Advice for setting up strobes for HS Volleyball

mattdan12

It's been awhile since I've posted here, but the HS Vball season is about to start up again and I'm going to try out strobes in the home gym this season. MDalby is local to me and is going to let me borrow his recently purchased strobes and I'm just looking for some advice on the best way to set them up and what setting to use (I've never used strobes before in shooting a sports game).

Like many HS gyms, it's old and dark. Here are a couple of shots from last season which give you an idea of the layout of the gym.

In this photo you can see the ceiling and the stands in the background, I'm expecting those stands to be packed during the Varsity game, so I think placing the strobes on that end of the gym is going to be out of the question.



The other end of the gym they have historically kept the stands retracted, but there is access to a 2nd level. Both ends are fairly open, but in the middle as seen in this photo, there is probably 6" to 12" of space to put the stands.



I was originally thinking of putting the strobes on the 2nd level in each corner and bouncing them toward the ceiling - but not sure if that will work with that ceiling or not. Pointing them toward the court from the corners may be a problem, because if I remember correctly the retracted basketball nets and other stuff is in the way.

I do have a bunch of Super Clamps, so another possibility would be to mount the strobes to the railing you see in the 2nd photo. Or I can put the strobes on the floor in each corner on the side without the stands...

I know the head coach fairly well and he's already given me the approval to use the strobes during the games. I'm also hoping to get permission to go do some tests during a practice before the first home game.

Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'll be shooting with a Nikon D300, 70-200 VRII and maybe test out some other lenes as well. I don't even know what setting to put the strobes at yet either! Guess I'll figure that out when I get there.

Thanks.

MDalby

I have two sets of strobes that will be available to Matt. (2) White Lightning 1800s and (2) SB-800.

We will need to take an ambient check first and then we will need to have the flash at 2 stops over ambient to freeze the action. We will be using RadioPoppers so I think we need to set the camera and WL strobes at manual maybe 1/2 power for starters and chimp and see what the outcome looks like. The SS will need to be at 1/250.

MD

MDalby

Matt, if we mount the strobes in the second level, we need to make sure that angle is good so we don't create shadows. We can also try the strobes on the floor and have a better angle so the shadows aren't as noticeable. I have some heavy duty light stands that we can use. I think we will want to use light stands no matter where we put the strobes.

MD

mattdan12

Mark and I did some tests this evening during the girls practice tonight and the results were encouraging. We were using Mark's White Lightning 1800s strobes, both set to full.

We started out by having both on one side of the gym in opposite corners. One of the strobes was plugged into an outlet, the other plugged into a battery, and pointed toward the ceiling at about 75 degree angle. After a little trial and error, I settled on 1/250, 5.6, ISO 1600 and a custom white balance. I did tweak the white balance is post a little.

Here are a couple from that set up, not too bad but I'm not thrilled with the shadows in the background (I wasn't trying for good action shots here, just testing for lighting):







We then moved the strobes to the 2nd level, center cort and bounced off the ceiling towards each end. I liked this a lot better, less shadows all around. In this location both strobes were running off the battery, so the results seemed a little inconsistent. I'd run an extension cord to them for actual games.








Unfortunately, we found out that we won't be able to put the strobes in this location for this first game - they have some extra bleachers up there that are only used during big games, so we'll have to set them up in the corners and hope for the best.

For reference, here is the same gym under it's normal lighting. Same camera & lens, settings were ISO 3200 and an aperture of 2.8. The best shutter speed I could get was 1/250.





After the practice was over, some of the girls did mention to the coach that the flashes were distracting. I was a little dismayed to hear this, but then I realized that the courts for practice were set up the opposite way than they are for the games. So depending on which side of the court they were on, they may have been looking right at the strobe. During a game, they wouldn't be facing the strobes at all.

donek

f 5.6 is too small an aperture. Open it up, reduce your iso, reduce your flash power (better recycle rate and fewer mad spectators). The whole idea of using strobes is to improve image quality and lighting on your subject. Your image quality will suffer at ISO 1600, and your depth of field is too great at f5.6 to isolate your subject.

mattdan12

Thanks for the information - The game was last night, so I won't be able to put that info into practice until the next home game in a couple of weeks. I did find that 5.6 was too small, the backgrounds are too distracting, but I got a few good shots. I was surprised at the amount of motion blur I still had on the ball, etc - I'll post examples in another thread sometime over the weekend.

I did bounce the strobes off the ceiling and liked the results. Next time I'll reduce the power and have them directed toward the court and try your suggestions.

I did talk to some of the players afterwards and they all said they didn't even notice the strobes going off, so I was happy about that. That was my biggest concern of the evening.

donek wrote: »

f 5.6 is too small an aperture. Open it up, reduce your iso, reduce your flash power (better recycle rate and fewer mad spectators). The whole idea of using strobes is to improve image quality and lighting on your subject. Your image quality will suffer at ISO 1600, and your depth of field is too great at f5.6 to isolate your subject.

donek

I'll shoot my first game of the season tomorrow. I'll get a couple setup shots and post them. I would avoid pointing the strobes at the players. The shadows are terribly distracting. Bounce will do the trick and give you much better results.

donek

I shot a volleyball game today and thought I'd share my setup. I purchased new triggers this year, switching from the Cactus V2s to the Cactus V5. I have very little complaints with the V2s, but the V5s are a definite improvement. I use 4 Speedlights. 3 are SB-800s and one is an SB28. For Volleyball, I mount them to the press box and bounce off the ceiling. As a result my light falls fairly near the net and more on one side of the gym. This limits my movements, but I have not found it to be an issue.


The settings on the SB-28 are incorrect, they should be 1/4 + 1/3 and 85mm


ambient shot at 1/200 f2.8 and ISO 4000


shot with strobes 1/250 f2.8 ISO 1000 (2 stops faster) with some motion blur still present.


I do manualy dial a kelvin value for WB. This gym comes in at 4170