1st attempt at shooting indoor sports - suggestions, critique.

MichaelKirk

I made my 1st attempt at shooting indoors this past weekend - and as I thought (and was told) the lighting was dismal for photography, but I was there so I wanted to try and learn.

I shot on a mono, manual 250 f2.8 and used auto ISO which ended up being 1600 for 99%. Everything was underexposed by around 1/2 - 1 stop. Nikon D200 (which is relatively new for me), 70-200 2.8vr lens (1st sports useage) Did my best at PP, but.....

Take a look and let me know your thoughts - suggestion to correct, ideas for improvement.. I was thinking about contacting the venue and seeing if they will allow the use of flash - these are pretty low key game - or should I just stay away from trying to use flash for indoor sports so as not to bother the players???

I have also attached a link to two original photos if anyone want to try and PP using there methods and see how much better you can process these - would appreciate what you did as well (I am using PSP XI software)
Originals - photo #1 & #3 http://www.mlkimages.com/gallery/1995639



#1
http://www.mlkimages.com/photos/116401184-M.jpg

#2
http://www.mlkimages.com/photos/116400587-M.jpg

#3
http://www.mlkimages.com/photos/116401279-M.jpg

#4
http://www.mlkimages.com/photos/116401192-M.jpg

#5
http://www.mlkimages.com/photos/116401232-M.jpg



Here is the entire gallery:
http://www.mlkimages.smugmug.com/gallery/2223064

Thanks for your C&C
Michael

chuckice

Hi Mike...the pix don't show up for me so I browsed to your gallery. They look pretty good for a first attempt!

A few comments:
1) Are you shooting RAW? I recommend RAW if not since they all seem to need some white balance/temperature tweaking.
2) I recommend against auto-iso but that one is totally personally pref. For low light I'd start with picking the shutter speed you need to freeze action, drop it to F2.8 and select an iso that properly exposes off those two. The few times I tried auto-iso for grins indoors it always went too high...maybe I just don't use it enough but I wouldn't rely on it. If you shoot RAW and get your iso/ss/fstop close then adding/removing some exposure is trivial.
3) Using a flash is really your call but I never do...I just don't like the look of flashed light for indoor sports. The few times I have used it I've never had anyone complain to me.

RandySmugMug

chuckice wrote:

Hi Mike...the pix don't show up for me so I browsed to your gallery. They look pretty good for a first attempt!

A few comments:
1) Are you shooting RAW? I recommend RAW if not since they all seem to need some white balance/temperature tweaking.
2) I recommend against auto-iso but that one is totally personally pref. For low light I'd start with picking the shutter speed you need to freeze action, drop it to F2.8 and select an iso that properly exposes off those two. The few times I tried auto-iso for grins indoors it always went too high...maybe I just don't use it enough but I wouldn't rely on it. If you shoot RAW and get your iso/ss/fstop close then adding/removing some exposure is trivial.
3) Using a flash is really your call but I never do...I just don't like the look of flashed light for indoor sports. The few times I have used it I've never had anyone complain to me.

when I shoot Nikon and the iso will be somewhere > 200 I always shoot auto iso on and it seems to always come in lower than what I woulda set it at and on some cams it gets set to values that u can't set yourself (that may be the bigest reason to use it on the d50)

MichaelKirk

Picturesw "were" there at one point??
They "Were" there - this is my 1st time posting pictures here on SM so I was struggling a bit. Apparently I do not know how to post multiple photos.

Correct, right now I am shooting Jpeg, have not tried RAW yet, not sure my computer RAM can handle RAW files nor do I know right now how to import RAW file and PP from there.

I ran a batch script on the entire gallery and tweaked the WB on the ones that seemed really out of wack - but I agree, the WB still need fine tuning.

As far as shuter speed, fstop and ISO, I was pretty much forced to use my settings. I started at F2.8 (losest) and ISO 1600 to see what was the highest shutter speed I could use and it was under 200. I know that would not work so hence my reason for M 200 f2.8 and Auto ISO. I guess maybe a better way would have been AV set to 2.8 and ISO manula at 1600 and let the shutter speed adjust - I just felt that it would have dropped under 200 and all pictures would have been severly blurred.

Thanks for the insight!
Michael

chuckice wrote:

Hi Mike...the pix don't show up for me so I browsed to your gallery. They look pretty good for a first attempt!

A few comments:
1) Are you shooting RAW? I recommend RAW if not since they all seem to need some white balance/temperature tweaking.
2) I recommend against auto-iso but that one is totally personally pref. For low light I'd start with picking the shutter speed you need to freeze action, drop it to F2.8 and select an iso that properly exposes off those two. The few times I tried auto-iso for grins indoors it always went too high...maybe I just don't use it enough but I wouldn't rely on it. If you shoot RAW and get your iso/ss/fstop close then adding/removing some exposure is trivial.
3) Using a flash is really your call but I never do...I just don't like the look of flashed light for indoor sports. The few times I have used it I've never had anyone complain to me.