thumbup:

Why do you keep going on about using the 5D when the tool for the job is the 1Dmk2

Ok 1D it is. Just habit I guess the 5D MKII is all new and shiny... LOL :blushing:

 

[srinaldo86]

Well I suggest you way out the cost/profit from it really... How much $ do the parents pay you and is it enough to validate buying the other lens.

 

[gsgary]

What you really need is a dye sub printer so you can print on site and get them buying before they go home, we charge £10 for an 8"x6" in a mount only takes about 20 seconds to print

 

[AliasPros]

@Srinaldo86,
4 fields at the sports complex so 4 games in the morning that's about 15-19 girls a team lets just say 15 per team so that's 60 girls x 2 for visitors that's 120 girls then another 120 in the afternoon (usually same girls) for their second game, that's 120 girls to shoot a day and usually there are 3 game days a week that's a lot of parents and opportunities to sell photos my friend and I am the only photog out there. I made enough money last year between regular season play and All-Stars to buy a few L's this year.

 

[AliasPros]

What you really need is a dye sub printer so you can print on site and get them buying before they go home, we charge £10 for an 8"x6" in a mount only takes about 20 seconds to print

LOL Already there my friend and a flat screen 32" TV for laptop preview straight HDMI to the laptop... :thumbup: I have parent just walking up to me with $20s in hand to shoot their daughter before they even seen the pics just because the word of mouth around the fields is so strong... Can't wait to see what I can do with 1D and new glass this year, instead of XTI and kit lenses... HAHA!!!

 

[gsgary]

We have a van set up with a main computer which has 5 minute photo that resizes and sends to 3 touch screens 2 Sony dr200's one printing 6x4 and the other 8x6, all photo's are shots as JPG and processed with picasa

 

[AliasPros]

We have a van set up with a main computer which has 5 minute photo that resizes and sends to 3 touch screens 2 Sony dr200's one printing 6x4 and the other 8x6, all photo's are shots as JPG and processed with picasa

WOW I can learn from you! Picasa huh? Nice set up, what cam you shooting with again?

 

[gsgary]

We have a van set up with a main computer which has 5 minute photo that resizes and sends to 3 touch screens 2 Sony dr200's one printing 6x4 and the other 8x6, all photo's are shots as JPG and processed with picasa

WOW I can learn from you! Picasa huh? Nice set up, what cam you shooting with again?

1Dmk1, 1Dmk2 x 2,5D, and remote 10D you don't need big files for this sort of work
This is a 1Dmk1 shot from an event we shot last year

 

[AliasPros]

wow Awesome work! :thumbup:

 

[gsgary]

wow Awesome work! :thumbup:

Cheers :thumbup:

 

[srinaldo86]

@Srinaldo86,
4 fields at the sports complex so 4 games in the morning that's about 15-19 girls a team lets just say 15 per team so that's 60 girls x 2 for visitors that's 120 girls then another 120 in the afternoon (usually same girls) for their second game, that's 120 girls to shoot a day and usually there are 3 game days a week that's a lot of parents and opportunities to sell photos my friend and I am the only photog out there. I made enough money last year between regular season play and All-Stars to buy a few L's this year.

Well then by all means dude, buy that lens! Obviously this is a pretty decent cash cow for you.

 

[Stosh]

The old rules actually work. Whenever one needs to shoot through bars, dirty windows, chain link, or any type of obstruction the WIDER the lens's aperture, the better. The longer the focal length, the better. The closer the lens is to the obstructing cage,wire,or glass, the more out of focus the chain link or other foreground obstruction will be rendered.

If you merely place the front of the lens right on the chain link fencing, at 135mm to 300mm at the widest aperture your lens has, there will be almost no chain link visible. The last softball/baseball game I went to, I had my 5D and 24-105 f/4 L with me,and that was easily able to shoot through the chain link for a couple of snaps of my friend's son. What you will get sometimes is a bit of odd distortion at the edges of the frame, where the chain link wire is obstructing the light, but if the lens is close to the wire, most of the light will pas around the wire,and form an image on the film.

This is another one of those complicated subjects where there are more than one acceptable answer. The OP wanted a smaller front opening lens and simply put, that can be achieved by stopping down a larger lens.

As for the "best" way to shoot through a chain link fence, I'd like to propose 3 different scenarios.

#1: fence is right in front of subject and you are distant. This one is almost impossible to do successfully, so let's ignore it.

#2: fence is half-way between you and subject: Here your rules are exactly correct. The larger the aperture, the better because it will "average" the distortions caused by the fence, dirty window, etc. The distortions happens to be diffraction. The light that's blocked by the fence isn't the problem, it's the light that gets bent when it passes by the fence. Any light that passes by an edge gets bent and doesn't correctly focus at the focal plane like the rest of the light does. The is the exact reason why larger apertures can resolve better details - because the ratio of clear glass to edge is larger. In a pinhole the ratio of clear to edge is tiny, that's why a pinhole camera has horrible resolution.

#3: fence is directly in front of you and object is distant. Here's where the rules can become a little muddy. If the holes in the fence are relatively large, one could argue that shooting to avoid the fence completely would be the best option assuming you still have a decent f-ratio. You wouldn't want to shoot at f/22 to get your aperture small enough to fit through a tighter fence.

In my first response I suggested that he shoot his 200mm at f/3.5 instead of f/2.8 to get down to 57mm aperture. I don't have the math to prove it, but I would think that the lesser of 2 evils in this case would be to just stop down one stop, but I could be wrong.

In the end it may not make much difference as others and you have shown it can be done well without stopping down to miss the fence.