More Strobed Volleyball

donek

Last night turned out to be a bit of a fiasco. I arrived a bit late as I had to stop by the newspaper office and pick up my new press pass.

This was a gym I've never strobed before and there wasn't much available to mount them to. I had wanted to try pointing the strobes directly at the players this time. My only option was to mount on the ladder going up to the media box. As I was setting up (the game already begun) I had a malfunction that had a strobe machine gun firing directly at one of the refs. I got told off in front the entire croud and was ask to turn them off.

I put them in opposite corners. One set was pointed at the wall behind the bleachers and the other at the ceiling. I was completely surprised to find the things still looked very good. Almost as though placement and pointing isn't terribly important when bounced. This gym is about 1 stop darker than the last. I got more stopping power, reducing the ghosting on the ball.

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5. Just realized every shot is the same girl, so here's someone else.

Frog Lady

they do indeed look good. Looks like the bounce did its job. Too bad about the ghosting, but interesting that there is none on the ball in the last shot; I guess the ball was moving that much slower...

C.

rainbow

You do get excellent results from your setup. And you nailed the timing on shot #2!

Well done!

donek

Frog Lady wrote:

they do indeed look good. Looks like the bounce did its job. Too bad about the ghosting, but interesting that there is none on the ball in the last shot; I guess the ball was moving that much slower...

C.

Thank you. I have a feeling that the SBs may not be powerful enough to stop the action, but I'll keep trying. The last shot was a pretty slow moving ball.

donek

rainbow wrote:

You do get excellent results from your setup. And you nailed the timing on shot #2!

Well done!

Thank you.

narancs

amazing pics.

donek wrote:

Thank you. I have a feeling that the SBs may not be powerful enough to stop the action, but I'll keep trying. The last shot was a pretty slow moving ball.

You were allowed to use flash?
I just arrived home from gymnastics and I couldn't use the SB.

woody

Did I read that right, they asked you to turn them off and you just moved them. That's excellent !
I'm going to try and do a VB game tonight. Was this a single strobe ?

jmphotocraft

Hi Sean! Great shots as usual. I've seen a few other vball shoots and it would appear from those that getting good faces not obscured by the net is a challenge. Looks like you've figured out how to avoid that.

donek

woody wrote:

Did I read that right, they asked you to turn them off and you just moved them. That's excellent !
I'm going to try and do a VB game tonight. Was this a single strobe ?

I took his request to turn the flash off as a complaint primarily targeted at it flshing the ref directly. I've used SBs in this area a lot. The problem was primarily a location one. This is actually 4 SBs. You can see a little more about my setup here: http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=143614

donek

jmphotocraft wrote:

Hi Sean! Great shots as usual. I've seen a few other vball shoots and it would appear from those that getting good faces not obscured by the net is a challenge. Looks like you've figured out how to avoid that.

Hey Jack. Good to see you here. There's no real key other than to pay attention to what's around you. I do shoot a lot from the net. Getting a bump is quite simple. Just focus on the players in the back line when the other team is serving. Watch through the lens and with your other eye to see who is likely to bump and fire away. Body language is the key. Spikes are pretty much luck. If you shoot enough spikes from the net on the floor, you'll eventually get a face. Net shots are usually prefered by the newspaper as they show conflict and a bigger story. I've started spending a bit of time at the top of the stands this year too. I move around a lot.