"At the first match i covered there was a photog using Nikons and what i
>can only guess was a remote strobe. He didn't have any on-camera flash,
>but a small radio transmitter high on his neck strap. "
This is quite common, in arenas where tournaments, etc. are held. Don't know
who pays the bill, but strobes. lots of them, are mounted in the ceiling. I
imagine that the arena pays, just like for the color balanced lights for TV.
The photog uses a radio control device, just like the ones wedding photogs
use. How do they pick who gets the control? Don't know. And, it doesn't seem
to hurt the TV cameras.
It undoubtedly is common now, but back in the mid seventies it was a
novelty. I first ran across this technology (only by reference) when a
former Chicago Sun-Times photographer, who I first met in a small town in
Northern Wisconsin (Minocqua) made reference to it. This guy, then
semi-retired, told me that Sports Illustrated had been arranging (for how
long I don't know) for the larger venues to be "wired" for the magazine's
top coverage events. This photographer first witnessed this system in
action, he said, at a Notre Dame basketball game in South Bend. It pretty
much blew me away at the time insofar as here was an established sports
photographer basically not only telling me about the wave of the future but
for all intents and purposes making the clear point that this new wave was
only for the _very_ rich and famous, at least at that time. Considering my
status then, working as a combo sports reporter and photographer for a
20,000 daily in the northwoods, it caused me to both drool and feel rather
puny in the larger scheme of things. Let's see, that was the winter of
1977-78, and the coming summer I moved down to Chicago (on spec. as it
were) and found a job with Pioneer Press, figuring I'd then be "closer to
the action." And in a way I was, but as it worked out my modest OM kit and
I never got any closer to those remote-controlled strobes than a few
frustratingly wet dreams. <g>
Tris
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