I was using my Canon 7D with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L Non-IS. Any recommendations with the WB settings? I was shooting in The Tungsten mode. Photo # 4 I did not over crop, just too close to the baseline. Any suggestions for a 2nd lens when shooting underneath the basket? The 70-200mm in my opinion is not wide enough.
I shoot under the basket every game and since I only have one body, all I use is the 70-200. You just have to be pretty quick on the trigger to adjust your focal length. I generally shoot at about 85.
Light cycling is just difficult. The only way around it from my experience is to use strobes, which I like. Others on here may have better recommendations.
Nikon D4, 400 2.8 AF-I, 70-200mm 2.8 VR II, 24-70 2.8
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Yeah, no real way around cycling. Well, there is, it's to slow your shutter to under 1/60, but that isn't going to do so well for the action!! So you really have to suck it up and deal with it, unless as mentioned you strobe the game, which is also my personal choice.
WB under cycling lights is just difficult, as others mentioned. You definitely have a lot of that going on here, as evidenced by the WB variation across the different shots you posted. I tend to set the WB to a certain K value (usually around 4000 for sodium vapour lights; about 6500 for mercury vapour) and I shoot raw. The latter gives you more flexibility in PP to correct WB. I also push the ISO so that I am not under-exposed and have some wiggle room in the post. However, by far the hardest part is the WB variation from shot to shot, making batch processing next to impossible. Because of this, I usually do a first pass batch process, then delete all but the best shots, and finally do a final WB correction on the remaining shots.
FYI on these photos. The walls are yellow and I did change from manual and aperture priority and back to manual to try different things to help out the WB.
FYI on these photos. The walls are yellow and I did change from manual and aperture priority and back to manual to try different things to help out the WB.
Then the walls are not helping! I hate that dingy yellow color that comes from gym and stadium lighting!
One thing to keep in mind is that our eye notices off-color skin tones much more than other off-color parts of the subject. Because of this, I try to get the skin tones correct, even at the expense of making yellow walls look white or blue.
Unfortunately I have not found any easy work-around for the cycling lights problem. I still end up spending a lot of time cleaning up the shots. The best I can do is maximize my chances for rescuing a good shot by shooting raw and properly exposed. All the rest is just hard work!
I use Lightroom. Unfortunately, I think the only way to work through cycling issues is through brute force and individual photo review since each shot potentially could be different. No consistency to apply a general rule.
Nikon D4, 400 2.8 AF-I, 70-200mm 2.8 VR II, 24-70 2.8
CBS Sports MaxPreps Shooter http://DalbyPhoto.com
I use Lightroom. Unfortunately, I think the only way to work through cycling issues is through brute force and individual photo review since each shot potentially could be different. No consistency to apply a general rule.
Unfortunately I agree with this. Each shot is different--or can be--so there is no way to apply a batch recipe. The only good that comes of this is that it forces me to pick a smaller set of better shots, since each shot takes so much work to get right!
I was using my Canon 7D with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L Non-IS. Any recommendations with the WB settings? I was shooting in The Tungsten mode. Photo # 4 I did not over crop, just too close to the baseline. Any suggestions for a 2nd lens when shooting underneath the basket? The 70-200mm in my opinion is not wide enough.
Have you tried using some type of WB filter (i.e. Expodisc)? I have one & it works like a charm especially indoors. With 18mp, a nifty fifty would be a good choice. You'd be able to crop significantly (if needed) & still have enough resolution for a fairly large print.
Travis M. Chance
twin Mark IV's & a bunch of "L" glass site ∙ facebook
Have you tried using some type of WB filter (i.e. Expodisc)? I have one & it works like a charm especially indoors. With 18mp, a nifty fifty would be a good choice. You'd be able to crop significantly (if needed) & still have enough resolution for a fairly large print.
The problem with light cycling is that the color depends on where it is in the cycle, as does the intensity. Thus an Expodisc is effectively useless under these conditions unless you have it in every shot. Basically, you just have to do the WB by eye unless the walls, uniform, or something else is a good white/gray reference. Take a look at the walls in the first two shots above: the first one has yellow walls with a hint of green, whereas the second shot has a distinct red overtone.
I shoot in a ton of HS gyms and have to touch every picture, shooting RAW and Manual always make a difference. A Grey card or an Expodisc always work in great lighting, in lights that cycle in HS gyms the eyedropper tool and checking the averages for AWB and the K for the picture in LR3 help a lot. HS gyms are such a mixed bagged, new schools in my area are amazing older schools are nightmares and you even have to worry about what part of the court you are aiming at, baseline, fouline, right side left side you would be surprised. Then the cycling light with a single focus point and all the 7d Sportshooters settings still give you fuzzy photos at times when you are pointing at the face or jersey, lights cycle and the pictures show that.. Most photographers I know that shoot College can shoot JPEG but the arena lights are amazing 1/800 2.8 1600 and the Greycard and the Expodisc work great with no cycling. I have presets for my many gyms and sports that are a great starting point in LR3 for gyms I shoot depending even on sport. Every night shooting is a moving target with my gear, same deal on Soccer, Football fields under the lights. You are not going to get perfect HS pics and there are a ton of stuff that stays on the cutting room floor so to speak.. I don't spray and pray, I pic my shots and work on getting great shots as much as I can based on conditions.. I shoot with a 50D , 7D using a Canon 24-70 2.8L and 70-200 2.8L .
I learn something everytime I shoot in a HS Gym...
I will say this, it's great if you can shoot RAW.. but for those of us on a deadline.. it would never happen, which is the main reason I went to shooting with lights at all basketball games. No more issues to deal with! Just saying, there is a difficult (RAW/Individual asjustments) way to do things and easy (Lights), IMHO.
Great post David, you are on the mark. IMO, your galleries are very impressive, I know you enjoyed shooting the Boone-Lake Highlands game in that gym... You would love a 85 1.8 if you don't have one yet to add to your kit.
Great post David, you are on the mark. IMO, your galleries are very impressive, I know you enjoyed shooting the Boone-Lake Highlands game in that gym... You would love a 85 1.8 if you don't have one yet to add to your kit.
Jack Thank you very much, I work really hard at it. That Gym was amazing and it was daytime with lots of light as well. I actually had images blown out because of sunlight through the window only on a players face etc.. Really an odd thing for HS Sports in Florida. Working on that lens for sure, would be great for volleyball as well.
Hey David--you certainly nailed the WB in those basketball galleries. I know what you mean about outdoor light in the gym messing with the exposure. Gyms are just plain hard!
I also see you shoot a lot of dance and theatre--another really difficult venue to shoot. Although cycling is not a problem (all the lighting is incandescent) the extreme contrasts and color changes are a major challenge. I do some theatre work as well--mostly HS productions that my kids or their friends are in, but in professional theatres--so I know the challenges of getting good WB and exposure.
I also want to shoot dance, as way back in my youth I danced ballet professionally and so have an eye for it. So far I have managed to get some encouraging words from a couple of well-recognised dance photographers (one of whom was an old friend from my dancing days) but no professional troupes to shoot yet. Need to work harder at that...
I will say this, it's great if you can shoot RAW.. but for those of us on a deadline.. it would never happen, which is the main reason I went to shooting with lights at all basketball games. No more issues to deal with! Just saying, there is a difficult (RAW/Individual asjustments) way to do things and easy (Lights), IMHO.
Jim, we've had this conversation before so forgive me if I'm being too pushy here...I shoot on deadline all the time, and shoot RAW. My RAW-->JPEG conversion literally takes 10-20 seconds for a set of 20-30 shots. I just do all the editing in RAW, batch convert and dump into a FTP folder and off they go. I'm not suggesting you are any less of a photographer for shooting JPEGs--truly, I don't know your circumstances--but in my experience the small amount of time it takes to do the conversion is more than made up for by simplifying the editing process: editing in RAW is sooooo much easier!
Jim, we've had this conversation before so forgive me if I'm being too pushy here...I shoot on deadline all the time, and shoot RAW. My RAW-->JPEG conversion literally takes 10-20 seconds for a set of 20-30 shots. I just do all the editing in RAW, batch convert and dump into a FTP folder and off they go. I'm not suggesting you are any less of a photographer for shooting JPEGs--truly, I don't know your circumstances--but in my experience the small amount of time it takes to do the conversion is more than made up for by simplifying the editing process: editing in RAW is sooooo much easier!
Hey David--you certainly nailed the WB in those basketball galleries. I know what you mean about outdoor light in the gym messing with the exposure. Gyms are just plain hard!
I also see you shoot a lot of dance and theatre--another really difficult venue to shoot. Although cycling is not a problem (all the lighting is incandescent) the extreme contrasts and color changes are a major challenge. I do some theatre work as well--mostly HS productions that my kids or their friends are in, but in professional theatres--so I know the challenges of getting good WB and exposure.
I also want to shoot dance, as way back in my youth I danced ballet professionally and so have an eye for it. So far I have managed to get some encouraging words from a couple of well-recognised dance photographers (one of whom was an old friend from my dancing days) but no professional troupes to shoot yet. Need to work harder at that...
Thanks so much for comments, I absolutely love to shoot Dance. My girls Competitions are a blast, the light is always even and they are my girls. For the local Dance Companies, I do some from time to time but not like I used to. I just spend to much time working on pictures for honestly no reward, they don't like me to sell their pictures and use 1 or 2 for promo work. I will say the absolute hardest thing to shoot with the most fun is Dance, not competitive but Dance shows. Lots of lighting changes, costumes, sets you name it. I change everything during those from ISO, SS, Focus point many times during one number it sure keeps you on your toes..
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Light cycling is just difficult. The only way around it from my experience is to use strobes, which I like. Others on here may have better recommendations.
CBS Sports MaxPreps Shooter
http://DalbyPhoto.com
Then the walls are not helping! I hate that dingy yellow color that comes from gym and stadium lighting!
One thing to keep in mind is that our eye notices off-color skin tones much more than other off-color parts of the subject. Because of this, I try to get the skin tones correct, even at the expense of making yellow walls look white or blue.
Unfortunately I have not found any easy work-around for the cycling lights problem. I still end up spending a lot of time cleaning up the shots. The best I can do is maximize my chances for rescuing a good shot by shooting raw and properly exposed. All the rest is just hard work!
CBS Sports MaxPreps Shooter
http://DalbyPhoto.com
Unfortunately I agree with this. Each shot is different--or can be--so there is no way to apply a batch recipe. The only good that comes of this is that it forces me to pick a smaller set of better shots, since each shot takes so much work to get right!
Have you tried using some type of WB filter (i.e. Expodisc)? I have one & it works like a charm especially indoors. With 18mp, a nifty fifty would be a good choice. You'd be able to crop significantly (if needed) & still have enough resolution for a fairly large print.
twin Mark IV's & a bunch of "L" glass
site ∙ facebook
The problem with light cycling is that the color depends on where it is in the cycle, as does the intensity. Thus an Expodisc is effectively useless under these conditions unless you have it in every shot. Basically, you just have to do the WB by eye unless the walls, uniform, or something else is a good white/gray reference. Take a look at the walls in the first two shots above: the first one has yellow walls with a hint of green, whereas the second shot has a distinct red overtone.
I learn something everytime I shoot in a HS Gym...
www.phabulousphotos.com
Sportsshooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=10162
Mayo, FL
Jack Thank you very much, I work really hard at it. That Gym was amazing and it was daytime with lots of light as well. I actually had images blown out because of sunlight through the window only on a players face etc.. Really an odd thing for HS Sports in Florida. Working on that lens for sure, would be great for volleyball as well.
www.phabulousphotos.com
Sportsshooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=10162
I also see you shoot a lot of dance and theatre--another really difficult venue to shoot. Although cycling is not a problem (all the lighting is incandescent) the extreme contrasts and color changes are a major challenge. I do some theatre work as well--mostly HS productions that my kids or their friends are in, but in professional theatres--so I know the challenges of getting good WB and exposure.
I also want to shoot dance, as way back in my youth I danced ballet professionally and so have an eye for it. So far I have managed to get some encouraging words from a couple of well-recognised dance photographers (one of whom was an old friend from my dancing days) but no professional troupes to shoot yet. Need to work harder at that...
Jim, we've had this conversation before so forgive me if I'm being too pushy here...I shoot on deadline all the time, and shoot RAW. My RAW-->JPEG conversion literally takes 10-20 seconds for a set of 20-30 shots. I just do all the editing in RAW, batch convert and dump into a FTP folder and off they go. I'm not suggesting you are any less of a photographer for shooting JPEGs--truly, I don't know your circumstances--but in my experience the small amount of time it takes to do the conversion is more than made up for by simplifying the editing process: editing in RAW is sooooo much easier!
Just my $0.02's worth...
John
I can't remember my past conversations..
Hehe...more likely I am remembering incorrectly...
Thanks so much for comments, I absolutely love to shoot Dance. My girls Competitions are a blast, the light is always even and they are my girls. For the local Dance Companies, I do some from time to time but not like I used to. I just spend to much time working on pictures for honestly no reward, they don't like me to sell their pictures and use 1 or 2 for promo work. I will say the absolute hardest thing to shoot with the most fun is Dance, not competitive but Dance shows. Lots of lighting changes, costumes, sets you name it. I change everything during those from ISO, SS, Focus point many times during one number it sure keeps you on your toes..
www.phabulousphotos.com
Sportsshooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=10162