Captioning query when using Photo Mechanic

nigpd

nigpd

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Nigel
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When you guys have tagged and selected images for captioning in PM, what do you do if the player(s) can't be identified?

I ask the question because, particularly in non league games, players aren't identifiable and if numbers aren't visible but its a cracking shot, what do you do? Not use the shot?

I have thought about taking a shot of the back of the player after the particular action has passed, but for that to be useful, you would need to tag and select the ID shot which would then clutter up the workflow and those ID shots would need removing before final selection. Hope that bit makes sense :thinking:

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated
 
If you don't know for certain who it is Never ever take a guess. If it's a sooper dooper shot and you have no idea who it is you can always send it in as general shot (my preference). If you have time you can ask around to see if anyone recognises the player ID.

Having a great shot and not being able to ID the subjects can be a right pain.
 
Basically, what you've both said...

In order of preference:


Get an ID shot - there shouldn't be an excuse for not doing this and sorting the workflow out takes seconds.

Send in as a GV.

Bin it.

NB: it depends how time sensitive the pics are!
 
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Nigel;

You are correct, there are a number of times you can't identify the player's number.

I am familiar with a lot of the the players for the sports I cover, so they can be identified that way.

You can also try to identify the player by their playing position.
My camera also lets me record a short voice recording, so I can as you say mention the players number on the photo after the play.

I am assuming your non league matches do not have team sheets or match guides, are there usually other photographers at these matches you can ask?

Worse comes to worse you can use a phase like "Action between team A and team B"

I am sure there will be other useful suggestions to your query
 
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There are often identifying marks/items such as colour of players boots, tape on socks/ tattoo's etc. May also be worth looking at the player profiles on that teams website to see if you can ID him there .But if all fails I just try and caption the action around the player. However although it may be a cracking shot to you if submitting to the press it may not be to them.
 
Don't ever ask the players themselves, they like nothing more to be a bunch of pratts and love to see someone elses name against one of their mates just for a laugh.
 
nigpd said:
I have thought about taking a shot of the back of the player after the particular action has passed, but for that to be useful, you would need to tag and select the ID shot which would then clutter up the workflow and those ID shots would need removing before final selection. Hope that bit makes sense :thinking:
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I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to doing that, because it's the best way to do it in my experience. I don't find it that difficult to deal with in all honesty, one (or two in the case of opposing players) extra shot in the download from the card is a small price to pay to be able to quickly caption a shot and get it sent without further complications.
 
Aperture87 said:
I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to doing that, because it's the best way to do it in my experience. I don't find it that difficult to deal with in all honesty, one (or two in the case of opposing players) extra shot in the download from the card is a small price to pay to be able to quickly caption a shot and get it sent without further complications.
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Does that mean your workflow involves locking the images you want in camera, plus the id shot(s) and selectively ingesting only those in to PM?
 
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If you can get shots of all the players before play starts showing their numbers and boots then you can lock those and import them.

And get the names/numbers beforehand if poss.
 
If I have a good shot that I lock on the camera I will always then try and get a back shot of the player at the time, or seek them out later and get a back shot which I will also lock. That way I'll ingest everything I need.

If I have a shot that I definitely can't ID the player in I'll caption it with something like "West Brom attack in the second half". The picture editors are amazingly good at IDing players if they want to use it.
 
Tobers said:
If I have a good shot that I lock on the camera I will always then try and get a back shot of the player at the time, or seek them out later and get a back shot which I will also lock. That way I'll ingest everything I need.

If I have a shot that I definitely can't ID the player in I'll caption it with something like "West Brom attack in the second half". The picture editors are amazingly good at IDing players if they want to use it.
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There's a definite workflow theme here from you experienced guys, that I hadn't considered. Have the time to lock the good images and the ID images and only ingest those, rather than get everything in to PM and sort them there.
 
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nigpd said:
Does that mean your workflow involves locking the images you want in camera, plus the id shot(s) and selectively ingesting only those in to PM?
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Yes, that's right. Sorry, I should have been more specific with my answer, but Tobers explained it just fine for you anyway.
 
I check for boot colour, hair colour, position, tattoos and if something has happened and a break in the game if needed scout around to capture the players number if I don't know who they are and it's not in shot.

What I also sometimes do is the same as tobers and caption accordingly like his example
 
nigpd said:
excuse my ignorance, but what is a GV? Is it General View eg of the whole stadium?
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Pretty much what Tobers says below, although it's more of a generic caption than a GV:

Tobers said:
If I have a good shot that I lock on the camera I will always then try and get a back shot of the player at the time, or seek them out later and get a back shot which I will also lock. That way I'll ingest everything I need.

If I have a shot that I definitely can't ID the player in I'll caption it with something like "West Brom attack in the second half". The picture editors are amazingly good at IDing players if they want to use it.
Click to expand...
 
nigpd said:
There's a definite workflow theme here from you experienced guys, that I hadn't considered. Have the time to lock the good images and the ID images and only ingest those, rather than get everything in to PM and sort them there.
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How a bout getting all the players shot soon as they come out on the pitch. Lock them, then import soon as that is done.

This would help you as easier to identify quickly from boots etc.

Are you captioning during the match or later?
 
bigrob said:
How a bout getting all the players shot soon as they come out on the pitch. Lock them, then import soon as that is done.

This would help you as easier to identify quickly from boots etc.

Are you captioning during the match or later?
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The pre start shoot is a great idea. Just stand by the half way line before they shake hands, shoot and then make it back to your set up, I guess. Wish I had thought of that before :bonk:

I am attempting to caption at half time and send, then again at full time and send
 
If you import at various points in the half (breaks in play) for example you can see the images bigger on screen. it then gives you the rest of the half to identify anyone you may not already know or don't have a number

I only send managers in straight away and live goals or celebrations during the half, the "action" ones go at HT or FT aswell
 
whitey said:
If you import at various points in the half (breaks in play) for example you can see the images bigger on screen. it then gives you the rest of the half to identify anyone you may not already know or don't have a number

I only send managers in straight away and live goals or celebrations during the half, the "action" ones go at HT or FT aswell
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Crikey Steven, that must take some slick organisation! Big respect to you. I really struggled to get my shots done at half time and I was even doing them 5 or 10 mins in to the second half. Total fail :bang:

I really need to practice and get a lot slicker :bonk:
 
I 4 memory cards over a game, two in pocket, two in cameras

Once there are several 'locked' images if something happens and there is a pause in play i swap cards, connect and only import locked shots, can look at them quickly on laptop but if something happens quickly from a free kick etc I still have two cameras ready to go

Seems to work well to be honest but my theory only works when it doesn't rain (I dont use laptop when its raining for obvious reasons)
 
If I shoot league games my first download is after about 15mins (making sure I have so good action). Then maybe 10mins before half time (saves time if changing ends) unless something good happens. This enables me to send something early on alerting editors I'm there. Send another (approx) 6 at H-T and download rest as teams kick off for second half. Mid second half I do another download and mark any of interest and final one at full time. Of course any goals, celes or anything of interest will be downloaded, edited etc and sent straight away. For NLP I only live about 15mins from the ground so download at H-T and again at F-T as packing gear away and drive home. Edit, caption and send from nice warm office :)
 
If you're locking your best pics in camera whilst shooting, and you know a particular frame is a belter, then spend the next three minutes trying to find out who the players are. Then circle their number on the teamsheet as a reminder once editing.

This is far easier than shooting the entire squad simply for reference pics?! And for sports with big squads (rugby and American football), a much improved technique as its likely only skill position players will make your edit anyway.
 
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Perhaps my wording is off but what i'm saying is 90% of keepers from field team sports will contain the ball carrier. Certainly in contact sport disciplines these can be referred to as skill positions (eg. fly half in rugby, wide receiver in american football).
 
dafphotographer said:
Perhaps my wording is off but what i'm saying is 90% of keepers from field team sports will contain the ball carrier. Certainly in contact sport disciplines these can be referred to as skill positions (eg. fly half in rugby, wide receiver in american football).
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When I worked for some agencies they always require "stock" images of as many of both teams as possible. These could be "ball carriers" or not (ie goalkeepers shouting or pointing etc).
 
snapzz said:
When I worked for some agencies they always require "stock" images of as many of both teams as possible. These could be "ball carriers" or not (ie goalkeepers shouting or pointing etc).
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And for the first 3-4 matches at the start of the season with all clubs new signings on show, new strip on show stock type images are worth their weight in gold
 
My megabytes don't weigh much which must be why I've not made any cash from stock pics yet!
 
Tobers said:
My megabytes don't weigh much which must be why I've not made any cash from stock pics yet!
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Maybe the sport you shoot mate, 50% of the RL images im specifically asked for during pre season friendlies and the first few matches are the stock type stuff,.
 
Never done much rugby but always told to shoot stock shots especially of overseas players as they often got requests. Also had a fair bit of usage especially for man of the match in broadsheets such as Telegraph and Guardian.

Once had a pic of Roy Keane blowing a bubble in NUTS mag :lol:
 
whitey said:
I 4 memory cards over a game, two in pocket, two in cameras

Once there are several 'locked' images if something happens and there is a pause in play i swap cards, connect and only import locked shots, can look at them quickly on laptop but if something happens quickly from a free kick etc I still have two cameras ready to go
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Ive been thinking about this overnight (as you do!) and I have a question about how Photo Mechanic handles the images coming from 2 separate cards.

Shooting first to card1, some images are locked, then selectively ingested in to PM at an opportune moment and put through the workflow. Meanwhile shooting continues to card2, again locking some images. Card2 is then swapped and the locked images selectively ingested in to PM and card1 put back in camera.

At this point, do you format card1 or just keep going? If you keep going, and lock further images, when you next come to selectively ingest card1, does PM ingest all locked images or can you get it to only ingest those new locked images?

I'm hoping this question is making sense?? :bonk:

If PM cant ingest only the new locked images, how do you separate out the new locked images from the old locked images and avoid the chance of processing them again? Do you ingest to a different folder each time?
 
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nigpd said:
At this point, do you format card1 or just keep going? If you keep going, and lock further images, when you next come to selectively ingest card1, does PM ingest all locked images or can you get it to only ingest those new locked images?
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Keep going...

Ingest splash screen, under the source paths box, tick:

Incremental Ingest: copy new photos only
 
I format all my cards before starting a game and then work with them all without formatting during a game

as said by Mark, Photomechanic can be set to only accept new locked images which is perfect for working quickly

I've set mine to auto go into a folder specified, rename as needed (I use a sequence starting at 001 and reset that every game) and then apply the IPT detail on ingest. I then have it set to "auto unmount after ingest" you can if needed format but I wouldn't recommend it. Cards can then be pulled out knowing they have been safely ejected and it speeds things up by a few seconds

FTP is already setup so its just a case of right click, FTP photos as. hit enter and there off
 
whitey said:
I format all my cards before starting a game and then work with them all without formatting during a game

as said by Mark, Photomechanic can be set to only accept new locked images which is perfect for working quickly

I've set mine to auto go into a folder specified, rename as needed (I use a sequence starting at 001 and reset that every game) and then apply the IPT detail on ingest. I then have it set to "auto unmount after ingest" you can if needed format but I wouldn't recommend it. Cards can then be pulled out knowing they have been safely ejected and it speeds things up by a few seconds

FTP is already setup so its just a case of right click, FTP photos as. hit enter and there off
Click to expand...

Looks like I need to RTFM on things like setting PM to auto go into a specified folder and then to auto unmount after ingest (whatever that means :bonk:) These really good time saving tips are very welcome. Every second counts
 
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