A night in the cold

Tuesday saw what will probably be Prescot Cables' last home League game in midweek until the Spring, hosting Trafford FC. By this time of year, although there are floodlights, the likely drop in temperature at night means there is every chance a pitch that is playable at 7.45 may be dangerously hard and slippery by 9 o'clock.

There is a League game away next week, and the Liverpool Senior Cup tie at home to Southport in December, but the fixture list now has games mainly on Saturdays and Bank Holidays to the end of the season. We have been fortunate with the weather, which will not last, but with only one League fixture to rearrange, it should be easier to fit in the inevitable postponements in March and April. Many people support a winter break in the season, but the practical question would be when to have it - last season December was effectively frozen off, the season before the same happened in January, and the season before that November was washed out.

The cold weather brings challenges for camera equipment: a frequent bus service from near my home to the ground means the camera does not spend long outdoors in the bag before meeting the cold air, so there is a risk of condensation, which can affect optics or electrics. Fortunately, although there was a bit, it did not affect the working of the camera. Coming back indoors is a lot easier - the bag has reached the temperature outside, so I just put everything in, and leave it for 2 or 3 hours after getting indoors to allow it to warm up slowly.

I have mentioned in previous posts that the image from the camera under floodlights usually needs some work to get the best details from the available light. Take this example from early in the game.

This is quite reasonable, but there are details, like the players' faces, wehere we should be able to get some definition. First, we look at the Levels.

There is space to the left and right of the mound on the histogram, so some parts of the picture are over exposed, and some under exposed. Moving the black slider to the left edge of the mound, and the white slider to the right edge will ensure that the picture is using the full tonal range. For pictures from Prescot I do this for the RGB channel, adjusting all the colours at once, as the new floodlights cast a fairly white light. Last season I would often adjust the red, green and blue channels separately, as the older lights had a slightly yellow cast.

We may also want to lighten the picture, either using the grey slider on the histogram to adjust the lighting generally, or the shadows / highlights menu to lighten shadows or darken what has become too bright (particularly useful when one team is playing in white). When part of the image is the sky, the more the shadows are lightened, the more grain will appear in the sky, so I keep this adjustment to a minimum for the effect of the players against a dark sky (the difference in the two images can be better seen by clicking on the image and viewing them at a larger size).

The rest of the pictures from the game can be seen here.