First try with remote strobes
Moving Pictures
Registered Users Posts: 384 Major grins
IN part due to the chatter hereabouts, I've accumulated some <del>new toys</del> vital gear to assist with indoor sports photography.
A few nights ago, I experimented with dual remote speedlights - one a 550EX, the other a basic low-end Chinese thing that frankly works like a hot damn. Using Aputure remote 2.4g triggers. I fiddled and tweaked, and came up with some interesting images. These are linked from the newspaper's Facebook site, and are not heavily post-processed (cropped, touch of tone correction, a quick sharpen).
Today is a day off, so I'm not at the office .... and I can't provide detailed EXIF data. However, I tried to work about two stops off ambient, shooting manually, 1/250 @f4 or f4.5 most times. (This was my first time using a hand-held Sigma f2.8 28-70 on a Canon 7d, I note.)
Like most small high-school gyms, there's little room to play with. One end had about three metres (10 feet) between baseline and wall, and the other end about two metres (seven feet). I set the speedlights on stand/tripod/clamp as needed, set at 1/8 power (fiddled with some 1/16 too), about three-five feet back of the baseline, six to 10 feet off the sideline.
I like the look of some of these, but there are technical issues I'd like some input on:
a) many pics came in with fairly harsh shadows cast from the cross-light.
b) I set the flashes to illuminte the key, but action to the side created serious doses of what I felt was too heavy flash, even if not over-exposed (highlight warning).
c) In part due to a) above, I didn't feel comfortable stopping down any more to reduce the ambient. Have I achieved a good balance here, and, assuming not, what's the suggestion?
#1 (note harsh sidelights: player out of key)
#2:
# 3:
#4: safety shot in ambient (for comparison)
Things I did learn: setting the 580EX to 70mm (as suggested in another thread) didn't work well for me. 50mm was better.
Input heartily welcomed.
A few nights ago, I experimented with dual remote speedlights - one a 550EX, the other a basic low-end Chinese thing that frankly works like a hot damn. Using Aputure remote 2.4g triggers. I fiddled and tweaked, and came up with some interesting images. These are linked from the newspaper's Facebook site, and are not heavily post-processed (cropped, touch of tone correction, a quick sharpen).
Today is a day off, so I'm not at the office .... and I can't provide detailed EXIF data. However, I tried to work about two stops off ambient, shooting manually, 1/250 @f4 or f4.5 most times. (This was my first time using a hand-held Sigma f2.8 28-70 on a Canon 7d, I note.)
Like most small high-school gyms, there's little room to play with. One end had about three metres (10 feet) between baseline and wall, and the other end about two metres (seven feet). I set the speedlights on stand/tripod/clamp as needed, set at 1/8 power (fiddled with some 1/16 too), about three-five feet back of the baseline, six to 10 feet off the sideline.
I like the look of some of these, but there are technical issues I'd like some input on:
a) many pics came in with fairly harsh shadows cast from the cross-light.
b) I set the flashes to illuminte the key, but action to the side created serious doses of what I felt was too heavy flash, even if not over-exposed (highlight warning).
c) In part due to a) above, I didn't feel comfortable stopping down any more to reduce the ambient. Have I achieved a good balance here, and, assuming not, what's the suggestion?
#1 (note harsh sidelights: player out of key)
#2:
# 3:
#4: safety shot in ambient (for comparison)
Things I did learn: setting the 580EX to 70mm (as suggested in another thread) didn't work well for me. 50mm was better.
Input heartily welcomed.
Newspaper photogs specialize in drive-by shootings.
Forum for Canadian shooters: www.canphoto.net
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Comments
Forum for Canadian shooters: www.canphoto.net
FAIL.
Read the other threads on using speedlights to find the link to Rob Galbraiths site and the review of the Einstein lights. While it's about the light it talks about flash duration.
Full power (which is what you will need for bouncing) = too long of a flash duration, which = motion blur to say the least.
I'd write a bit more about this, but that thread says a lot and I really have to get out of the door to shoot an assignment!
The comments I'm going to make are based on my experience having shot about 50 highschool and 20 or so college games with speed lights. I still occasionally have the random brain fart, as I did last night with lighting a TINY gym where a lot of my pictures where.. Ehhhh to say the least. I have to figure out these tiny, micro gyms because they cause me issues as well. I shot on a pair of 13' light stands and had horrible light because I was seriously rushed. I got there at half time of the first game thanks to the Chicagoland snow storm rolling in and well.. if I get my laptop fired up later, I'll add some photos to show that we all have these problems once in a while
What I can say is looking at your pictures is that it seems if you are aiming your lights from the baseline (which is sounds as where you had them?) towards the top of the key, it's going to cause problems. Typically I'm taking my lights and if I aim them anywhere it's the middle of the lane, at HIGHEST the free throw line. Any higher (from the baseline at least) and you are going to have exposures all over the place (which I can relate as my last nights did..) Going anywhere from f4.5 at the baseline and close action to f3.2 at the top of the key and constantly trying to change it while shooting is just a waste of time unless you consistently focus on shots in one area!
I would had maybe taken a superclamp (looking at your photos) and mounted my flashes to the top of the hand rail (as high as I could go) on the bleachers. Then, on top of that, I would had put my little extension bar from a background light $28 for the kit which will raise the light an additional 2ft or so and then aim it straight forward.
You may in a small gym like that have to rid yourself of the typical thinking of 50mm being the sweet spot for sports on the flash zoom. You may have to widen out a bit. Quite honestly.. It's something I have just started playing with and found in bigger gyms 70mm works better than 50 giving me more light on the players with no difference in the light quality (adding about 1/3 to 2/3 of a stop of light at the subject) So for smaller gyms you may have to widen your spread and either raise the power to 1/4 or open up to 2.8.
Every situation is different. That's the best advice I can give you there.
Good luck! and hope that helps????
Suggestions welcomed on this ... will be back Friday and maybe Saturday, for provincial tournaments. Winner is in the championship final in a week and change ... so I wanna nail the pics, of course. This is the wide end, the other end of the gym offers less space. There's no bleachers extending beyond the baseline in either direction ...
I had one flash on a stand on the far side, and clamped the second one to the ball rack on the near side.
Forum for Canadian shooters: www.canphoto.net
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
HIGHER. Do you have any 13ft light stands? See if they have a ladder and maybe a place to mount to the bottom of the scoreboard? Top of the door frame? Those lights are really low.. and that can cause a whole slew of other issues...
Excited States. We're a border down, as in, my office is on a river and I could throw a rock across the river to the U.S. Well, on low tide, anyhow. (I have weak arms.)
No 13' stands. What you got is what you got. Suggestions noted, however.
Forum for Canadian shooters: www.canphoto.net
Good call. The folks there know me well, trust me, too (poor buggers.)
Forum for Canadian shooters: www.canphoto.net
(Following was a quick slam-bam post-process on a laptop, on a ferry, to post to facebook ... saving the best for print ...)
Forum for Canadian shooters: www.canphoto.net