In Door Football with Your Reno Camera Guy

I had the pleasure of working the first 2 home games of the Reno Barons -http://www.renobarons.com/ indoor football season at the Reno Events Center this past week. I was onfield covering the north endzone. Lots of action on this 50 yard field that's only 85 ft wide and surrounded by hard plastic water filled road barriers covered in yellow plastic. All that yellow really messed with my white balancing but didn't stop me from getting the shots. I love football and one that's so offense minded is very entertaining. There's lots of passing and up to 2 people can be in motion (up field motion!) at the same time. Because I was in the endzone I got all the action coming right at me, passing, running, slaming into the barriers, it was great fun.

Of couse the Reno Barons have a dance team called the Baron Babes. They do a great half time show that we try to capture the energy of on video.  Once again I'm working with Envision Video http://envisionvideoreno.com/home and Gustin Sports Productions http://gustinsports.com/. As always Dan Gustin is calling the play by play and he's joined by former pro Jo Jo Townsell. They're a great team, good insight, fun and always give the camera guys credit when due. Checkout the first game on the Reno Barons website - http://www.renobarons.com/

As you can tell from the picture above the lighting in the Events Center is not really camera friendly so I had to be on filter 1 and low light gain. That makes focusing difficult so after the first game we decided it was best if everyone was set on auto iris so the camera could just ride the ever changing light levels itself and you could focus on focusing, ha!
From the looks of things I think the Reno Barons will do well here in Reno. The crowds were enthusiastic and full of energy. They have 6 more home games that I'll be working and should keep me busy till June. Fine with me because we all know how I love to be down on field in the action. Football, indoors, on video, all good with Your Reno Camera Guy.

Play Ball !!!

Well it's that time of year again when baseball season starts and Your Reno Camera Guy finds himself perched on top of the first base side dugout. Great vantage point but watch out for those righty's and their foul balls.

Once again I'm working with my friend Eric Darensburg of Envision Video (http://envisionvideoreno.com/home) who supplies all the cameras. He spends most of his time out on the center field camera, while I'm on first and another camera person behind home plate. Baseball can really test your skills as a camera guy because the focal point is always changing. There's a lot of horizontal/vertical and shallow/deep action to follow. I'm good for a shot from home to first but after that I've got to really watch my focus. If a player is out at second I pretty much set my back focus on them so I can get both first and second bases at the same time if I need too. If I know there's going to be a play at home I try to get my focus set ahead of time so I can just follow the play. 

As always we're all working for Dan Gustin of Gustin Sports Productions (http://gustinsports.com/) Dan does all the play by play and is occasionally joined by a color commentator but lots of times he'll just go solo. He's a real pro which makes my job easier. We stream the games live via Dan's Tricaster and also record them to the hard drive. No tape at all. The games are played back on Charter Cable here in Reno as the NIAA Game of the Week. It's great fun watching these High School players give it their all and the best part is that I'm outside getting paid to do what I love. It's spring time in Reno and it's good to be Your Reno Camera Guy.

Your Reno Camera Guy at the Underground

Your Reno Camera Guy spent last Friday and Saturday nights shooting video at the Underground (http://renounderground.com/) for a benefit called "Made in Reno". It was nothing but local bands raising money for the UNR Dept of Music general scholarship fund. A good cause indeed that I don't mind volunteering for. Each band did a short set of 5 or so songs. It made the night go quickly and gave me a lot of variety to shoot. I love the Underground because the sound system is so wonderful and Doug the sound engineer keeps it all dialed in. With all those bands and all those change overs he did a great job of keeping his cool and making it happen. Of course ear plugs were a must.

Your Reno Camera Guy with his Z1U stage side.

I used my handy Sony Z1U all night long. The Z1U is so light weight and portable that it was easy for me to get some great shots and move easily around the stage. A single battery got me through the whole night even though I was zooming in and out all night long. I set everything thing on auto so I wouldn't have to deal with re-adjusting for all those low light changes. It worked flawlessly.

Offstage as "The Regan Years" tear it up onstage.

I shot 2/60 minute tapes on Friday and 3/60 minute tapes on Saturday. I shot in DV since they are going to be posting it on the internet I saw no need to do it in HD. The Underground streams all of their concerts live from 2 ceiling mounted fixed cameras. I wanted to show Remi the owner how a hand held, low level camera would look in the hopes that he'll upgrade his system to include another camera that can get these close, stage side shots. A switched live multiple camera shoot is so much more powerful and not that hard to do these days.

Drinking with Clowns Martin and Baldo with Your Reno Camera Guy

The final band of the night was - Drinking with Clowns (http://www.myspace.com/drinkingwithclowns). They're a favorite of mine, I love their latin style and world music touches. It was a great way to end the weekend, I got video of all the bands, I got my picture with Martin and Baldo of Drinking with Clowns, I got to listen to a lot of Reno talent, and I got to be creative with my shooting. Just another night in Reno for Your Reno Camera Guy.