Sports photography question

[billyb]

I have seen vintage baseball press photos that have four pictures, in sequence, on one photo. Does anyone know which sports photographer introduced the speed shutter, or method, to capture those images in the matter of moments? I am interested in findout out what sports photographer was first to capture several images of one play.
I have been searching, but could not find an answer.

[MooseDog]

John Zimmerman who is mostly known for work for Life and SI was great at using all kinds of shutter tricks, though I don't know if he was the first. Some real cool stuff in the 1950s.

[billyb]

Moose,
Thanks Moose, but I know I have seen a 4 sequence photo from the 20s or 30s. It was of Babe Ruth and his swing. Was wondering if around that time was the earliest, or was it done even before the 1920s?

[thecatspajamas]

Eadweard Muybridge did it in the 1870's using multiple cameras staged along a track to capture the galloping motion of a horse. The cameras' shutters were triggered by threads stretched across the track that the horse would run through.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge

I couldn't say for sure what method was used to capture the Ruth swinging images you are referring to, but I wouldn't rule out a staggered multiple-camera approach as opposed to a single camera opening and closing a single shutter quickly. Photographers could (and still can) be pretty tricky with their methods for coming up with a unique shot. At some point, using something more akin to a motion picture camera and re-assembling multiple frames from the resulting film seems a likely option as well.

[MooseDog]

Originally Posted by billyb

Moose,
Thanks Moose, but I know I have seen a 4 sequence photo from the 20s or 30s. It was of Babe Ruth and his swing. Was wondering if around that time was the earliest, or was it done even before the 1920s?

It's been about 30 years since I was really into photography, but if I can shake off some of the dust in my brain...

I don't think the technology to take four rapid pictures from one camera existed in the 1920s. Basically the cameras took one negative at a time. You had to physically pull out a frame holding a glass plate negative, then pull up the cover of the holder, take the picture, put the cover back in, take the plate out, put in another, lather, rinse, repead. There were dual backed negative holders, still the time to change or flip would be at minimum 30 seconds to a minute each.

More likely the images was made up of four different swings and then printed from from four negatives to one piece of photographic paper. You could do this by cutting a matte, and then printing each individual photo in each "square".

Another scenario would be having four different cameras set up and tripped in sequence. There were no auto-timers back then so each would have to have been manually tripped by one or more people.

The farthest out theory - I vaguely remember a book of pictures of unsual cameras. I think I recall seeing a view camera with multiple lenses - four mounted on one board but this could just be a mind shadow. Would have been very expensive at the time but New York is probably where one would find such a beast.

[Griffins]

I agree- I really doubt the images from the 20's were taken by the same camera in sequence.
Images in that era were generally taken with 4x5 press cameras. It's incredibly slow taking an image and reloading for the next one. As Moosedog wrote even with 2 sides to each holder of film 30 seconds is about the quickest to shoot, replace the dark slide, flip the holder, take out the dark slide, and cock the shutter. To the best of my knowledge the first motor drives were made for the Nikon F, in the early/mid '60's and that is when they came into widespread use for sports and fashion shoots.
Most likely for the images of Ruth they were either done with multiple cameras, or more likely just a series of shots taken on different pitches and put together to look like a sequence.

The view camera with multiple lenses could've been an early color camera- we played with one in school, before color film a separate negative would be shot for red, green and blue spectrums and then printed together. There was also a twin lens reflex (picture a rollei, look down the top into the camera, one lens to view and the other to capture the image) that shot 4x5 but those weren't very common and were pretty slow.

[billyb]

This is a muffed edit job I have had, sorry for the pic. Believe it was in the 20sAttachment 100994

[billyb]

Guys,
I really did not want to post that pic, too embarrassed, it shows how bad at editing I am, I could make all the excuses, sun was in my eyes or something, but I just suck.

[MooseDog]

Neat images...looks to me like four separate negatives. Each would probably have been glass 4x5 inches. Most likely over several pitches.

[Lordstan]

Originally Posted by billyb

This is a muffed edit job I have had, sorry for the pic. Believe it was in the 20s

I think four separate pitches. Possibly even 4 separate at bats.
Top left shows a right handed pitcher with his left leg as his forward leg.
Bottom left shows a left handed pitcher with his right leg forward and is from a higher angle.

[steve B]

Or, they could simply print the four from a movie negative.

Kodak had a camera that could do 1000 frames a second in the early 30's.
But a regular movie camera at 24fps will just capture 4-5 frames of a swing if the .2 of a second swing time I've heard is correct.


It's hardly old, but I have a camera that takes four sequential pictures on the same frame. Plastic and cheesey, and a bit too slow for baseball. But still kinda cool.

Steve B

[Griffins]

But movie frames were half frame 35mm, pretty small and not remotely the quality of a 4x5 negative.