From the rooftop of the new Stadium Tower I have a commanding view of my old neck of the woods where I grew up. It stands tall just two doors down from where my uncle Candido Delgado used to cut my hair inside his neighborhood barbershop and west of the old Orange Bowl Stadium site on NW 7th Street.
Gazing east is the spectacular view of Marlins Park looking its finest for Opening Night with the horizon bejeweled by the panorama of the Magic City.
Chuck Fadely and I set up a Canon 1D Mark IV for a time lapse of the new baseball stadium as we prepared to capture the movement of its retractable roof and fans arriving for the big event. Using Canon’s intervalometer the camera was to go off every six seconds from noonish until 8:30 the next morning. ISO set at 200, AV at f8 and shot on a 32GB SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash Memory Card.
Over 13,000 frames edited down to 1:47 seconds. It took Chuck four hours to produce. Then another two hours to compress for the web.
The forecast said 20 percent chance of rain for the game. It was a gorgeous night until the early morning storm blew in. Good thing we used sandbags and bungee cords to secure the tripod, then a big plastic bag to keep it all dry.
Alina Trull, Community Manager at Stadium Tower, and I compared notes about growing up in the area. Over the years so much of the neighborhood has changed but one thing we both agreed on, there will be parked cars jammed into humble little lots across from the massive landmark. Just like the old football games with the Miami Dolphins, the Miami Hurricanes, Super Bowls and NCAA National Championship Orange Bowl games. Some folks are going to make a killing.