Soelden WC opener, Ladies GS on Universal Sports now.

#1

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10/24/09 at 2:31pm

4ster
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http://www.universalsports.com/mediaPlayer/media.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&id=655743&sid=12760&KEY=MXRUTCJLZLYTNPQ.20091024180821

Mens race tomorrow.

JF

"Apparently, a person who dives headfirst down an icy cliff wearing a spandex jumpsuit is supposed to celebrate with a nice glass of tea."

David Fehrety on Bode Millers 60 minutes interview

#2

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10/25/09 at 2:58pm

Barnstormer
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Anybody figured out a surefire way to get to the race footage on universalsports without spoilers?

It really sucks to have to navigate through videos with titles XXXX WINS AND AMERICAN YYY GRABS THIRD just to find the race itself...

Back when I was a kid, WCSN used to just have a list of all the races....

If this pisses you off, please join me in letting them know

http://www.universalsports.com/CreateTicket.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000

#3

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10/25/09 at 3:00pm

tdk6
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Pritty awsome action in the womens opening race with Tanja taking the podium. Looking at the race made it quite clear, GS in Sölden is far from carving arc to arc start to finish. That steep part of the track was really something. Same in the mens race. Track was icy and bumpy and powder was never far away. As Tanja took a high line at that one gate on the steep she jumped over piles of soft snow. Looks like everybody made huge misstakes but the ones that stood till the end was rewarded. Kind of cool thing this opening race this year. Next all the world cuppers will be comming to Finland to ski SL. That will be great too.

#4

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10/25/09 at 11:08pm

Rick
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Quote:

Originally Posted by tdk6

Looking at the race made it quite clear, GS in Sölden is far from carving arc to arc start to finish.

Did someone say otherwise?

The fastest are the ones who can time the pivot so that little to no drift happens above the gate. Pivot>Engage Clean>Go is fast. Pivot>Wait>Slide>Wait Some More>Engage>Go is slow. Probably something the slower girls need to work on at practice.

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#5

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10/26/09 at 6:00am

Richr
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Barnstormer

Anybody figured out a surefire way to get to the race footage on universalsports without spoilers?

It really sucks to have to navigate through videos with titles XXXX WINS AND AMERICAN YYY GRABS THIRD just to find the race itself...

Here is what I do. First, I go to the schedule page

http://www.universalsports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&KEY=&SPID=12760&SPSID=105981

This page links to all of the race videos, and doesnt have any spoilers. I shrink the window a bit before I click on the race I want, so that the next screen only shows the video. That way I dont see the highlight videos listed on the right when I open the race. Hit full screen, and your good to go.

I am liking the new video player. I love being able to jump to anywhere in the stream. And it is nice to not be stuck with Internet Explorer.

Richr

#6

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10/26/09 at 6:19am

primoz
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In case if anyone cares, here's few of our photos from last weekend...
Women 1st run, women 2nd run, men 1st run and men 2nd run.
It was really nice weekend, and I even get a day of skiing myself (Friday morning). Soelden looked so much better then last year, with whole bunch of snow on surrounding mountains. So it was really like fairytale.
I can't say much about races and skiing in races, since to be honest, I didn't see anything from those two races. When you are standing on course, looking through camera viewfinder everything goes by without you even notice anything. :)

#7

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10/26/09 at 6:56am

tdk6
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primoz, nice photos. Can you say anything about your gear...... for instance what speed are you using and what asa?

#8

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10/26/09 at 8:12am

primoz
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There's nothing much to say :) Pretty standard equipment for this kind of job... 2x Canon 1dmk2 (at least for next few week until we get new 1dmk4), 17-40/4, 70-200/2.8, 300/2.8 and 500/4 lenses, depending on discipline and conditions, and that's about it :)
Settings depend on conditions, but mostly iso is somewhere between 200 and 800, with aperture as low as possible (for standard shoots I try to stay between f3.2 and f4.5) and times as high as possible (unless it's about some a bit different shots), which normally means anything between 1/1000se to 1/4000sec for on course work.
Finish area is different, but that's boring part of job anyway :)

#9

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10/26/09 at 10:49am

Muleski
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Thanks, Primoz, for posting that. Very interesting. What lens{es} were you using on the hill during the men's race? Thanks for posting the link to your work, as well. Really great stuff!

#10

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10/26/09 at 12:25pm

primoz
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For both of Soelden races I was using 300/2.8 on hill and 70-200/2.8 with 1.4x converter in finish. Except for few photos like this. These were done with 70-200/2.8 on 70mm. Otherwise 300/2.8 is pretty much standard lens for GS and SL races. At least for those of us on Canon.
PS: Sorry for this off-topic stuff :)

#11

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10/26/09 at 12:31pm

Muleski
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Thanks. Very interesting and helpful.

#12

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10/26/09 at 12:47pm

quant2325
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primoz,

Just of of curiousity, is shooting action photos of skiers similar to newspaper/magazine sports photography where you open up to get the background out of focus (bokeh), or doesn't it matter since the background is usually one color (white snow, blue sky, etc.)?

#13

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10/27/09 at 1:06am

primoz
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I normally try to avoid having snow as background. It makes dull photos. And there's very few chances to get just blue sky in background. So normally we get trees, rocks or in worse cases even red safety nets in background. Most of us try to avoid those safety nets, but sometimes there's just no chance.
Rocks, mountains or trees in background add some contrast so it's nice to have them, but normally you want them to be out of focus, so skiers stand out of photo, without too much of disturbing background. Because of this, I normally shoot with lens wide open. Another good thing with shooting wide open is safety. Even though it's not too hard to get sharp photos at 1/800sec, it's still safer to stay in 1/1000-1/2000sec, so stopping lens down automatically moves you toward slower times.
But of course there are times, when you want lot of dof (like photo linked in my previous post), so in such occasions you just stop down lens and that's it. But such photos are not really "standard" ones. :)

#14

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10/27/09 at 1:55am

tdk6
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Interesting feedback primoz. Thanks. Im using a Canon EOS30D with a 17-85 lens. My brothers got a similair camera with more zoom and my avtar was taken with it. We are strictly amateurs but I like taking skiing photos with slower time such as 30-250 for blur and speed. I wonder what kind of lence would be good for shooting skiing. Any recomendations, and my budget is limited to only hundreds of dollars. BTW, interestingly enough you linked to a photo of Sanni. You sure have a good eye for beaty .

#15

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10/27/09 at 3:04am

primoz
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With WC you need long lens because of restrictions. We are not allowed to stand next to the gate etc. It's perfectly normal when you consider safety issues. With free skiing or local races, these restrictions are gone or are at least much smaller, so you can easily do with much shorter and much cheaper lenses. To be honest, 30d and 17-85 lens can be enough, if you position yourself good. Personally I like a bit different angles and ideas, so if I could do this, I would be most likely shooting everything with wide angle lenses. But unfortunately we are not allowed to be that close during races :) So I would say you keep this what you already have, and just try to get a bit closer. With free skiing, it is possible.
As far as panning goes, you can get some nice photos with times around 1/200sec already. Skiing is pretty fast, so you don't really need to go all the way down to 1/30 or something to get nice pannings. It's much easier to get nice panning with higher times, since with 1/30 it's not so easy to get it nice.

#16

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1/23/10 at 10:54pm

taoskier
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Reply to Barnstormer comment re Universal Sports: You're absolutely right about Universal Sports and spoilers. It's really suspenseful to real "Bode too slow in downhill" and then watch the race. I complained to them but I doubt it'll to any good. They seem to just do whatever they damn well please. They don't seem to care about the viewer, like WCSN, which not only provided a separate page for video links but warned you to go there first if you didn't want to see the results first on the homepage. My main complaint with U Sports though is that I can't find anything other than live feeds. The sportscasters at WCSN were great. I was especially impressed when they pressed Scott MacCartney into duty after his death-defying crash at the Hahnenkamm. Somebody posted somewhere that the live feeds are sent out online for those who want to see the race live. Then the sportscasting is added later for TV broadcast. Well, the TV broadcast isn't available in my area and I can't find any annotated races on the site. Are there any? Does anybody know how to get to them? Or is U Sports not posting them so everybody'll bug their local cable provider into carrying U sports? Any answers or comments would be appreciated. I'm really surprised that I don't see more complaints out there.

Taoskier

Taoskier

#17

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1/25/10 at 10:39pm

taoskier
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Joined: January 2010
Post Count: 8

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barnstormer

Anybody figured out a surefire way to get to the race footage on universalsports without spoilers?

It really sucks to have to navigate through videos with titles XXXX WINS AND AMERICAN YYY GRABS THIRD just to find the race itself...

Here is what I do. First, I go to the schedule page

http://www.universalsports.com/SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&KEY=&SPID=12760&SPSID=105981

This page links to all of the race videos, and doesnt have any spoilers. I shrink the window a bit before I click on the race I want, so that the next screen only shows the video. That way I dont see the highlight videos listed on the right when I open the race. Hit full screen, and your good to go.

I am liking the new video player. I love being able to jump to anywhere in the stream. And it is nice to not be stuck with Internet Explorer.

Richr

----------------------------

Ok, maybe that will solve that problem with Universal Sports; we'll see. However, another problem is how do you get to see the Lauberhorn downhill when it was only a few weeks ago and U Sports has already taken it down? WCSN left all the races up all season. Yet another problem: no sportscasters. Can anybody find a race on U Sports that's not a "raw feed." Finally, the new Silverlight video which is undoubtedly being used because of Microsoft's connection to NBC doesn't work well with Chrome. All in all, compared to WCSN, Universal Sports sucks beyond belief.

Taoskier

#18

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1/26/10 at 8:54am

philcski
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Location: Lexington, KY
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Looks like they took down all the races from earlier in the season, and for a while didn't show ANY full runs, but now they are again. I have no idea what they are doing but I felt lost without getting my WC replays in daily. I can only stomach so much of watching American Idol with my wife!

#19

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2/21/10 at 9:57pm

taoskier
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Thank God some of you see the problems with Universal Sports. I complained about it elsewhere on this site and everybody was like "Hey, we love U Sports; we hate commentary on races." One guy even said that my comment that U Sports sucks and WCSN was much better was the "dumbest" comment he'd ever heard. I knew we were in trouble when the switch was first made and all that was available on U Sports was "highlights" of races, despite WCSN's promise that everything on WCSN would eventually find its way to U Sports. I assumed people would complain, but apparently a lot of people are happy to eat up whatever bare bones the network sees fit to throw at them.

Taoskier

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