Shooting indoor sports?

ssfoxhound

I was hoping to get some shots of my son playing Box Lacrosse tonight, they play on indoor hockey rinks that are lit by multiple flourescent lamps in the ceiling. I have a Nikon D80 with 3 lenses;

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
Nikon AF DX Zoom Nikkoer 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED
Nikon AF DX Zoom Nikkor 55-200mm F/4.0-5.6G ED

I know none of these are really ideal for indoor sports, especially as fast as Lacrosse but what lens and settings would work best, I usually shoot in Aperature priority. :dunno

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

Joe

aj986s

Given the low light, I would suggest using the 50mm 1.8 to help you achieve a better balance between ISO and shutter speed. I'm no expert, but shooting my son's indoor basketball last winter I found that shutterspeeds below 1/250 were pretty useless for action. 1/500 or faster will help keep things sharp. If you can keep the ISO reasonable, then simply crop from the resulting 50mm pics to zoom in. Not ideal, but its better than blurry pics. Unless they let you get away with using a flash, in which case you might be able to use the zooms you have. If you have a strong flash, and celing is somewhat white, you might be able to bounce flash, and avoid direct flash in the player's eyes.

tjk60

With LAX you have a real tough task ahead of you. Lax takes SS in excess of 1/1600 to stop action. Are you going to be shooting thru the glass? Netting? nothing?

Use your 50mm, focus well, pan well and do the best you can. ISO high and properly exposed, with some Noise Ninja or other noise program will help as much as possible...

ssfoxhound

This is pretty much what I got (as far as quality). No flash, shotting through glass, it wasn't ideal for sure.



It's a good thing I have 2 boys playing and about 50 games between them to get it right

I may need to invest in a 70-200 f/2.8. I'll try it again at tonights game with different settings and see if I get any better results.

Thanks for all the advice so far.

SirGeorge

shooting indoors
Hi Joe,
I just spent 4 days in a penalty box - but I was on a step ladder shooting over gthe glass - shooting 30 hockey games over a 4-day period and my set up worked pretty well but did need a bit PP:

(I am a Canon guy) using an L series 70mm-200mm lens I easily covered the action. the settings were:

ISO1600
Aperture f2.8
Priority: AV
Exposure: center weighted.

All of my shots were PP'ed to take out noise (from shooting at ISO 1600) anbd to balance light (recycling lights are awful)

Example below - with this set-up the shutter speed varied from about 1/200th at the side of the rink to 1/800 in the center.

Have fun.

ssfoxhound wrote:

I was hoping to get some shots of my son playing Box Lacrosse tonight, they play on indoor hockey rinks that are lit by multiple flourescent lamps in the ceiling. I have a Nikon D80 with 3 lenses;

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
Nikon AF DX Zoom Nikkoer 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED
Nikon AF DX Zoom Nikkor 55-200mm F/4.0-5.6G ED

I know none of these are really ideal for indoor sport s, especially as fast as Lacrosse but what lens and settings would work best, I usually shoot in Aperature priority.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

Joe

AuroraBB

Color 'cycling' under old lamps in rink ...

SirGeorge wrote:

All of my shots were PP'ed to take out noise (from shooting at ISO 1600) anbd to balance light (recycling lights are awful)

Hi SirGeorge (and everyone) .. my first post here.

These "recycling" lights being mentioned ARE awful! We have a double rink here in Aurora, Ontario. Over time, the older rink has gone from fluorescents to what I believe are 'mercury vapor'? I gave up trying to get clean looking color as one lamp would be 'bluish' while a second would be 'pink' .. all in the same shot! The newer rink has twice the light level and a consistent color temperature.

Here's one from the 'old rink', which I've tried to 'color-correct' in the computer .. still 'pinkish'.



And here's a shot from the 'newer rink' with no color-correction efforts! Way better!


When I've taken group shots in the old rink .. at 1/60 second .. the lamps all register as "white". It's as if the old rink's lamps' color cycling gets frozen by the higher speed (1/250 sec.) that I use for action shots.

Does anyone have detailed knowledge of the various lamp types' suitability for color stability, etc?

rainbow

Welcome to DGrin!

I shoot a lot of volleyball and basketball in HS and middle school gyms and face awful lighting and white balance issues. Shooting in RAW makes the color balance so much easier in PP. Canon DPP has the eyedropper that you just click around on whites or grays until you find a balance you like. You can "register" this and use it for all the shots or go to them individually if they are cycling into different tones.

dunner

If your son is going to be playing box lacrosse, you'll be wise to get a 70-200 2.8 to catch the action. Box lax is tough to shoot (dark hockey arenas but without the benefit of the white ice). You need the fast shutter speed to freeze the action and the wide aperture for the lack of light. It's a great sport, though. Have fun.