This time of year nothing is more ‘Melbournian’ than to head into the city on the weekend to catch a footy game. Footy is the affectionate Australian term for Austrian Rules Football. I can only describe it as a weird kind of mash up of NFL, rugby, and maybe basketball. The ball is like an NFL ball, they wear no padding and beat the heck out of each other like rugby, but they have to dribble the ball and the game goes back and forth with lots of scoring like the NBA. They score by kicking the ball through their opponents uprights. A kick through the middle uprights is worth 6 points. A kick through the outer uprights is worth 1. In a typical game the scores are around 100.
As best I can understand, they have been playing footy for a long time, and it basically started in Melbourne. About half of the teams still reside in Melbourne, each from it’s own suburb with it’s own distinct fan base. The other half of the teams have moved to other parts of Australia to grow fan bases there.
With Beth’s mom in town, we thought it would be a great time to go to our first game. We got tickets for Collingwood (Melbourne burb) vs. West Coast (Perth). We chose the game because Collingwood plays at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, the most famous stadium in Melbourne. It is called the MCG or just The G. You can see a bad panoramic of it above. I took several shots and then stitched them together with PhotoStitch. It was my first go using that program, although I have been meaning to try it for some time. It turned out alright, you get the idea, but I could obviously use some practice with it. Next time I will try holding the camera vertically. However that wont solve the main problem – the exposure changes as you pan the camera towards the sun. Not sure how to fix that.
Enough boring camera talk. Collingwood ended up winning by 100 points, which is quite a wholloping. The final score was 173-73. The game was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to go to another. Maybe once the playoffs get here and the G is full (~80,000). More info on the AFL can be found here: http://www.afl.com.au
I know it is on late night in the US on some high digital channels. At least it used to be. I never knew what was going on but it was fun to watch at 3am.
Here are a couple other shots I took from the game. Jon, these were with my new lens.
finally had your lens w/ you when you wanted it cool!
For the panoramics I’ve done, I used Photoshop CS3 which will align the layers as well as blend them (two separate tasks). Alternately, you could take one shot to figure out your settings and then shoot on manual with those precise settings.
Sounds like the game was a blast – now that I have cable tv and am up in the middle of the night I might catch some AFL.
Wow! Lots of people there. Glad you went and had fun. Thanks for the explanation. Do they have fantasy AFL? ;^) Yeah, I’ve seen it on tv a bit but never watched. So are there a lot of injuries since “wear no padding and beat the heck out of each other”? Are these guys full time professionals or is it more of a part time thing, a bit like AFL here (Arena Football)? Is it a fall-winter season like football here?
Hey Jon,
How do I merge a bunch of photos in PhotoShop? I have CS3 but I am not all that great at using it. I definitely could use a tool for blending.
Jon & Kris,
I could shoot in manual, but that kindof blows my mind. Also, I think my problems would persist, maybe even more. If I had the same settings for all the shots then as I pan towards the sun the shots would get more and more overexposed. So the shot on the left would have a nice blue sky, but the one on the right would be a way overexposed whiteout.
I hear there are lots of injuries. The season is really long. There are 22 weeks (1 game per) and then the playoffs. I have been told that towards the end of the season everyone is hurt. Yes it’s a fall-winter season sport. Everyone wears scarves of the team they support. I believe all the athletes are full time pro.
So COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like your "panoramic" view of the stadium, the photos of the players and the photo of Beth and her mother with the stadium tiers in the background. Being in the crowd at the footy game must have been fun. A new experience, but I suppose it was easy to get caught up in the crowd enthusiasm. From what Beth and her mother are wearing, it doesn’t seem all that cold.
Thanks for describing the game in addition to providing the pictures. Thanks for explaining your photo process, too.
We’ve sent you a small book and hope you and Beth enjoy it.
Copy all the images to merge into one new file
–sometimes optional middle steps
sometimes you have to fiddle and expand the canvas size and manually approximately align the images for the computer or cut out some information that could be throwing it off causing it to skew your images–
then select all layers to merge (via the Layers window – F7).
Edit->Auto-Align Layers
Edit->Auto-Blend Layers
That’s it. Auto-blend works out the exposure but will lose information in darks and lights by over/underexposing to fit the scene. I’m not sure how to fix that yet short of manually stitching them together.
When you shoot your first shot, do it somewhere with a middle value. Then you have your aperture and shutter speed. Switch to manual and use those same settings.
10 Comments »
Comment by josh — June 4, 2008 @ 3:24 am
This time of year nothing is more ‘Melbournian’ than to head into the city on the weekend to catch a footy game. Footy is the affectionate Australian term for Austrian Rules Football. I can only describe it as a weird kind of mash up of NFL, rugby, and maybe basketball. The ball is like an NFL ball, they wear no padding and beat the heck out of each other like rugby, but they have to dribble the ball and the game goes back and forth with lots of scoring like the NBA. They score by kicking the ball through their opponents uprights. A kick through the middle uprights is worth 6 points. A kick through the outer uprights is worth 1. In a typical game the scores are around 100.
As best I can understand, they have been playing footy for a long time, and it basically started in Melbourne. About half of the teams still reside in Melbourne, each from it’s own suburb with it’s own distinct fan base. The other half of the teams have moved to other parts of Australia to grow fan bases there.
With Beth’s mom in town, we thought it would be a great time to go to our first game. We got tickets for Collingwood (Melbourne burb) vs. West Coast (Perth). We chose the game because Collingwood plays at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds, the most famous stadium in Melbourne. It is called the MCG or just The G. You can see a bad panoramic of it above. I took several shots and then stitched them together with PhotoStitch. It was my first go using that program, although I have been meaning to try it for some time. It turned out alright, you get the idea, but I could obviously use some practice with it. Next time I will try holding the camera vertically. However that wont solve the main problem – the exposure changes as you pan the camera towards the sun. Not sure how to fix that.
Enough boring camera talk. Collingwood ended up winning by 100 points, which is quite a wholloping. The final score was 173-73. The game was a lot of fun, and I can’t wait to go to another. Maybe once the playoffs get here and the G is full (~80,000). More info on the AFL can be found here: http://www.afl.com.au
I know it is on late night in the US on some high digital channels. At least it used to be. I never knew what was going on but it was fun to watch at 3am.
Here are a couple other shots I took from the game. Jon, these were with my new lens.
Comment by josh — June 4, 2008 @ 3:31 am
some rowdy spectators
Comment by brohan — June 4, 2008 @ 4:16 am
finally had your lens w/ you when you wanted it
cool!
For the panoramics I’ve done, I used Photoshop CS3 which will align the layers as well as blend them (two separate tasks). Alternately, you could take one shot to figure out your settings and then shoot on manual with those precise settings.
Sounds like the game was a blast – now that I have cable tv and am up in the middle of the night I might catch some AFL.
Comment by kriz — June 4, 2008 @ 5:47 am
Cool shots!
“the exposure changes as you pan the camera towards the sun. Not sure how to fix that.”
I think your brother’s suggestions about shooting one shot, then the next in manual would yield the best results.
Comment by dadman — June 4, 2008 @ 7:26 am
Wow! Lots of people there. Glad you went and had fun. Thanks for the explanation. Do they have fantasy AFL? ;^) Yeah, I’ve seen it on tv a bit but never watched. So are there a lot of injuries since “wear no padding and beat the heck out of each other”? Are these guys full time professionals or is it more of a part time thing, a bit like AFL here (Arena Football)? Is it a fall-winter season like football here?
Comment by josh — June 4, 2008 @ 12:56 pm
Hey Jon,
How do I merge a bunch of photos in PhotoShop? I have CS3 but I am not all that great at using it. I definitely could use a tool for blending.
Jon & Kris,
I could shoot in manual, but that kindof blows my mind. Also, I think my problems would persist, maybe even more. If I had the same settings for all the shots then as I pan towards the sun the shots would get more and more overexposed. So the shot on the left would have a nice blue sky, but the one on the right would be a way overexposed whiteout.
Kriz,
Happy Birfday you old man!
Comment by josh — June 4, 2008 @ 12:59 pm
Dadman,
Fantasy AFL here: http://aflfantasy.foxsports.com.au
I hear there are lots of injuries. The season is really long. There are 22 weeks (1 game per) and then the playoffs. I have been told that towards the end of the season everyone is hurt. Yes it’s a fall-winter season sport. Everyone wears scarves of the team they support. I believe all the athletes are full time pro.
Comment by Clara — June 4, 2008 @ 2:18 pm
So COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like your "panoramic" view of the stadium, the photos of the players and the photo of Beth and her mother with the stadium tiers in the background. Being in the crowd at the footy game must have been fun. A new experience, but I suppose it was easy to get caught up in the crowd enthusiasm. From what Beth and her mother are wearing, it doesn’t seem all that cold.
Thanks for describing the game in addition to providing the pictures. Thanks for explaining your photo process, too.
We’ve sent you a small book and hope you and Beth enjoy it.
Comment by Claire — June 5, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
Very cool…I’ve never heard of it or seen it.
Beth, you and your mom look a lot alike!
Comment by brohan — June 5, 2008 @ 8:19 pm
Copy all the images to merge into one new file
–sometimes optional middle steps
sometimes you have to fiddle and expand the canvas size and manually approximately align the images for the computer or cut out some information that could be throwing it off causing it to skew your images–
then select all layers to merge (via the Layers window – F7).
Edit->Auto-Align Layers
Edit->Auto-Blend Layers
That’s it. Auto-blend works out the exposure but will lose information in darks and lights by over/underexposing to fit the scene. I’m not sure how to fix that yet short of manually stitching them together.
When you shoot your first shot, do it somewhere with a middle value. Then you have your aperture and shutter speed. Switch to manual and use those same settings.
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