This week's JC B-ball

Steve Cavigliano

Hello all,
This week's game was an away game. This gym is actually closer to my house than the home gym...lol Anyway, the lighting was about the same intensity, but a bit less yellow. I am pretty satisfied with the results I got. I think the combination of color temp and trying to isolate/get tighter shots has helped.

Thanks for all the feedback you have given me and feel free to let me know what you think of these






Thanks for looking,
Steve

gregneil

Great shots! I really like the facial expressions in all of them. The middle one seems like it needs a little clockwise rotation. I think the first shot is my favorite - it looks great with the player so isolated.

Steve Cavigliano

Thanks Greg :-)
Yeah, after I posted this I noticed it that the BG was pretty tilted on the 2nd shot. Already fixed...lol I also liked the sharpness and color of that all-alone shot. What's really cool is that for the past few B-ball shoots, I've been able to lightly post process jpgs, instead of having to go through the RAW conversion process. Thanks heavens for Custom White Balance

Thank you very much for responding Greg I figured, for sure, this post was going to rollover to page 2 unresponded to :cry Not that it would have been a tragedy. But, personally, I hate to see any post move to page 2 without at least 1 response.


Thanks again,
Steve

Eric&Susan

I like them all. That first one is priceless. the look on his face is great.


Eric

ehughes

Steve all the shots are pretty cool, but I really like the first one..

What camera / Lens?

Ed

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Hello all,
This week's game was an away game. This gym is actually closer to my house than the home gym...lol Anyway, the lighting was about the same intensity, but a bit less yellow. I am pretty satisfied with the results I got. I think the combination of color temp and trying to isolate/get tighter shots has helped.

Thanks for all the feedback you have given me and feel free to let me know what you think of these

Thanks for looking,
Steve

pathfinder

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Hello all,
This week's game was an away game. This gym is actually closer to my house than the home gym...lol Anyway, the lighting was about the same intensity, but a bit less yellow. I am pretty satisfied with the results I got. I think the combination of color temp and trying to isolate/get tighter shots has helped.

Thanks for all the feedback you have given me and feel free to let me know what you think of these






Thanks for looking,
Steve

Steve these are great shots, timely captures, sharp, close up enuugh; but on my monitor they do not seem to have the even color balance of your out of door shots. I know that shooting under some gym lights is very tough to balance. So what I did is read the pixel RGB data from several areas of white in your images and here is what I got.

Image #1 white waist band 218,211,208 sl yellow

Image#2 white side of jersey 163,164,132 light yellow

Image #3 beneath the "A" 252,253,244 sl yellow

above #23 194,190,181 yellow tint

I interpret this data to support my visual evaluation of the tonality on my monitor - these images have a slight yellow cast. Does anyone else see this? The higher values for R and G over B, definitely suggest that the images are slightly yellow.

Some Sodium gym lights throw out a very yellow light that is hard to compensate for with the yellow reflection from the gym floor aggravating the color balance. Did you try to do a custom white balance while you were there? Or were these shot in RAW. Or are they jpegs shot with AWB?

Do you see this yellow cast on your monitor or are my old eyes just giving out?

Steve Cavigliano

Eric&Susan wrote:

I like them all. That first one is priceless. the look on his face is great.


Eric

Eric,
That one is my favorite too Thank you for your nice comments.


Steve

Steve Cavigliano

ehughes wrote:

Steve all the shots are pretty cool, but I really like the first one..

What camera / Lens?

Ed

Thanks Ed 20D and the 85mm F1.8. Most were shot at F2.2 and 1/500 and ISO1600 This was a little better lighting than I'm used too, but as Pathfinder points out, still too yellow


Thanks for looking,
Steve

pathfinder

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Thanks Ed 20D and the 85mm F1.8. Most were shot at F2.2 and 1/500 and ISO1600 This was a little better lighting than I'm used too, but as Pathfinder points out, still too yellow


Thanks for looking,
Steve

I hope my comments were not taken as criticism. My brother shoots a lot of BB and I am aware of the sodium light - yellow gym floor conundrum.

And monitors do not always display the subtleties the same - that is why I read the pixel data - it is like a good dog - it doesn't/cannot lie.

Steve Cavigliano

pathfinder wrote:

Steve these are great shots, timely captures, sharp, close up enuugh; but on my monitor they do not seem to have the even color balance of your out of door shots. I know that shooting under some gym lights is very tough to balance. So what I did is read the pixel RGB data from several areas of white in your images and here is what I got.

Image #1 white waist band 218,211,208 sl yellow

Image#2 white side of jersey 163,164,132 light yellow

Image #3 beneath the "A" 252,253,244 sl yellow

above #23 194,190,181 yellow tint

I interpret this data to support my visual evaluation of the tonality on my monitor - these images have a slight yellow cast. Does anyone else see this? The higher values for R and G over B, definitely suggest that the images are slightly yellow.

Some Sodium gym lights throw out a very yellow light that is hard to compensate for with the yellow reflection from the gym floor aggravating the color balance. Did you try to do a custom white balance while you were there? Or were these shot in RAW. Or are they jpegs shot with AWB?

Do you see this yellow cast on your monitor or are my old eyes just giving out?

Pathfinder, I believe you are correct. They look a bit too yellow to me too The Custom wb set the wb to 2000K and -4 tint. I also tried moving the color balance towards blue for all tones. Guess I needed to move it further. As you may have noticed, I am really bad at post processing. Especially, if it involves color

I appreciate you pointing this out It will help me with my next batch. BTW, if you know of a post processing "color for dummies" site, please post the link

Thank you also, for your very nice comments.

Steve

fish

Good shots but too yellow. That's easy to fix in PS, if you have the raws.


i noodled around with one, and while it's too purple, at least the other tones are a little more natural.

Are those sodium vapor lamps? You should take some white paper with you next time, establish a custom white balance and go from there. Just a suggestion.


Edit: that kid's wearing some pretty silly looking shoes.

pathfinder

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Pathfinder, I believe you are correct. They look a bit too yellow to me too The Custom wb set the wb to 2000K and -4 tint. I also tried moving the color balance towards blue for all tones. Guess I needed to move it further. As you may have noticed, I am really bad at post processing. Especially, if it involves color

Not True at all and I certainly was NOT suggesting that. I was interested to see if others could SEE the tint I knew had to be there by virtue of the color numbers. Dan Margulis ( thank's Rutt for his book) emphasizes looking at the numbers to evaluate color, not at the screen. That was my point. I thought you did a pretty good job with a difficult task.

I appreciate you pointing this out It will help me with my next batch. BTW, if you know of a post processing "color for dummies" site, please post the link

Thank you also, for your very nice comments.

Steve

Are you shooting jpgs for speed? Or are you capturing in RAW. Color balancinng is one of the real advantages of RAW, but for BB you may prefer the speed of jpgs. The easiest way to shoot jpgs is to take a piece of white paper or a white uniform jersey and use it to create a custom white balance in the camera using the light in the gymnasium you are shooting in.

The real problem is the gym floor - the amount of yellow is influenced by how much reflected light there is from the floor and that may vary from shot to shot. Sodium lights compound the problem because the spectrum can be discontinuous rather than a smooth spectrum. That is why just shifting to the blue from the yellow may not work completely. Like I said, I hav seen my brother and the difficulty with yellow lights and yellow floors and shifting reflections. In the pros they use banks of strobes to avoid these problems.

That is also why Adobe Raw Converter works better for color balancing. Just use the eye dropper tool in the Adobe Raw Converter and click on a known neutral color - like the white jersey - and you should be almost home. Sometimes I average the color temp the ARC eyedropper picks with the color temperature my camera shot if it looks better. That what the slider is there for I think.

You can also look at the RGB pixel data to check for tinting just as I did. White should read 245,245,245 or so maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower - but R, G, and B should be close to equal for a neutral white. I'm sure you know all this, Steve, but there may be readers who find it helpful.

Steve Cavigliano

fish wrote:

Good shots but too yellow. That's easy to fix in PS, if you have the raws.


i noodled around with one, and while it's too purple, at least the other tones are a little more natural.

Are those sodium vapor lamps? You should take some white paper with you next time, establish a custom white balance and go from there. Just a suggestion.


Edit: that kid's wearing some pretty silly looking shoes.

Hey Fish!! No makin' fun of my kid's shoes J/K, I tell him they look dorky every game. I gotta build up his confidence, right? What's a Father for anyway? :lol

Yeah, I can fix, but my main problem is I don't know what target I'm shooting for. IOW, should white with detail be 255? I think I even did a white dropper levels on these guys, and they're still off

The sad part is that I did do a Custom WB, using an 18% gray card. The wb was set to 2000K. That's the lowest it will go with the 20D The tint wasn't too bad (-4). When I moved towards + tint the image got too magenta.

And yes, sodium vapor lights. How'd ya guess? :roll

Any and all color tips accepted gladly


Thanks for your comments and help,
Steve

pathfinder

fish wrote:

Good shots but too yellow. That's easy to fix in PS, if you have the raws.


i noodled around with one, and while it's too purple, at least the other tones are a little more natural.

Are those sodium vapor lamps? You should take some white paper with you next time, establish a custom white balance and go from there. Just a suggestion.


Edit: that kid's wearing some pretty silly looking shoes.

Fish - for your image - When I read the pixel data in his white waistband I get 201,211,230. Too blue. The white of his shoes read 212,224,240. Like I said, the numbers do not/cannot lie. Too blue.

The difficulty can lie with the yellow discontinuous spectrum and the yellow floor. It can be challenging.

pathfinder

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Hey Fish!! No makin' fun of my kid's shoes J/K, I tell him they look dorky every game. I gotta build up his confidence, right? What's a Father for anyway? :lol

Yeah, I can fix, but my main problem is I don't know what target I'm shooting for. IOW, should white with detail be 255? I think I even did a white dropper levels on these guys, and they're still off

The sad part is that I did do a Custom WB, using an 18% gray card. The wb was set to 2000K. That's the lowest it will go with the 20D The tint wasn't too bad (-4). When I moved towards + tint the image got too magenta.

And yes, sodium vapor lights. How'd ya guess? :roll

Any and all color tips accepted gladly


Thanks for your comments and help,
Steve

I think the difficulty you are describing with cuustom WB explains the advantages of RAW very nicely. As I said, the color of the light vares from Shot to Shot because of the variability of the reflections from the yellow floor. Raw gives you better ability to handle this shot to shot variablity at the cost of slower righting to CF and storage space.

Steve Cavigliano

OK, how's this?
I took the RAW image @2000K and increased the tint to 0. Even though it made the whites too magenta.


Exhibit A ...lol


Selective color: white lowered the magenta to -50, color balanced highlights +4 Green.

Exhibit B


Makin' progress, or spinnin' my wheels?


Thanks for taking the time

Steve

pathfinder

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

I took the RAW image @2000K and increased the tint to 0. Even though it made the whites too magenta.


Exhibit A ...lol


Selective color: white lowered the magenta to -50, color balanced highlights +4 Green.

Exhibit B


Makin' progress, or spinnin' my wheels?


Thanks for taking the time

Steve

Sorry Steve, - I think I've opened a can of worms. I liked your first images better - they were yellow tinted but the whites were brighter and not too bad. Now your whites are greysish and dingy. Just to the left of the number 50 I read 177,162,131. Whites should read much higher/brighter 240,240,240 more or less. It may not be possible given the lighting like I said

Steve Cavigliano

pathfinder wrote:

Sorry Steve, - I think I've opened a can of worms. I liked your first images better - they were yellow tinted but the whites were brighter and not too bad. Now your whites are greysish and dingy. Just to the left of the number 50 I read 177,162,131. Whites should read much higher/brighter 240,240,240 more or less. It may not be possible given the lighting like I said

That's why I hate to play around too much with them. I wind up making them even worse...lol Thanks for the 240, 240, 240 tip That's the kind of input I was looking for

Steve

fish

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Hey Fish!! No makin' fun of my kid's shoes J/K, I tell him they look dorky every game. I gotta build up his confidence, right? What's a Father for anyway? :lol

oops...didn't realize it was your kid. How about getting him a nice pair of serviceable bball shoes like we used to wear when we were kids? Chuck Taylor All Stars!

And yes, sodium vapor lights. How'd ya guess? :roll

tough situation. another answer is to use a flash which could help with WB.

fish

pathfinder wrote:

The difficulty can lie with the yellow discontinuous spectrum and the yellow floor. It can be challenging.

Oh...right. That's exactly what I was thinking too. The discontinuous spectrum.

Steve Cavigliano

Fish

fish wrote:

oops...didn't realize it was your kid. How about getting him a nice pair of serviceable bball shoes like we used to wear when we were kids? Chuck Taylor All Stars!





tough situation. another answer is to use a flash which could help with WB.

And weren't we just "IT" with our Chuck Taylor hightops?..... With all that ankle support, we never used to twist/sprain ankles. We'd just blow out our knees.... Kids today, they got no taste

Nowadays the entire team has to wear the same model/color shoes (at like $150/pair :yikes ) Yeah, it's a team sport, but I really don't think wearing the same shoes makes for a better basketball team

Thanks for the nostalgic pic,
Steve

Steve Cavigliano

fish wrote:

Oh...right. That's exactly what I was thinking too. The discontinuous spectrum.

Am I gonna need a Phd in Physics to be able to figure out the correct white balance? :roll


And no flash allowed. Well, I guess I could talk the coach into letting me use one, but where's the challenge in that?


Steve

fish

Steve Cavigliano wrote:

Am I gonna need a Phd in Physics to be able to figure out the correct white balance? :roll

Hey, it's your spectrum...you can let it become discontinuous if you want to.