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Grants:Project/Rapid/TonyTheTiger/McDonald's All-American Boys Game/Report

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Report accepted
This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2016-17 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.


Goals

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Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

  • My goal was to use professional camera equipment to add content that is superior to the content that I could have added using my own semi-professional equipment. The project was a success.

Outcome

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Easily comparible sample result of en:Michael Porter Jr. in 2017

Please report on your original project targets.


For a better understanding of the quality difference see File:20170329 MCDAAG Michael Porter Jr. MVP (2).jpg, the main image of the en:2017 McDonald's All-American Boys Game article, and compare it to the following:
Here is another example for comparison of en:Lonnie Walker IV in 2017
Target outcome Achieved outcome Explanation
Improve and add photographic content 2425 images taken; 270 images uploaded (vs 156, 114, 161 and 213 in 2013-2016) By shooting with higher caliber equipment (Canon EOS-1D X Mark II, which lists at $5,999 and a Canon EF 400mm lens f/2.8L IS II USM, which lists at $9,999 vs. my Canon EOS 7D Mark II, a $1,799 list price body, and Canon EF 70–200mm lens f/2.8L IS USM, a $1,999 list price lens) each image was of better quality than it would have been if taken with my equipment. Additionally, for each burst of action there were more images to choose from than with my equipment (shooting at 14 frames/second rather than 10).


Learning

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Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

  • What worked well?
These images are and will be high profile content in current and future articles. 2/3rds of the participants in the game already have biography articles on English WP using these images and we can expect about 90% to eventually have articles. In addition we can expect foreign language versions of these articles to pop up once they start doing notable things. These images will also be used in articles on related subjects as they continue to be created. We have achieved our goal of improving content with images that are more professional than before.
Compared to the 2016 class, the 2017 class has more images in use in the subject biographies at this time of year. Note that only 11 of the 24 2016 class players had EN WP articles by June 30, 2016 while 16 of the 2017 class players have EN WP articles already. In fact, only 16 of the 2016 class have EN WP articles as of today (June 27, 2017). Given that the 2016 class has spawned 75 foreign WP articles (none yet for the class of 2017), we can expect much further use of the images.
  • What did not work so well?
Having submitted an image to en:WP:FPC, it seems that the shooting perspective was not as desirable as some might want for the highest quality imagery.
  • What would you do differently next time?
I might want to further tweak some of the camera settings to take advantage of the professional equipment. I might also seek funding to purchase better seats or attempt to leverage the WP credential for better access.

Finances

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Grant funds spent

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Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

  • Approved expenses were $557 (already submitted) for photography equipment.
  • Also note that I was charged $15 for a wire transfer.
  • Additionally, I had unforseen expenses of $114.65. (I did not anticipate that this camera would require a en:Compact Flash card, since I have owned 3 Canon EOS cameras that all accept en:SD cards). Although I have a 16GB Compact flash card, this shooting assignment requires something larger than a 64GB card. I purchased a 128 GB and used over 70 GB.

Remaining funds

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Do you have any remaining grant funds?

  • I spent all but $28 of the funds on approved expenses and had $114.65 in unforeseen expenses. I am not sure what protocol is in this regard.


Anything else

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Anything else you want to share about your project?

  • Near the en:NBA draft these pictures become quite useful. E.g., on the day of the June 22, 2017 NBA draft 20 of the 60 players drafted had McDonald's All-American Game images from me as their main image in their English Wikipedia biography, and an additional 3 had other images from me as their main image. The top 5 players in the 2017 NBA draft had images from me as their main image on English (and several other languages) WP.
  • Keep in mind that each years pictures will be deployed in article space (and elsewhere) gradually as the image subjects become notable enough for their own articles and as these subjects perform on teams and in leagues whose articles need illustration. In addition the images will be further deployed as articles about these subjects get created in more and more languages. The immediate deployment of these images is modest in comparison to how many pages will be using them in the future.
  • I think one of the important things to evaluate is whether the images are sufficiently better and sufficiently useful to warrant further expenditures (purchase or rental) on higher caliber equipment. If I had ready access to higher caliber equipment, I would be willing and able to produce more and better content for the project.
  • A link to this relevant article was just posted to my talk page: https://theringer.com/nba-player-wikipedia-photos-4e40c96128d1