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Hello everyone this will be my first blog post on TL and if im not misstaken my first ever blog.
First of, to the people who will read this, i am very sorry my english is not the best, reason for that is i am a collage dropout but thats a story for a rainy day "Rotti quote"
I always been inlove with gaming and e sports even in the early days when there was no platform like twitch and youtube. The times when you went to your friend who had somewhat good internet to watch some 1-3 minutes CS clips, or that time when you planned a whole day just to see FragorDie.
Recently ive accepted that the dream ive had for so many years will just stay a dream, i will never have the oppertunity to stand on a stage infront of thousands of people cheering. And since im a collage dropout and there isnt many jobs out on the market, and if you dont have a degree then you are pretty much Fked.
So something that i always loved is taking photos, now one of the problems ive had is that i never owned a good quality camera, and i dont know if the one i recently bought fits in to that topic either, but for thoose who are more up-to-date with it. This is my camera:
Sony DSC-H400
20.1 Megapixels
63x Optical zoom
24.5mm Wide-angle lens (35mm format)
So what im really looking for is tips,ideas,suggestions and help because i really really want to be an e sports photographer, thing is i dont know how or where to start.
Positive and negative comments are welcome, but please stick to the topic and question.
Thank you for reading, i wish you a lovley day !
 
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well im no photographer and i know pretty much nothing about the industry
but ive heard a couple of freelance success stories and they usually go the same way
some guy likes taking photos, so he goes to all sorts of places and takes photos. he puts them up on a blog, forum, fb or social media and his photos receive attention. he gets approached by a company and is given a job
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Not an expert but here's some thought after I went to iem shenzhen.
Reflection on booth glass.
Difficult to deal with, I think the best choice is to get a cpl for this.
People will block you, not only for framing, but also your ability to move around.
Considering your camera has a super good zoom and a ok wide angle, I think you have lots of options.
Get there early and sit close for players portrait shots in booth (again, I believe cpl is needed here, I am not sure if there is any other way to bypass the reflection at all)
Get there early and set up a tripod with a good distance, you can either focus on players or do a wide angle shots with the crowd. (tripod is a must due to longer zoom means higher f stop number which means you need to bump iso and/or slow down stutter speed to get more exposure)
Most importantly is to arrive early and plan ahead imo
You are most likely going to be settle on one location and you can have a much better idea on how to take what photos when you can actually see the stadium size
Also take raw will help a lot 
here're some samples of the problem I talked about:
+ Show Spoiler +http://i.imgur.com/OHeGf6m.jpgwould have been an interesting shot if I was able to get closer and not getting that head Also you can see Taeja's head isn't very well focused, this is mostly due to the complicated lighting makes the camera not sure how to focus. http://i.imgur.com/9g3LPu1.jpgLighting makes shooting the photos really difficult because the lights are very uneven and this photo is under exposed. I can fix it a little by using postprocessing, but the bigger problem is the reflection on the glass which is unfixable.
at the end, none were really good enough to be used, even if properly exposed and focused, the framing is poor and not that interesting
+ Show Spoiler +http://i.imgur.com/Wm6riUi.jpg
this could have been a lot more interesting if I could move around and get a better angle to emphasis on the IEM staff
I might try to crop and see how it works :p
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Hong Kong9148 Posts
if you are thinking about this as a potential primary source of income, think again.
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I feel like the "amateur" in the title implies he's not expecting to make a living from it.
As to how to start, the fact that you copy-pasted the walmart stats rather than things like f-values, focal-length range etc suggests you're pretty new to the whole thing, so there really is no faster way to get acquainted than to get out and start taking photos. Head to your city's CBD/main park/whatever, head to a scenic part of the country near you, go to a park, a river, a party, a family gathering, literally anything. Look for people, objects, animals, anything at all.
Make sure to copy shots to a PC and look through properly, not just on the camera LCD. Pay attention to the technical side - was this too bright, too dark, blurry, wrong focus - and also the more aesthetic - what were interesting subjects, compositions etc. Most importantly, consider why these things were the case, both in general terms and how those things relate to your new camera. I'd personally advise forcing yourself not to use the fully automatic modes, even though they're easier to start with.
It's all about getting familiar with what your camera can do and what you enjoy taking photos of. Once you have a feel for how things work, a few more questions and a few photos to show people, you could get better input and maybe start to think specifically about esports venues.
Really, at this point you're saying, "I want to be a landscape painter but have never held a brush, what do I do?"
The answer is, "Pick one up and start painting."
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Netherlands4654 Posts
You could try sending NeverGG a PM.
She has made some amazing e-sports photo's in her career. Check out her profile and blogs.
I don't know her, so I have no clue if she is willing to help. Also, I don't think she visits TL often anymore, but it's worth a shot!
Edit: here is a direct link to her blog section in case you were looking for it.
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The problem is that today almost everyone is a "photographer". I am just a guy who likes to take pictures and I would never use the ph-word on myself, yet I know so many self-proclaimed "photographers" with the level of knowledge and skill so low that even I can tell it. With relatively high-quality digital equipment being so dirt cheap as it is now, you can't just take a camera and make any kind of impact, because there are endless legions of people in the exactly same position.
There are two essential ways how to stand out from the crowd, both of them are relevant to e-sports photography, but both oft hem are damn difficult to do well - one is the technical side of things, the other is hard to label in two words, but essentially it is just the ability to see a good scene to shoot and do it. A good shot usually needs a bit of both, but the mixing ratio is very different for arranged studio scenes, street work or technically demanding areas such as nature photography, or classical sports with fast-moving players.
The technical side is quite important for work in challenging conditions, such as almost every e-sports event, because they invariably occur in cramped and badly illuminated spaces and the subject is not cooperating with the photographer (in the rare cases when he is, it is almost never worth shooting). Sadly, there is not a great deal you can do on this front with a compact camera. Yes, you can learn how to find good light and how to choose the best settings within the abilities of your camera, but it will be hard to compete against DSLRs with very fast lenses, both in low-light performance and in the ability to pick up the subject in a busy view using shallow depth of field. Also it requires a lot of drill to be able to handle whatever technology you have at hand in a split second situation.
The ability to find and identify good shot, to make pictures with a thought, an idea and a message, images that will touch the viewer, that's much more difficult to learn. To some extent, it can be practised and the basic principles can be taught, but a lot of it is about what you have in you and what you don't.
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Thank you all for your replies, just to make it clear this is not an idea of primary source of income. This is more two things that i love and are intrested in and trying to combine them together.
I would like to think that i do know to some degree how to find the "perfect angle" and such, as of now i do take pictures of the sky with various reflections from the sun trough the clouds, sunsets and sunrises.
Hopefully i do get the chance to go Dreamhack Stockholm or Winter this year, and are able to take some pictures.
Again thank you all for your help, your tips and ideas !
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Hong Kong9148 Posts
Going to warn you that taking random photos of the sky in the infinite light created by the big ball thing of fire we call the sun is very far removed from taking photos of people in zero-to-shit light indoors without the use of flash and autofocus-assist.
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I Shoot around 40 weddings a year so photography is my main source of income. Like learning anything you should be reading/watching things on the subject to learn. Like the poster above me said controlling your light is everything and shooting inside (esp in dark places) is very different from a sunny day on the beach. Also photography can be a very expensive hobby when you want better and different pictures.
The first thing I would learn is shooting in manual mode and controlling your shutter speed, aperture, and iso.
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Oh man, where to start for all this...
I guess to take your question at face value, to become an amateur photographer is simply as easy as that. Start taking pictures. If you do truly love taking photos, than being an amateur photographer is a good thing to pursue. In a lot of cases, having lower quality gear doesn't matter. Just go out and take pictures and refine your craft. Being a professional photographer is a completely different situation however and you need to more than just love photography. A good sense of business will actually take you farther than skill, not that skill isn't also critically important.
Being an esports photographer is a little different in a few ways. The biggest is that gear DOES matter. You need expensive camera bodies and expensive glass. The lighting is abysmal so you need fast lenses, f/2.8 or faster. You'll also need a camera that handles high iso very well. Expect to be shooting at iso 3200-6400 the vast majority of the time. Your subjects will be staying fairly still, so you can get away with slow shutter speeds when sometimes all you have is the light on their face coming from the monitor.
You're going to need a long lens for booth shots, and a wide for crowd and trophy/misc. The bare minimum I bring to an event is a 70-200 f/2.8, 24-70 f/2.8, and 16-35 f/2.8. For fun, I sometimes throw in a fisheye or 300mm f/2.8.
To address some of the advice in this thread...
The money issue has been brought up so I won't go into detail except to say that it's good you seem to be ok with not pursuing this as a means of income.
A circular polarizer to cut down on booth reflections. This is insane to me. I've never been to an event with enough light in the booth to be able to use a cpl. They reduce your incoming light by a stop on average, and thats too much to give up. The reflections will be there. Work around it. Move to the side and up and down to minimize it.
A Tripod. No. Setting one up in front of the stage or in the aisles is a safety hazard, and setting one up to the sides will require a lens that costs enough that you should have other more appropriate lenses already. If you're thinking about using a tripod to shoot at a slower shutter speed, just don't. Anything slow enough that you can't hand hold, is going to give you terrible results. I'm not even going to touch the bit about focal length and aperture.
People will get in your way, work around them. If you're not there on official capacity, there might be limited space to shoot from. Also, if you are not there on official capacity, don't be the guy getting in the way of the people who are there to work. Event staff and press are there to work and need their shots more than you do.
Shooting in RAW is great advice. Do it. You will have a lot more leeway when editing.
Know the game you're shooting. Know when things will happen and when to expect reactions from the players.
Be ready for long hours. Events are all day. Don't get so caught up in shooting that you forget to eat or stay hydrated, it will make a big difference.
Enjoy it. You get to do something you like AND watch video games all day.
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I still believe Taeja booth was fine for me to.use cpl, I think that shot I took was at iso400.
Any tips you can bypass those reflections? I heard that you can stick your lens right next to the glass with a lens hood but that will be interrupt the players.
I have seen people only either use a tripod from the back (which I think is ok since op has a long zoom camera) or get as close to fhe booth as possible.
Will be good if we can all share some experience
I saw some people walked on stage when players were preparing and I still not sure if that's fine to do
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I would advise against putting your lens up against the glass because yes, it will be a distraction. Knowing the lighting for the booths at Shenzhen you could probably technically get a correct exposure at max aperture and a shutter speed of 1/40ish at iso 400 but you shouldn't. Your depth of field is too shallow and Taeja is not in focus. Go up to at least iso 1600 so you can shoot at f/4 and around 1/80. I can't see your exif because imgur strips it out of the file so knowing your setup would help to figure out the limits of your gear. Here is a link to the ESL Flickr for official photos from the event, you can see in many of the booth shots, the reflections are present, but minimized to not be a problem.
What I do to deal with reflections is move around a little bit at a time until the players face is clear. You often cant reduce them completely but you can use them to frame your subject in a non-distracting way. Just kind of shift your body left to right and crouch down a little or stand on your toes to achieve this. You can also wait for the venue lighting to change just enough so that the reflection is reduced. A lot of shooting esports is a matter of waiting for the perfect moment to get the shot.
With regards to the tripod, it's just not needed. Most people I know using tripods are shooting video and not stills. I don't personally know anyone that uses a tripod to shoot stills at events. It's not so much a matter of CAN you shoot at 1/20 or something, but that no matter how still the camera is, you can't prevent the subject from blurring due to motion. Even players sitting playing a game will move enough that your shots wont be as sharp as needed. You're much better off sacrificing some noise from higher iso, to make sure you get a sharp image, especially because the noise wont be apparent for most web sized presentations anyway, unless you're planning on printing posters.
I'm not sure about in China (though I've heard that Chinese press does tend to just walk on stage on their own) but normally you should never go on stage without permission. That doesn't mean you shouldn't ask, but make sure they say yes, and you know where you can be so you dont a) break things b) get in the shot/stream.
Perfectly willing to offer any other advice but it would be easier to answer questions than present a whole bunch of random stuff that may or may not be useful.
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EPT
