Freshman basketball

zoomn

Hi All,

Newbie here -- first post. My nephew is playing basketball on his high school freshman team. I thought I'd shoot some pics this season (first time really). The dark gyms have been a challenge, but I've learned a lot from these forums over the course of the season. I figured it was time to brave some C&C. Thanks for any advice you can give.

Pat

1.)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-newton-2-2-10/wey-newton-2-2-103405/780101099_FtNMw-M-2.jpg

2)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-marshfield-1-17-10/wey-mrshfld-1-17-102528/767566199_WYF5x-M-2.jpg

3)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-wellesley-bball/weywells18092070/760723250_ZAnaU-M-2.jpg

4)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-brookline-1-19-10/DSC2770/769400538_KSvPp-M-2.jpg

5)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-milton-2-5-10/wey-milton-2-5-103573/782320268_NL2kn-M-1.jpg

zoomn

zoomn wrote:

Hi All,

Newbie here -- first post. My nephew is playing basketball on his high school freshman team. I thought I'd shoot some pics this season (first time really). The dark gyms have been a challenge, but I've learned a lot from these forums over the course of the season. I figured it was time to brave some C&C. Thanks for any advice you can give.

Pat

1.)
[IMG][/img]http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-newton-2-2-10/wey-newton-2-2-103405/780101099_FtNMw-M-2.jpg

2)
[IMG]url]http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-marshfield-1-17-10/wey-mrshfld-1-17-102528/767566199_WYF5x-M-2.jpg[/url][/IMG]
3)
IMGhttp://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-wellesley-bball/weywells18092070/760723250_ZAnaU-M-2.jpg[/url][/IMG]
4)
[IMG]url]http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-brookline-1-19-10/DSC2770/769400538_KSvPp-M-2.jpg[/url][/IMG]
5)
[IMG]url]http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-milton-2-5-10/wey-milton-2-5-103573/782320268_NL2kn-M-1.jpg[/url][/img]

More info -- all photos shot with Nikon D300, mostly ISO 3200 with either Nikon f1.8 50 or Nikon f2.8 105

tjk60

zoomn wrote:

Hi All,

Newbie here -- first post. My nephew is playing basketball on his high school freshman team. I thought I'd shoot some pics this season (first time really). The dark gyms have been a challenge, but I've learned a lot from these forums over the course of the season. I figured it was time to brave some C&C. Thanks for any advice you can give.

Pat

1.)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-newton-2-2-10/wey-newton-2-2-103405/780101099_FtNMw-M-2.jpg


2)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-marshfield-1-17-10/wey-mrshfld-1-17-102528/767566199_WYF5x-M-2.jpg


3)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-wellesley-bball/weywells18092070/760723250_ZAnaU-M-2.jpg


4)
http://zoomnphotography.com/Sports/wey-brookline-1-19-10/DSC2770/769400538_KSvPp-M-2.jpg


5)

Just trying to help out. It's better if you post direct

zoomn

tjk60 wrote:

Just trying to help out. It's better if you post direct

Thanks much Tim. I thought I had and was just trying to figure out how to do that. I appreciate yor help!

Gringriff

zoomn wrote:

Hi All,

Newbie here -- first post. My nephew is playing basketball on his high school freshman team. I thought I'd shoot some pics this season (first time really). The dark gyms have been a challenge, but I've learned a lot from these forums over the course of the season. I figured it was time to brave some C&C. Thanks for any advice you can give.

Pat

Hi Pat and Welcome to Dgrin!

First off if you can use the small yellow Insert Image button to insert the photos it makes it a lot easier to view.

I hear you about the dark gyms but you seem to be handling it fairly well with decent exposure. Overall you seem to have good timing of capturing the action and seems like you are working to get the faces. Colors look pretty good maybe a tad orange on a few but it could be the monitor I have.

1 - Good timing - Nice action with ball, face, elevated feet, and arms all in frame. However, focus looks a little soft. A bigger image might help see it but the focus may have been caught on the back wall - it happens.

2 - Again good action and the colors look pretty good - maybe a tad orange. But of course the ref in the way really hurts the overall quality.

3 - Nice action again but a faster shutter speed would help reduce the motion blur. It would be better if you were zoomed in more. Was this the 50mm? It looks cropped because it is nearly square so I would have cropped off more of the extra space at top left.

4 - Nice colors and decent action but it is more like a documentary shot of what happened and not really the kind of shot you'd want as a player since the faces are missing. Maybe just too far away. If you are using the 50mm for basketball you need to be right on the baseline and shot the close up action.

5 - Lacking sharp focus and it has that distracting sign.

Keep shooting and posting more. Always love seeing basketball shots.

Andy

johng

Pat,

Welcome and glad you decided to seek out some critique - that's the best way to get better. All these photos have some nice elements to them but they all suffer from too much distraction/dead space. In other words the interesting subject/s aren't filling enough of the frame. You need to frame much tighter in-camera and eliminate the uninteresting dead space.

For example - a passer - get tighter to show facial expression and preferably the pass itself:


Jump shot like in #1 - get tighter and if there are too many bodies in between you and the action it simply doesn't end up being a keeper. But you don't want the viewer distracted by players not involved or backgrounds


Not trying to hijack your thread by any means. Just trying to illustrate the points I'm trying to make. I think you're off to a decent start - you just need to start framing it much tighter.

zoomn

Thanks Andy, for your comments and critique. That's really helpful. Some of the soft shots are due to too much processing in noise ninja -- though I'm getting better with that also. Soft focus does seem to be an overall issue though, I'll keep practicing.

Thanks also John for the examples. Seeing other photos as examples always helps!